California and the American Civil War

By Alton Pryor

California sent more volunteers to fight in the American Civil War than any other state in the Union. California sent about 17,000 men to fight in the Civil War. Volunteers fought in 31 engagements, most in the Shenandoah Valley.
Author Alton Pryor has captured many of the elements involving California and the American Civil War.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alton Pryor
• Release date: Apr 19, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476151274

Alton Pryor

Alton Pryor has been a writer for magazines, newspapers, and wire services. After retiring, he turned to writing books. He is the author of 18 books, which he has published himself.

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California and the American Civil War

By Alton Pryor

Copyright 2011 Alton Pryor

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We'll fight them, sir, 'til hell freezes over, and then, sir, we will fight them on the ice.

A Confederate soldier at Gettysburg, in The Civil War by Shelby Foote

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 The Worst War

Chapter 2 Confederate Territory of Arizona

Chapter 3 Camp Drum

Chapter 4 California Statehood

Chapter 5 The South and California

Chapter 6 Southern Hotheads

Chapter 7 California Volunteers Readily Go to War

Chapter 8 One Million Spent to Rebuild Camp Drum

Chapter 9 A California Hero

Chapter 10 He Was a Natural Leader

Chapter 11 Being ‘Military’ Was Natural

Chapter 12 Little Known Facts About the Civil War

Chapter 13 The Author of Taps

Chapter 14 California’s War Role

Chapter 15 Native ‘Californio’ Cavalry

Chapter 16 Generals and Their Horses

Chapter 17 Medicine and the Civil War

Chapter 18 Civil War Weapons

Chapter 19 California’s Weak Civil War Defenses

Chapter 20 A Hotbed of Secessionists

Chapter 21 California Rejects Slavery

Chapter 22 Alcatraz and the Civil War

Chapter 23Thomas Starr King

Chapter 24 California’s Military Contributions to the War

Meet the Author

President Abe Lincoln

Addresses California

"I have long-desired to see California; the production of her gold mines has been a marvel to me, and her stand for the Union, her generous offerings to the Sanitary (Commission), and her loyal representatives have endeared people to me; and nothing would give me more pleasure than a visit to the Pacific shore, and to say in person to your citizens, ‘God bless you for your devotion to the Union,’ but the unknown is before us. I may say, however, that I have it now in purpose when the railroad is finished, to visit your wonderful state."

California supplied more than 17000 volunteers to the Civil War.

Chapter 1

The Worst War

Americans Fought Americans

The American Civil War is judged as America’s worst war. The reason: Americans were fighting Americans and all were trying to kill each other.

Before the onset of the American Civil War, a great debate raged among the citizens and politicians of the United States. Slavery was the main issue that divided the North and the South.

There was, however, another more complicated issue at hand. As settlers began to fulfill the Manifest Destiny and populating the U.S. from coast to coast, new territories were given statehood.

Before the Civil War, the differences between the North and South were dwarfed by their common interest to establish a new nation. Gradually, however, sectionalism grew.

The South remained almost completely agricultural. Its economy was founded on slavery and a plantation system. The North was more advanced commercially, and was expanding industrially.

The Southerners resented the large profits amassed by northern businessmen from marketing the cotton crop. Southern plantation owners attributed their own backwardness to Northerner’s grab for power.

The Northerners, on the other hand, believed the backward ways of the South were due to the South’s reliance on slavery as a staple of its economy.

Hostilities between the North and the South grew perceptibly after 1820, the year of the Missouri Compromise. The Missouri compromise was enacted to solve the question of whether slavery should be extended to the federal territories.

California’s constitution, adopted in 1850, forbade California being a slave state. California thus became an attractive plum for nations seeking more wealth.

Powerful empires wanted California. The Spanish established a colonial system in the guise of the California Mission System. England and Russia both eyed the territory with lust.

When Abraham Lincoln called for volunteers for the Civil War, California supplied more volunteers per capita to the Union Army than any other state. By the end of the conflict, California volunteers from the West occupied more territory than did the entire Union army in the east.

Chapter 2

California Drum Corps

Members of Fourth California Volunteers Drum Corps

(California State Military Museum)

The southern leg of Highway 79 was a Civil War military road. It linked Los Angeles with Fort Wright in Oak Grove to Fort Yuma in Arizona in the 1860s.

About 17,000 Californians volunteered to fight in the Civil War. Most of them remained in the west, but several companies of California volunteers were sent east where they formed The California One Hundred, later called the California Cavalry BattalionIn 1860, California had 430,000 in population. Of that number, some 50,000 were northern born, 30,000 were southern born, and another 50,000 were foreign born.

Southern California had a majority of discontented Californios and Southern secessionists. They had already voted for a separate Territorial government and formed militia units.

California volunteers fought in 31 engagements, most in the Shenandoah Valley. Others served with distinction in New York and Pennsylvania regiments.

Most of the men in Southern California were Confederate sympathizers. Because of their number they exercised a great deal of influence in the state. California was not a Republican state in 1860. Both the California State Senate and the State assembly were held by Democratic majorities.

Following the Gold Rush California was settled primarily by midwestern and southern farmers, miners and businessmen. Democrats dominated the state from its foundation. Southern Democrats were sympathetic to secession.

Southern sympathizers were a minority in the state but they were a majority in Southern California and in Tulare County. They were also in large numbers in San Joaquin, Santa Clara, Monterey, and San Francisco counties.

Some 15,000 pro-Union Democrats met in San Francisco to rally for a new Pacific union. California was kept from secession by Federal troops drawn from the frontier forts of the District of Oregon and California, (primarily Fort Tejon and Fort Mojave).

California learned by Pony Express message that Fort Sumter in South Carolina had surrendered. Californians volunteered by the thousands to participate in the war. California volunteers were stationed in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Kansas, Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming. There were also units stationed in California itself.

Two large expeditions, one under General Patrick Edward Connor and the other under General James H. Carleton, insured that the Central and the Southern Overland Mail routes stayed open.

California units saw their first action in the Civil War 80 miles up the Gila Trail in Arizona at Grinnell’s Ranch.

The Texas soldiers were under the command of Captain James Thomas Hunter’s Texas Confederates. The Confederates trapped and captured some o the California Column’s scouts at the Pima and Maricopa Indian villages near Phoenix.

In 1862, the area between present-day Phoenix and Tucson was virtually deserted. When U.S. Army troops departed the area the previous year, army officials told nearby civilians, Take what you need, and get out. Not everyone heeded this advice. They had staked their lives and fortunes on the Southwest and decided to remain.

The western-most of the American Civil War was fought on the flanks of Picacho Peak, a rocky volcanic spire 50 miles from what is now Tucson, Arizona.

Into this volatile scene came the newly-formed Confederate Army. They brashly declared the entire New Mexico Territory for the Confederacy. Even the Apache Indians thought they had chased the bluecoats away.

In the Battle of the Picacho Pass, California’s volunteers enjoyed revenge against the Texans who had trapped and captured some of them in Phoenix. They whipped the Texans and retook Tucson.

The Californians engaged in their last battle on their return trip to California. This battle was not against the Confederates, but against Mangas Coloradas and his Warm Spring band of Apache in southern Arizona.

At the same time the California Column was helping to secure the southwest, Colonel Patrick Edward Conner was heading up another mission. He was leading a force of cavalry and infantry from the California volunteers though the Great Basin and over the central Rockies.

Conner’s assignment was to protect lines of communication, including the U.S. Mail and overland emigrants.

He led a combined force of cavalry and infantry over the Sierra Nevada and across the Great Basin to Utah. Conner found no Confederates in Utah but he did find plenty of hostile Indians.

The Mormon settlements