Picacho Pass: The Westernmost Civil War Battle

The volcanic peak rising beside the interstate here is Picacho, and in April of eighteen sixty-two it was the site of the westernmost pitched battle of the Civil War.

In February of that year, a Confederate force of one hundred twenty Rangers under Captain Sherod Hunter had occupied Tucson, aiming to extend the Confederacy to California along the Butterfield Overland Mail road, this very corridor. Union cavalry from California rode east to stop them.

On April fifteenth, Lieutenant James Barrett of the First California Cavalry led a squad ahead of the main force and rode directly into the Confederate camp without waiting for support. The fighting lasted more than an hour. Barrett was killed, and the Union patrol broke off the fight and withdrew. It was a small skirmish, fewer than twenty men on each side, and the Confederates were driven out of Arizona within weeks. The peak has watched every traveler through this pass ever since.