The Civil War's Western Front
Monuments to the Civil War dot the East Coast. But the Arizona desert? Indeed: A plaque at Picacho Peak State Park, about 40 miles north of Tucson, marks the westernmost battle of the Civil War.
On April 15, 1862, Union cavalry scouts came upon a handful of Confederate soldiers at Picacho Pass, a well-traveled stagecoach route. After about an hour of shooting, three Union soldiers were dead, and the Confederate scouts had fled. It was no Gettysburg; only 26 men were involved. "Most people don't know much about it," says park manager Rob Young. "Most things were back east and not out here."
The battle was the end of a desperate gambit by the South. In August 1861, the Confederacy claimed all of the New Mexico Territory. After a grueling march, Tucson was seized by a 75-man Confederate force in February 1862. But with Union troops all along the Rio Grande and 1,400 men on their way from California, the Confederacy's success out west didn't last long. "One of the things Jefferson Davis envisioned was getting control of the California gold fields through Arizona," says historian Leonard Richards. "They had to take over a lot of territory on the way, and they failed." The Tucson detachment retreated in May 1862, fighting off Apache Indians all the way back to Texas. The West remained part of the North for the rest of the war.