howdy folks I'm hank sheffer and welcome to another true life story right here with Larry
Hedrick on mysteries of the Superstition Mountains during the war between the states there were
something like 6 000 engagements fought by a mere handful of men, to tens of thousands of soldiers
none of those battles has been any more controversial than the battle
of Picacho Pass the westernmost battle of the civil war out here in Arizona
the who what when where and why was all up for grabs everything you're going to see
in this presentation is actual fact it's not a Hollywood based on something else
everything is exactly the way the battle reports from both commanders in this book
tell a story you can look below here and see where you can obtain this book if you'd like to have it
our story starts just slightly before the Civil War with a newly promoted Major by the name of
Henry Hopkins Sibley who was now in charge of Fort Union he was the commander of Fort
Union which was the last outpost before you entered Colorado through raton pass
Sibley was in a perfect position to know the disposition of all the troops in Arizona and
new Mexico a lot of the troops had been pulled back east when the war broke out and he was well
aware of that so he resigned his commission and went straight to Richmond to talk to Jefferson
Davis the President of the Confederacy with his plan the three-part plan that Sibley presented
to Jefferson Davis was to extend the land mass of the Confederacy to the pacific ocean
and hoping to influence the European nations to recognize her drive for independence
the second part of the plan was to reach and recruit a lot of southern sympathizers
that were known to be in southern in southern California and the third part of the plan and
most important was to bring the mineral resources and wealth of the west into the confederate
influence Sibley was made a Brigadier General and joined the Confederate Army by Davis and
was sent to Texas to link up with Colonel Baylor who already had an army and to build a larger army
to invade New Mexico in February of 1862 the plan to invade New Mexico was put into action
Colonel Baylor divided Arizona and New Mexico with a line on a 32nd parallel
east to west and called the southern half Arizona and the northern half was New Mexico
Captain Hunter was sent to Tucson to occupy Tucson and take over the mineral operations
that were around Tucson and he left in February with a 54-man force Captain Hunter immediately
set about to make his small force which never was more than a hundred soldiers in Tucson to look as
formidable as possible to this the California authorities believed that there was as many as
uh seven to 800 confederates in Tucson so they raised a 2 300 man volunteer force in California
and started on their way to to Arizona in the meantime uh Captain Hunter learned about Emile
White who had a mill up at the Sacaton Villages and he and was holding supplies for the union so
he went up and arrested Mr White and gave all his stores to the Pima indians at this point in time a
Captain Mcleave came over with a nine-man union force to pick up these supplies
We federal forces, yes, look for Mr Jones we have to order and purchase some foodstuffs grain here
and I'm Captain Hunter of confederates forces I'm calling for your surrender, "takem boys"
and hunter posing as Mr White in civilian clothing captured all of his men without firing a shot.
Mcleave was so disgusted with the tactics of hunter to wearing civilian clothing
that he challenged hunter's men to a fist fight his men against hunters twice a
number and if he won he was to be set free well of course Captain Hunter declined and Emil White
and Captain Mcleave were sent back to Mesilla New Mexico under the command of Jack Swilling
now Jack Swilling was credited sometimes with being the leader of the battle of
Picacho pass but he was not there he was in Mesilla New Mexico when the battle took place
Captain Hunter going back to Tucson left the force of ten men a sergeant and nine privates at Picacho
pass their entire duty was to inform Tucson of any movement by the Union on Tucson uh captain
callaway who was in charge of the union forces up at the Pima Villages ordered Lieutenant Barrett,
James Barrett 12 men and a scout by the name of Jones to circle around Picacho pass and come in
from the Tucson side to cut off the any escape route of the enemy that they knew was there
and they were Barrett was to wait for the reinforcements from
Captain Callaway before he took any action Lieutenant Barrett though was anxious for a fight
particularly since Captain Callaway's men had been captured and he located the base camp
of the confederates where Sergeant Holmes and two privates were situated and he attacked him
and he managed to capture him without any casualties and but the other seven
confederates rode to the sound of the guns and took a dismounted position in a heavy thicket
despite the pleas by Mr Jones for Lieutenant Barrett to dismount Lieutenant Barret attacked
the confederate single file mounted the first fire from the enemy according to the battle reports
emptied four saddles and uh I'd like to state that uh i don't think that that meant that
there were four casualties because you see hunter's forces uh were Indian fighters and
their horses were used to being fired from fire Colonel Carlton who was in command of the 2300
force had told his men that that if it becomes necessary to engage the enemy
use the saber rather than the pistols because it takes all the men to control their California
horses they were all volunteers they had not been in combat and their horses had
not been in combat and i can tell you about rodeos that happen when that goes on anyway
Barrett evidently took Jones's advice because after the initial fire from the enemies
they fell back in disorder and dismounted had four of those men been casually right off the bat
leaving a couple of men to hold the horses and guard the prisoners he wouldn't have had
enough men to effectively follow up on the confederates but while while attacking the
federal confederates on foot Barrett was mortally wounded and two other of his men were killed
and after 90 minutes an hour and a half of desperate fighting leaderless running out of
ammunition the union soldiers took their three confederate captives and retreated off the field
four hours later captain Callaway came with a 272-man force and found that the battle was
over now in his report Captain Callaway opened his report to Carlton by saying sir I have the
honor to inform you and when you lead something like that you would think hey I won that battle
it was the last sentence that told the whole story he says after this unfortunate affair I
retreated to the Pima Villages Callaway had lost all chance of surprise on Tucson
because the confederates are gone and the Captain Hunter sent Lieutenant Tevis back up the next
day to see what happened to his three missing men and he got there in time to see Callaway
with 272 men and 10 wagons retreating back to the camp Pima villages
they still believe the union still believed there was as many as 700 or 800 confederates in Tucson
but it delayed them advancing on Tucson for a while but by that time captain hunter had learned
of the reverses of Sibley in New Mexico Sibley had taken every fort all the way up the Rio Grande he
took Albuquerque he took Santa Fe and on his way to take Fort Union he the Colorado volunteers had
come down and at Glorieta pass they met Sibley was driving the union at the end of the day
apparently going to have another victory but a Calvary officer went around the whole battle
and found the 64 inadequately prepared protected wagons of the confederacy and destroyed them all
now without any supplies Sibley was forced to retreat to new Mexico
so when I when Captain Hunter learned of this he decided it was time to go
his first night out he got the dragoon springs just east of Benson
and he was attacked by Apaches he lost four men 25 horses and 30 mules but he made it back to Mesilla
there were three union soldiers killed the battle of Picacho pass in 1862
Lieutenant Barrett, Privates Johnson and Privates Leonard according to the battle reports
found in this book which is the only place the battle reports on both sides were ever published
they were buried where they fell in 1892 soldiers from Fort Lowell were sent up
gathered the bodies of the of the boys that had died there they were buried on the spot and they
dug up two of them and they were reinterred in the presidio in San Francisco but they didn't find
Lieutenant Barrett in the 1920s an employee of the Southern Pacific Railroad making trips from
Tucson to Phoenix noticed the crosses that were at the site of the the battle and that they had
fallen over and the place was not being taken care of so he got together with some other employees at
Southern Pacific and they fashioned a monument plaque to commemorate these people and in 1928
the Arizona pioneers historical society in the union pacific railroad and about 200 people
including the governor of Arizona at the time all met there to raise this monument
so when they were digging the base for the monument to be set
1928 they come upon a blanket with human remains in it and the historical society took a couple of
buttons and a few pieces of the blanket for display and Lieutenant Barrett lies buried to
this day in the very spot in which he fell this is the original stone monument that was erected
by the Southern Pacific Railroad and the Arizona historical pioneers historical society in 1928
and it was down by the railroad tracks in the past it wasn't up here at the state park
it was there to commemorate the fallen union soldiers the battle of Picacho pass
when the park opened in 1968 the monument was moved to the site you see now many years ago
I was in the Superstition Mountains with Tom Kollinborn and a film crew from channel 10.
on the way out which is about a two-hour ride i was talking to producer of channel 10
and it was telling him about the battle of Picacho Pass and he said that you know I had a calvary in
it I had all the military saddles I had the men and recruited we had all the uniforms and stuff
like that and he said that if his sponsor would go for it we'd do a documentary on on the battle
well about two weeks later he sent me a letter but then that's when I decided that I better not open
a can of worms unless I know what's talking about so I wrote this booklet and I went down to Arizona
State University to talk to a Bert fireman which was a historian down there and he thought that
there was some battle reports in the library and sure enough I dug them up and I printed them
in this book and the Arizona Dairy Association decided to sponsor and they sent Bill Leverton
of Arizona Roads down to do the the uh reenactment and I had everything laid
out. Bill didn't have to do a thing he just filmed what we what we laid out and
it seemed to me Bill wasn't very excited about doing this thing but by the time it was over
he was very happy with it and this thing was shown on channel 10 I don't know how many times and he
gave me a nice three-quarter inch video of the thing that that i can't play because i don't
have a three-quarter inch video player and he broke it into a couple of parts and made a great
introductory and this was the first docu-drama that Bill Leverton ever did and from then on
he done a whole bunch of doctor dramas and so we got Fort Huchuca the regular united states
army from Fort Huachuca their Calvary to come up and we reenacted this whole thing for bill and
we've done it i've done it 14 years in a row at Picacho Peak State Park the first year
we were there I sent out professional media releases to all the Newspapers and TV shows
we had five thousand people show up sitting on the edge of the hill watching our reenactment
and five television stations three from from Phoenix and two from Tucson that came up
there was Arizona highways down a story on it that's in there
several magazines and and what have you it's just been a great success and we run it all
those years without getting a penny the battle of Picacho Pass was strictly a Calvary affair
in later years the infantry got involved and the artillery got
involved and they were doing battles from all over the southwest at Picacho Pass
and today at the monument where the stone pillar is there's a very nice replica of a cannon
but folks no cannons were used in this battle I'd like to close this story by just reading
a poem that I put in this little booklet that i wrote 40 years ago and this little booklet has
both battle reports of the commanders in the field that that complement each other perfectly
and tell the whole story and this little poem tells a little bit of the story too
in the Arizona desert in 1862 rode the Calvary in confederate gray and the boys in union blue
man and horse across the burning sand for supremacy of the west
neither side was to know where would be the test after many long and wary days they finally met at
last to fight a desperate battle known as Picacho Pass onward into battle hooves and hearts together
pound mid-swirling dust and powder smoke men and mounts went down death the pale horse also rode
to do his work so grim he re he rode beside each of those whose eyes were soon to dim
and when the fighting ended each went his separate way the Calvary in the Union blue and the boys
in Confederate gray thank you for watching this episode of Mysteries of the Superstition Mountains