The Battle of Fort Buchanan
Date: February 17, 1865
Location: Fort Buchanan, Arizona Territory
Prior to the outbreak of the American Civil War, the US and the Native tribes of the Southwest had a tumultuous relationship. Thousands of people from the eastern US had begun pouring into the Southwest and into ancestral tribal lands in increasing numbers every year after the Republic of Mexico ceded to the US the territories that made up the American Southwest following the conclusion of the Mexican-American War in 1848. Eventually, tensions reached a tipping point. The Apache, Comanche, Kiowa, and other tribes began retaliating by attacking forts, army patrols, towns, and wagon trains on their land after enduring years of the killing and enslavement of their people, theft of their livestock and game, and colonizers illegally encroaching on their land. This conflict initially consisted of small ambushes, quick raids, and other elements of guerilla warfare, but grew in size, scale, and regularity following the outbreak of the American Civil War.
General James Henry Carleton
By February 1865, this bitter and fierce conflict had raged on for five long years with no sign of stopping. Though the American Civil War continued to the east, the last shots of the war in the Southwest rang out in 1863, as the New Mexicans and Coloradans defeated the Confederates in New Mexico, and the Californians pushed the Confederates out of Arizona. After the establishment of the New Mexico and Arizona Territories in February 1863, Military Governor James Henry Carleton, the General of the California Column that defeated the Confederates in Arizona, and now governor of New Mexico, began ordering the construction of forts in the territories along major trading routes and towns.
The ruins of Fort Buchanan, c. 1914
One such fort to be garrisoned was Fort Buchanan. The fort was built in 1856 to protect the section of southern Arizona and New Mexico that was purchased from Mexico in 1853 from attacks by the Chiricahua Apaches. When the Civil War erupted in 1861, the fort was abandoned and burned as the Union Army consolidated its forces in New Mexico to prepare to fight the Confederate insurgency in Arizona and Texas. By 1865, the fort was in a derelict state but still offered a decent defensible position so eight soldiers of the 1st California Cavalry, under the command of Corporal Michael Buckley, manned the remains of the fort.
On the morning of February 17, 1865, a party of two surveyors and a young boy were ambushed by Apaches about 12 miles from the fort. All three rode as quickly as they could for the safety of Fort Buchanan and nearly made it before the Apaches caught up with them and killed them, in a quiet manner which did not alert the fort's garrison.
Meanwhile, at the fort, Buckley had sent two soldiers out to gather hay and another to hunt, while he stood watch as the remaining four soldiers slept in their adobe station.
A shot rang out and struck Buckley in the thigh, and Buckley drew his revolver, opening fire and killing the Apache who shot him.
Awoken to the sound of gunfire, the soldiers scurried to gather their rifles and take defensive positions as approximately 75 Apache warriors surged forward to attack them at close range. The first attack was repulsed, and the Apaches fell further back and opened fire.
The hills surrounding Fort Buchanan, c. 1914
The Apaches soon set fire to the station, and with its roof collapsing and thick smoking billowing inside, Buckley ordered a retreat. The soldiers burst out and made a run for it, the Apaches in hot pursuit, until they reached the surrounding hills and continued to travel on foot where they reached the safety of the Santa Ritas.
For the Chiricahua Apache, Fort Buchanan was a great victory, as it was the only US military post they successfully captured.
The two soldiers who had been out gathering hay had returned to the fort only to find it in flames and retreated to the Santa Ritas to rejoin their troop. The soldier who had been out hunting was never found.