Colonel James H. Carleton, First Regiment of Infantry, California Volunteers
In July of 1861, President Lincoln approved an act which authorized the employment of volunteers to aid in law enforcement and the protection of public property. As a result of this, California raised one Infantry and five Cavalry companies which were placed under the command of then Brevet Major James H. Carleton of the First U. S. Cavalry.
At the beginning of January of the following year, rumors began to reach California that Confederate forces were planning to invade the State by way of the Gadsden Purchase lands, consequently Brigadier General George Wright of the U. S. Army proposed to the War Department that these California Volunteers might be best utilized by being deployed to “Arizona” in an effort to drive out the invading Confederate forces.⁸⁵ The War Department agreed to Wright’s recommendation, and on January 31, 1862, Carleton, now Colonel of the First Regiment of Infantry, California Volunteers, received orders from Wright to organize an expedition for the purposes of recapturing all of the forts in “Arizona and New Mexico”, expelling the Confederates, and “opening the southern mail route.”⁸⁶
The objective of opening the southern Overland Mail route is also referred to in a letter written by Carleton at Ojo de la Vaca on August 2, 1862. In this letter he also states that he is preparing to “proceed by the stage route to Mesilla.”⁸⁷
It should of course be recognized here that Carleton’s objective was to open the mail route, not to protect any mails being transported across it; there were no contractors operating on the southern route at this time.
The importance of re-establishing the southern route becomes apparent in another letter written by Carleton, this one written at Santa Fe and dated October 18, 1862, and addressed to Postmaster General Blair at Washington, D. C. In this communication Carleton first refers to General Wright’s original proposition that the route be reopened by the California volunteer forces, with Carleton stating that the task had been accomplished. He writes that he has established a post at Apache Pass, and that he has “now in successful operation a chain of vedettes from Tucson to Los Angeles”.⁸⁸
He informs Blair that:
On the southern route from Mesilla to Los Angeles the road is good; the stations are nearly all built, and many are yet in tolerable repair; the wells are dug, &c., and I have been informed by the agent of the company in San Francisco, Mr. Louis McLane, that if the southern mail route should again be opened the road could be restocked and the mail set running in sixty days from the time the order to that effect should be given.⁸⁹
The southern route was an absolutely vital line of communication between California and the other loyal states in the east, first and foremost because of its suitability for year-round use. As Carleton reminds Blair, one of the greatest purposes held in mind when the decision was made to send the California Volunteers out to reopen the route was:
To give your department an opportunity to remove the overland mail from its present route, where in the Sierra Nevada and eastwards from the range of mountains to Salt Lake, for months in the year the mail is obstructed by snows … Time has proved and will always prove that the Northern Overland Mail Route in winter is not a sure, safe, practicable route … and (nothing) can prove that the southern mail route is not now entirely practicable.⁹⁰
Contractors had been forced to abandon “tons” of mail along the central/northern route during the winter of 1861, unable to carry it through as the road was blocked by snow at various points.
Second only to these considerations in Carleton’s opinion was the fact that “the Bannock and Shosone [sic] Indians west of Salt Lake, and the Sioux Indians between Salt Lake and Kansas” were more aggressive and posed a much greater threat to mails on the central route than any encountered on the southern route.⁹¹
The Diary of Private Eli Warnock Hazen
One member of Carleton’s command – which would later become known as the California Column – was Private Eli Warnock Hazen of Company E, First Volunteer Infantry. Hazen kept a diary of his journey eastward from California, which began at San Francisco on August 26, 1861. He logged the various camps along the route, and the distances between them, adding commentaries on the conditions found. The only place he mentioned in the vicinity of what would become Ralston is “Litzendorffer Springs” (Leitendorf’s Well), which he reached on July 30, 1862, and which he describes as being about 40 miles east of San Simon. He noted that the water there was a “small spring of water unfit to drink.” He makes no mention of anything that might correlate to either Barney Station or Leach’s Tank.
Thirty five miles east of Leitendorf’s Well he reports that water – undoubtedly rain water – was found “lo[d]ged in recesses in the rocks”; from there it was a further nine miles east to Cow Springs, where he reports there being a “good adobe house roof burnt off water good no wood.” He makes no mention of Soldier’s Farewell.⁹²
1862
July 17th. – Apache Pass – San Cimone: 18 miles
28th. – San Cimone – Cinega del Lawy (?): 15 miles
30th – Cinega del Lawy (?)- Litzendorffer Springs: 25 miles
31st. – Litzendorffer Springs – Water in Rocks: 35 miles
August 1st. – Water in Rocks – Cow Springs: 9 miles
2nd. – Cow Springs – Membris Lion: 18 miles
6th. – Membris Lion – Cooks Springs: 18 miles
7th. Cooks Springs – 1st. Camp Rio Grande: 36 miles
Excerpt from Eli Hazen’s diary showing camps and distances Apache Pass – Cooke’s Spring. All spellings original to diary. Mileages are slightly incorrect due to the method of estimation used.
Colonel Fergusson’s Table of Distances
In March of 1863, David Fergusson, Colonel of the First Cavalry, California Volunteers, produced a table of distances with much more detailed annotations than those made by Hazen. Fergusson’s table was part of an official report. His distances were in all probability measured with the aid of a viameter, and for this reason may be regarded as being the most accurate.⁹³ Fergusson’s report relates to those distances measured between Tucson and Mesilla; in total, he refers to 13 stations, including Barney station which he measured as being at a distance of 22.81 miles from the Stein’s Peak/Doubtful Canyon station, with Soldier’s Farewell station being 15.93 miles east of Barney station.⁹⁴ The station at Stein’s Peak is described as being devoid of water, wood and grass. At Barney station he states that there was:
Rain water in tank, say, fifty feet long and twenty wide, and about eighteen inches deep. March 9. Water dirty, and it is doubtful if it lasts more than a few weeks.
There was no wood to be found, but he reports that there was good grazing available “one mile beyond” the station.
Soldier’s Farewell station was, like the station at Stein’s Peak, devoid of water. Fergusson refers to the tank which served Soldier’s Farewell station as being three-quarters of a mile south of the station itself, and to the fact that water could be found in Burro Canyon, at a distance of 4- 6 miles from the station.
Cow Springs station, 12.83 miles from Soldier’s Farewell station, is described as having an abundant supply of water.
Fergusson’s table of distances was enclosed as part of the official report which he sent to Lieut. Joseph F. Bennett, Acting Assistant Adjutant General, First Infantry, California Volunteers. It was written at Tucson on March 23, 1863. In the report, Fergusson makes clear the importance of water to anyone crossing that section of country between Tucson and Mesilla, in particular that completely arid stretch between Stein’s Peak and Soldier’s Farewell; indeed Fergusson writes that the probability of water being found anywhere along the whole route was “very scarce this season.” He emphasizes the importance of Burro Canyon, “where there is an abundance of wood, water, grass, game, and Apaches.” He suggests to Bennett that it would be “a prudent and almost indispensible measure” to have a company of either infantry or cavalry permanently stationed there, their main function being “to escort and guard water-tanks for troops marching from this place [Tucson] to Mesilla.” He urges Bennett to send out, along with the recommended company of troops, two or three water tanks to meet the needs of any troops enroute between Soldier’s Farewell and Apache Pass, “where it is almost certain there will be no water in the course of a month.” Like Hazen, Fergusson too refers to Leitendorf’s Well, stating that, even there, it is doubtful that any water will be found.⁹⁵
In May of 1863, Carleton once again wrote to Postmaster General Blair with regard to the southern mail route to California. In this communication Carleton informs Blair that a Mr. George H. Vickroy, of New Mexico, had been announced as being the new contractor:
To carry a mail from Fort Craig, N. Mex., via Pinos Altos and Fort West, at the head of the Gila River, to Fort Bowie, Apache Pass, Ariz., and Tucson, Ariz., via the Pima Villages, Ariz., and Fort Yuma, Cal., to Los Angeles, Cal.
He further reminds Blair that despite the fact that Arizona was now a Territory in its own right, it “has not a single mail line running to it from either the east or the west” and that “the Government has no facilities for getting letters to or from either the officers or the people of this new Territory.”⁹⁶
Despite Carleton’s optimism in 1862 that the mails could be reestablished over the southern route within two months of an order being issued to do so, and his confidence in Vickroy, it would in fact be almost another three full years before the southern Overland Mail route was re-established. We could find absolutely no documentary evidence that George H. Vickroy, although an established mail contractor in other parts of the country, ever operated the route described by Carleton, or that he was ever even awarded such a contract.
✱George H. Vickroy was an experienced mail contractor, particularly on routes in and between places in Colorado and (northern) New Mexico. In 1862, he and Thomas Barnum were awarded the contract for mail service between Independence, MO, and Santa Fe, NM. The record of “Offers and Contracts, 1862 – 1866” contained in the Executive Documents Of The House Of Representatives Of The United States, Of The Third Session Of The Thirty-Seventh Congress shows that Vickroy was the successful bidder on multiple routes , often transferring the contract to Cottrell, Vickroy & Co.
This brings to an end the section on mail roads and routes in southwestern New Mexico prior to and during the Civil War.
In the next Chapter we begin an account of those routes which were set up after the War, and the contractors who operated on them. This forms the lead-in to the establishment of the very first mail station at Ralston City in 1870.
We have shown conclusively that there was no station at this location prior to the War, and that there was no military mail station there during the War. There was no building there – dated to pre-1857 – which served as as a “relay station” on the “army mail line between Fort Thorn (north of present day Hatch) and Fort Buchanan (AZ) as claimed by Rita Hill and the Shakespeare Ghost Town website. (See section titled ” The Old Mail Station” in blog entry dated July 20, 2023).
©2007-2023 Jim & Erica Parson
REFERENCES FOR THIS INSTALLMENT:
⁸⁵Lt. Col. John R. Baylor, Commanding, Second Regiment [Texas] Mounted Rifles, C.S.A, along with 258 men, left Fort Bliss on the night of July 23, 1861. Baylor and his men took up a position on the Rio Grande near Fort Fillmore on the night of July 24th. On July 25, 1861 Baylor’s forces occupied Mesilla. O.R. Series I, Vol. IV, Chapter XL. Page 17.
⁸⁶bid. Page 90.
⁸⁷O.R., Series I, Vol. IX, Chapter XXL. Pages 557-558.
⁸⁸O.R., Series I, Vol. L, Chapter LXII. (Part 2). Pages 181-182.
⁸⁹Ibid.
⁹⁰Ibid.
⁹¹Ibid.
⁹²The California Column In The Civil War: Hazen’s Civil War Diary. San Diego Historical Society Quarterly. Spring 1976. Volume 22, Number 2. The introduction to this article states that Hazen’s account is accurate in every aspect other than the mileages, which are slightly incorrect due to the method of estimation used.
⁹³Viameter: An early type of odometer, also called a viatometer. A viameter was attached to a wheel of a wagon or carriage. We may assume that Fergusson used such a device because he gives distances measured to one one-hundredth of a mile.
⁹⁴O.R., Series I, Vol. L, Chapter LXII. (Part 2). Page 362.
⁹⁵Ibid.. Page 361.
⁹⁶Ibid. Pages 419-420. Arizona Territory was created on February 24, 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln signed the Arizona Organic Act into law.
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