Chasing History: Confederate Dead of Arizona - Western-Most Casualties of the Civil War

Hey everybody, my name is Chase Pipes and you're watching Chasing History, brought to you by American Digger Magazine and we are the educational arm of the Smokey Mountain Relic Room and we are way out here to tell you guys about that awesome pile of rocks with our good buddy Andreas Koerner. Andreas, thank you so much for having us out. We are at the site of the old Butterfield Stagecoach stop, but also at the site of the westernmost casualties of the Confederacy during the American Civil War. What do we got going on back here? Where are we located generally? We are sort of on the northern end of the Dragoon Mountains east of Tucson and not too far from the interstate actually, but it's a little bit tough to get out here. This was the old Butterfield Stage stop and it's the one of the only ones to actually build out of stone. They used a lot of adobe and wood and way back there is Dragoon Springs, that's why they built the stage stop here. It was built in 1857, the stage line went out of business in 1861 or so, so it wasn't here very long and while they were building it some of the workers actually murdered the employees of the Butterfield Stage line and took the money and ran. Wow! There's some graves over here that hold those two remains, but then since the spring was important, everybody would camp out here. They had to go from waterhole to waterhole and in 1862 the Confederates actually owned this territory. It was briefly called Confederate Territory of Arizona and Captain Sherrod Hunter and the Company A of Arizona Rangers came through here and camped right at this spot by the old, then already defunct station and they got ambushed by over 100 warriors under Cochise and some other war chiefs and four Confederates got killed and their graves are actually over there and they're the westernmost casualties of the Confederacy during the Civil War and the only Confederates that got killed in what's today Arizona. That is nuts to think! So here's what you've got going on guys, so Arizona had this idea, or not Arizona, but the Confederacy had this idea that they would control the western United States and access to the Pacific ports in California. So they came in, there's hardly any Union presence in this whole area. I mean, you've got Tucson, what, 30 miles that way. What's your next thing, closest thing east? Fort Bowie? Well, yeah, there's Fort Bowie, but past that is really not much until you get to Texas. Yeah, the Confederacy thought it would be really easy to control Arizona because, you know, all the Union soldiers were called back east, so it was just a matter of walking in and taking over and that's essentially what they did. Well, Union forces figured out that the Confederacy were trying to take over the southwest and send an army out of California to basically chase them out, which they did successfully, but when they got to here, you know, this is where, you know, they did a great job of really annoying the locals and the Apaches came and the Apaches came and over a hundred Apaches under the leadership of Cochise wiped out, tried to wipe out this Confederate company and three guys got killed during it. Four actually. So, you know, it was a battle between the Native Americans and the Confederate soldiers, you know, during this part of the American Civil War out in Arizona, which you don't think nothing about, but what's cool is the remains of the stagecoach stop that's still here. I mean, it is really cool, so come on, let's check it out. This is nuts, dude. These are the original stone from the original fort? 1857. Okay, so was this all like a built-up fort or would it have a roof or how are these buildings laid out? The assumption is that this area here was for the horses. Okay. And it was probably just a wall that was a little bit taller than this just to keep the horses in and protect it somewhat from raiding parties. So there was a serious need to keep horses inside an enclosure to prevent the Native Americans from stealing their horses. Right, their main, number one, it was a brave thing to do to steal the horses and then they needed them too, you know. Right. And then these two little corners here. So these rooms right here. These two little rooms were the actual only ones that were actually, you know, closed up, covered up with a roof and one was just a sleeping area for the two guys living here and one was supposedly a storage kind of area. Okay. And you had this little open yard and a flagpole in the middle. That is amazing, man, that you can still come to a place like this, see the stone walls built. And I mean, just look, look at how small this space is. I mean, this is just insane. I mean, this is where you're, you're sleeping, you're eating, you're cooking, you're hanging out, everything. You've got a little storage area and you've got this entire expanse of the western United States around you. And this little area is all that is protecting you against the elements and the Native Americans that are there. So it's, it's incredible to come to a place and know that, you know, there were, you know, Civil War soldiers present here, you know, during that time. It's just incredible. So you said there were some graves also? Yeah, the graves right over here, when the four people were killed, it's called the First Battle of Dragoon Springs. And they just hastily buried them under piles of rocks, pretty much. One is Sergeant Sam Ford, that we know of, there's a marker there. And one is a cattle drover by the name of Ricardo. And the other two, we don't know who they are. But yep, they're right over there. And a few days later, by the way, Captain Hunter decided not to let this go. And he sent his troops into the mountains to find the Apache with the cattle and they got the cattle back. And they killed five Apache in sort of like retaliation. But for the Apache, it wasn't Confederate or Union, they just wanted the intruders out, you know, understandably. Yeah. Let's go check out those graves. So these are the grave markers of the Confederate soldiers that were killed here. So tell us about, so who do we have buried here? Because we've got markers on some of them, right? This we don't know whose grave it is. Okay. This here is Sergeant Sam Ford. Sergeant Sam Ford. And there's actually a marker right here that says S. Ford, May 1862. And then this was a cattle drover, Ricardo. There's a cross on a rock and it says Ricardo underneath it. And again, this one we don't know. Allegedly, there's a Confederate captain buried here too. But a lot of the records have been lost. Okay. So this is it, guys. You are looking at the site of the westernmost Confederate casualties of the American Civil War. That is incredible. And you know, the thing about the American Civil War is, is that it's not just, you know, about what happened in Virginia. It's not just about what happened in, you know, Gettysburg or Tennessee or Shiloh or back East. There was a lot of things that happened, you know, in the Civil War throughout the entirety of the United States. And you really need to get out and to explore that history. And the Civil War of the far West of New Mexico and Arizona and California is a fascinating thing to get out and to discover. We're giving you just one cool little spot to start out on and to start your journey into the Civil War of the West. This is a great place. Look it up on Google, Battle of Dragoon Springs and the Second Battle of Dragoon Springs. That'll give you more information. And that'll open up to the Battle of Picacho Peak. You've got Glorietta Pass. You've got all these really cool battles in the Civil War to check out that happened out West. So Andreas, thank you so, so much for taking us out here and showing us this. Thank you guys for watching. We appreciate you guys watching us. If you have, if you want to check out the other things that we do, we've got a podcast called Chasing History Radio. And you should check out our other episodes on Chasing History as well. Be sure to like and subscribe to this episode. If you do that sort of thing, please leave a comment. Let us know if you enjoy this episode and your thoughts and what other episodes you would like for us to do. History rocks! So Andreas, are you on Twitter? No, sir. Are you on Twitter? No. I don't like Twitter. I think he's on Twitter. We're not on Twitter. History rocks! Woohoo! Woohoo! There you go!