Camp Bidwell

{{Short description|U.S. Army post during the American Civil War}}

Camp Bidwell, later Camp Chico, was a U.S. Army post during the American Civil War. Camp Bidwell was named for John Bidwell, the founder of the nearby town of Chico, California, and a brigadier general of the California Militia. It was established a mile outside Chico, by Lt. Col. Ambrose E. Hooker with Company A, 6th California Infantry, on August 26, 1863. Although a Company F, 2nd California Cavalry and Company K, 2nd California Infantry under Captain Augustus W. Starr had been there from July 31, 1863, Lt. Col. Hooker moved the camp to a new location for its better defense and for better sanitation.

By early 1865, it was being referred to as Camp Chico when a post called Camp Bidwell was established in the far northeastern corner of California, later to be named Fort Bidwell.{{cite book | last = War Department | first = United States | author-link = United States War Department |author2=John Sheldon Moody |author3=Calvin Duvall Cowles |author4=Frederick Caryton Ainsworth |author5=Robert N. Scott |author6=Henry Martyn Lazelle |author7=George Breckenridge Davis |author8=Leslie J. Perry |author9=Joseph William Kirkley | title = The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies | publisher = Government Printing Office | year = 1897 | location = Washington | pages = 593–594, 1125 | volume =L | number =II | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Jb89AAAAYAAJ&q=%22Camp+Bidwell%22 }} Observing confusion between the two,{{California's Geographic Names|378}} Robert W. Pease explained that such a transfer of name between outposts was a common Army practice of the time.{{cite book | last = Pease | first = Robert W. | title = Modoc County; University of California Publications in Geography, Volume 17 | publisher = University of California Press | year = 1965 | location = Berkeley and Los Angeles | pages = 77–78 }}