Col. James Carlton

Phil Kohn can be reached at USCW160@yahoo.com.

From Tucson, Arizona Territory, Col. James Carleton, commanding the Federal California Column, on June 15, 1862, dispatches three couriers to alert Col. Canby, at Ft. Craig, of his presence. (Carleton is unaware that Canby has been promoted to brigadier general and is at Santa Fe. Col. John Chivington, of the 1st Colorado Infantry, is now at Ft. Craig and the commandant of the Southern Military District of New Mexico.)

Union troops, on June 16, attack at James Island, South Carolina, a location crucial to the control of Charleston harbor. The federal attack is soundly repulsed. In Confederate Arizona, troopers of the 7th Texas Cavalry are once again set upon by local residents while foraging. This time the fighting takes place close to Mesilla, not far from Ft. Fillmore, where the troopers are based. The locals resent the Confederates’ attempts to take what sparse forage there is in the area. One Confederate officer and seven troopers are killed in the melee.

On June 17, U.S. Army commands are shuffled in the East. Objecting to being subordinated to Maj. Gen. John Pope — brought east to head the Federal Army of Virginia — Maj. Gen. John Frémont requests to be relieved, tendering his resignation from the army. Frémont is replaced by Maj. Gen. Franz Sigel.

Brig. Gen. George Morgan’s 9,000 Federal troops seize the Cumberland Gap in the Appalachian Mountains near the junctions of Kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee on June 18. Capture of this pass through the mountains by the Union presents a serious problem for Confederates in eastern Tennessee. In Arizona, the three Union couriers that had been dispatched from Tucson to alert Ft. Craig of the California Column’s presence at Tucson are attacked by Chiracahua Apaches as they cross into their territory at Apache Pass. Two of the men are killed, but the third — John Jones, a civilian scout — wages a two-hour, running gun battle and escapes, continuing on his way to the Rio Grande.

On June 20, a Union advance is made on Vicksburg, Mississippi, the last Confederate stronghold left on the Mississippi River. Southern troops under Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn begin further fortifying the defensively strong city. Disturbed by Gen. Beauregard’s loss of Corinth, Mississippi, President Davis declares Beauregard — who has put himself on sick leave — absent without leave and places Gen. Braxton Bragg in command of the Army of Tennessee.

A 140-trooper detachment of the 1st California Cavalry, under Lt. Col. Edward Eyre, departs Tucson for Ft. Craig on June 21.

On June 22, Lt. Col. Eyre’s detachment of 1st California Cavalry troopers is attacked by Chiricahua Apaches as they traverse Apache Pass in the mountains east of Tucson. The Apaches are driven off and the detachment continues on its way with no casualties.

Having arrived at Richmond from the Shenandoah Valley, Maj. Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson on June 23 meets for the first time with Gen. Robert E. Lee and his command staff: generals Daniel Harvey Hill, A.P. Hill and James Longstreet.

In an attempt to head off what is feared will be a crippling blow to Richmond, Gen. Robert E. Lee, on June 25 begins, at Oak Grove, Virginia, a series of offensive thrusts at McClellan in what will come to be known as the Seven Days Campaign. In the West, civilian scout John Jones, after completing a hazardous ride of 200 miles all alone after his escape from an attack by Apaches, arrives at the Rio Grande about five miles north of Mesilla. Turning north to head for Ft. Craig, he is captured by pickets from the 7th Texas Cavalry and brought to Ft. Fillmore for interrogation. Col. William Steele confiscates Jones’s dispatches, learning of the whereabouts of the California Column, its numbers and its planned movements. Steele begins preparations for moving his command.

Lee’s Confederates hit McClellan’s troops at Mechanicsville, Virginia, on June 26. Out West, Col. Steele sends a message to Brig. Gen. Sibley that because of a scarcity of food and forage, a growing number of men falling ill, hostile locals and the approaching California Column, he will have to abandon Ft. Fillmore, near Mesilla. Meanwhile, Jones the scout, manages to communicate with Union sympathizers from his jail cell, and they alert Col. Chivington at Ft. Craig that reinforcements are on the way.

In the third of the Seven Days Battles, at Gaines’ Mill on June 27, Lee loses 8,750 casualties to McClellan’s 6,837. McClellan, however, still fearing that his Army of the Potomac is greatly outnumbered, continues pulling his forces back.

The Seven Days Campaign continues with a clash at Savage’s Station, Virginia, on June 29, 1862, marked by confusion on both sides. The Army of the Potomac continues its withdrawal, leaving behind some 2,500 sick and wounded soldiers. In New Mexico, alerted by local Unionists that the Confederates at Mesilla had captured a Union courier who says that reinforcements are nearing, Col. Chivington dispatches scouting parties westward from Ft. Craig to search for them. One of them runs into Lt. Col. Eyre’s detachment of California Cavalry.

June 30 sees the sixth engagement of the Seven Days Campaign, at White Oak Swamp. The federals are able to consolidate their position, but McClellan again orders a withdrawal southward, to a strong position on Malvern Hill, north of the James River.

July 1: Confederates under Robert E. Lee attack McClellan’s Army of the Potomac at Malvern Hill, southeast of Richmond. Southern forces seem disorganized and are held off by the Federals’ well-placed infantry and artillery. The action marks the end of the Seven Days’ Campaign. Afterward, the Federals withdraw to Harrison’s Landing on the James River. The result: McClellan remains near Richmond, but the Virginia capital is still unconquered. Neither army has destroyed the other. The Seven Days’ toll: for the North, 16,000 casualties; for the South, over 20,000. At Booneville, Mississippi, some 850 Union troops led by Col. Philip Sheridan defeat a Confederate force of around 5,000 under Brig. Gen. James Chalmers. In Washington, the government approves a joint venture by the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific to build a railroad across the West.

On July 2, Abraham Lincoln calls for 300,000 more volunteers for three years’ Federal military service. He also signs into law the Morrill Land Grant Act that will give states federal land upon which to build agricultural colleges.

Federal troops under Col. William Weer on July 3 engage and defeat Col. Stand Watie’s Cherokee Mounted Rifles at Locust Grove, northwest of Tahlequah, the capital of the Cherokee Nation, in Indian Territory.

In an attempt to counter Union moves and strengths in Tennessee, Gen. Braxton Bragg, now commanding the Confederate Army of Tennessee, plans an invasion of the central portion of the state emanating from Chattanooga in the east. Accordingly, on July 4 he begins shipping the bulk of his army — division by division, by train — from Tupelo, Mississippi, to Chattanooga. To create a diversion, Confederate Col. John Hunt Morgan on July 4 launches a partisan cavalry raid into Kentucky.

On July 5, Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside sails from his base in North Carolina with Federal reinforcements for McClellan’s Army of the Potomac, camped along the James River, southeast of Richmond.