Picacho Pass: The Civil War's Westernmost Battle

The jagged volcanic peak you can see from the interstate was the site of the westernmost battle of the American Civil War. What happened here on April fifteenth, eighteen sixty-two, was small in numbers but enormous in its implications for the western theater of a war most people associate entirely with Virginia and Tennessee.

In February eighteen sixty-two, a force of roughly one hundred twenty Confederate Rangers under Captain Sherod Hunter had occupied Tucson, hoping to extend Confederate control to the Pacific and potentially secure a southern transcontinental route. The Confederate Territory of Arizona had been proclaimed, and Hunter's men were holding Tucson as its largest settlement.

The Union response was the Column from California, roughly two thousand men under Colonel James Carleton, marching east through the desert from Fort Yuma. A small advance patrol of a dozen Union cavalrymen under Lieutenant James Barrett pushed ahead of the main column to scout the route. Near Picacho Pass they found a detachment of Confederate Rangers camped on the flank of the peak.

Barrett did not wait for reinforcements. He ordered an immediate charge. In the ambush that followed, Barrett took a bullet in the neck and died almost instantly. Two of his enlisted men also died. One Confederate Ranger was killed, four were wounded, and three were captured, but the rest escaped to carry word to Tucson.

The Battle of Picacho Pass lasted about ninety minutes, with roughly thirty men engaged on each side. It decided nothing militarily. But the warning it carried back to Tucson accelerated the Confederate withdrawal. Hunter evacuated the town in early May. The Column from California entered unopposed a few days later, ending the Confederate bid for the Southwest.

Picacho Peak State Park, established here in nineteen sixty-five, marks the battlefield. Every March the park hosts a reenactment of the skirmish that has grown to include more participants than the actual battle ever did.