New Mexico Territory in the American Civil War

The Arizona Territory was disputed during the American Civil War, with both the slave-holding Confederate States of America and the United States Federal government claiming ownership and territorial rights. Military expeditions were sent to control the region, and, despite its remote location, Arizona garnered considerable attention with both governments. The Union received at least 369 troops from the territory.

Prelude to war

After the expansion of the New Mexico Territory in 1853 by the Gadsden Purchase, proposals for a division of the territory and the organization of a separate Territory of Arizona in the southern half of the territory were advanced as early as 1856. The first proposals for the Arizona Territory were not based on the current north-south division, but rather a division along an east-west line.

The proposals arose from concerns about the effectiveness of the territorial government in Santa Fe to administer the newly acquired southern portions of the territory.

The first proposal dates from a conference held in Tucson that convened on August 29, 1856. The conference issued a petition to the U.S. Congress, signed by 256 people, requesting organization of the territory and elected Nathan P. Cooke as the territorial delegate to Congress. In January 1857, the bill for the organization of the territory was introduced into the United States House of Representatives, but the proposal was defeated on the grounds that the population of the proposed territory was yet too small. Later a similar proposal was defeated in the Senate. The proposal for creation of the territory was controversial in part because of the perception that the New Mexico Territory was under the influence of southern sympathizers who were highly desirous of expanding slavery into the southwest.

In February 1858, the New Mexico territorial legislative adopted a resolution in favor of the creation of the Arizona territory, but with a north-south border along the 109th meridian, with the additional stipulation that all the Indians of New Mexico would be removed to northern Arizona.

In April 1860, impatient for Congress to act, a convention of thirty-one delegates met in Tucson and adopted a constitution for a provisional territorial government of the area south of 34 degrees north. The delegates elected Lewis Owings as provisional governor.

However, due to the small quantity of people in the proposed territory, the U.S. Congress continued to refuse to recognize any proceedings from any of the conventions being held in this area. Additionally, making matters worse, on March 2 of 1861 the U.S. Government formally revoked a contract with the Butterfield Overland Stagecoach Company which was being used to support delivery of United States mail on the overland route which ran from San Antonio, Texas through El Paso, Texas, Mesilla, Tucson and on to California. The loss of this key communications link with the rest of the United States angered the settlers in the Arizona region, just as the deep South states were all seceding from the Union.

Civil War

Politics

At the outbreak of the Civil War, sentiment in the territory was in favor of the Confederacy. A territorial secession convention was held at Mesilla on March 16, 1861 that adopted an ordinance of secession, and called on the citizens in western Arizona to "join us in this movement". Subsequently a second convention was held in Tucson on March 28, 1861, chaired by Mark Aldrich, who had been Tucson's first mayor. The Tucson convention ratified the Mesilla convention, and provisional officers were elected for the newly established Provisional Confederate Territory of Arizona with Dr. Lewis Owings as its governor, and Granville H. Oury as its first delegate to the Confederate States Congress, who immediately began petitioning for admission.

Early in war, the Confederacy regarded the territory as a valuable route for possible access to the Pacific Ocean, with the specific intention of capturing California. In July 1861, a small Confederate force of Texans under the command of Lieutenant Colonel John R. Baylor assaulted Fort Fillmore at Mesilla in the eastern part of the territory. After the fort was abandoned by the Union garrison, Baylor's force cut off the fleeing Union troops and forced them to surrender. On August 1, Baylor issued a "The Proclamation to the People of the Territory of Arizona", taking possession of the territory for the Confederacy, with Mesilla as the capital and himself as the governor.

"The social and political condition of Arizona being little short of general anarchy, and the people being literally destitute of law, order, and protection, the said Territory, from the date hereof, is hereby declared temporarily organized as a military government until such time as Congress may otherwise provide. I, John R. Baylor, lieutenant-colonel, commanding the Confederate Army in the Territory of Arizona, hereby take possession of said Territory in the name and behalf of the Confederate States of America. For all purposes herein specified, and until otherwise decreed or provided, the Territory of Arizona shall comprise all that portion of New Mexico lying south of the thirty-fourth parallel of north latitude."

— LtCol. John R. Baylor, CSA

Baylor's subsequent dismantling of the existing Union forts in the territory left the white settlers at the mercy of the Apache, who quickly gained control of the area and forced many of the white settlers to seek refuge in Tucson. However, the people of Arizona remained firm in their support of LtCol. Baylor, and held another convention on August 28, 1861 in Tucson, ratifying Baylor's proclamation. Once gain, Granville Oury was re-elected as a congressman to the Confederate States Congress. Governor Baylor approved the proceedings, and Delegate Granville H. Oury was sent off to Richmond, Virginia on October 1, 1861.

Delegate Oury was not initially seated in the congress, but met with C.S. leaders as well as President Jefferson Davis. Texas Congressman John Reagan introduced a bill on November 22, 1861 to formally create the Territroy of Arizona. After two months of debate, the legislation passed on January 13, 1862, and the territory was officially created by proclamation of President Jefferson Davis on February 14, with this proclamation:

"I, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America, do issue this, my proclamation, declaring said "Act to organize the Territory of Arizona" to be in full force and operation, and that I have proceeded to appoint the officers therein provided to be appointed in and for said Territory."

— President Jefferson Davis

Exactly fifty years later, on the same date, Arizona was made a state in 1912.

The following month, in March 1862, the U.S. House of Representatives, now devoid of the southern delegates and controlled by Republicans, passed a bill to create the United States Arizona Territory using the north-south border of the 107th meridian. The use of a north-south border rather than an east-west one had the effect of denying a de facto ratification of the Confederate Arizona Territory. The house bill stipulated that Tucson was to be capital. It also stipulated that slavery was to be abolished in the new territory. The Arizona Organic Act passed the Senate in February 1863 without the Tucson-as-capital stipulation, and was signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on February 24, the date of the official organization of the US Arizona Territory. The first capital was at Fort Whipple, followed by Prescott, in the northern Union-controlled area.

Military actions

When Federal troops left Arizona early in 1861 to repel the Confederate invasion of New Mexico, the territory was left open to Apache attack. Cochise led a series of raids on white civilians that left dozens dead and spread fear and terror across the territory. Both the Confederates and the Federal government attempted to control the Apaches.

Confederates under Capt. Sherod Hunter, who occupied southern Arizona during the spring of 1862, bore orders to lure the Apaches into Tucson for peace talks and exterminate the adults. Hunter's frontiersmen spent most of their time expelling Union supporters and skirmishing with Federal troops, so the order was never enforced. A detachment of Col. James H. Carleton's California Column, which drove the Confederates out of Tucson, fought the Battle of Apache Pass after being ambushed by Cochise and Mangas Coloradas. Even though the column withstood the Apaches and established Fort Bowie to secure the pass, other Indians continued the resistance.

In April 1862, a small party of Confederates moving northwest from Tucson met a Union cavalry patrol near Picacho Peak. The skirmish that followed (the Battle of Picacho Pass) was the westernmost engagement of the Civil War. The goal of expanding Confederate influence into southern California and to the Pacific Ocean was never realized. Around the same time as the skirmish at Picacho, a far larger force of Confederates was thwarted in its attempt to advance beyond Santa Fe, New Mexico, in the Battle of Glorieta Pass, and by July the Confederates had retreated to Texas.

References

• Sheridan, Thomas E. (1995). Arizona: A History. Tucson, AZ: The University of Arizona Press. ISBN 0-8165-1515-8
• Cheek, Lawrence W. (1995). Arizona. Oakland, CA: Compass American Guides. ISBN 1-878867-72-5
• Masich, Andrew E. (2006). The Civil War in Arizona; the Story of the California Volunteers, 1861-65. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.