Drum Barracks

File:Drum Barracks, Wilmington, California.jpg

Drum Barracks was the Union Army's headquarters for Southern California and New Mexico during the Civil War. It consisted of 19 buildings on 60 acres (240,000 m2) in what is now Wilmington, with another 37 acres (150,000 m2) near the waterfront. Its junior officers' quarters has been preserved as the Drum Barracks Civil War Museum.{{cite web|title=The First Twelve years: Drum Barracks as a Military Post|publisher=Drum Beats|date=Spring 1987|url=http://dbase1.lapl.org/webpics/calindex/documents/11/521022.pdf}} Its powder magazine stands on private property three blocks away, protected by a chain-link fence.

History

In August, 1861, Confederate Colonel John R. Baylor proclaimed the Confederate Territory of Arizona and sent a detachment to occupy Tucson.{{cite journal |

last1=Donnell|

first1=F. S.|

title=The Confederate Territory of Arizona, from Official Sources|

journal=New Mexico Historical Review |

date=1942 |

volume=17|

issue=2 |

pages=148–63 at 153|

url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25160938 |access-date=24 July 2023

}}

Union officials in Southern California responded by organizing the available troops into the California Column, which marched east and confronted the Confederates at Picacho Pass, Arizona.

The withdrawal of regular troops presented Los Angeles with a threefold crisis:

The majority of Southern Californians favored the Confederacy, and pro-Confederate demonstrations were made in Los Angeles and El Monte. There was fear that they might seize Southern California, gain control over the gold being mined near San Bernardino and use San Pedro Bay as a base for privateers that would raid the gold ships leaving San Francisco for Cape Horn.
The Indians in California and what is now Arizona saw the war as the chance of a lifetime to seize cattle, drive off settlers and reclaim their lands.
The ongoing turmoil in Mexico (the Reform War) and the impending French invasion could allow the Confederates to stir up border trouble or even invade by way of Mexico.

The response was to build a major installation, adjacent to San Pedro Bay and 25 miles south of Los Angeles,{{cite book |last1=Faragher |first1=John Mack |title=Eternity Street |date=2016 |page=387}} to be garrisoned by troops moved from Fort Tejon and later by recruits from Northern California and from among the loyal minority in the area.

While the land was donated by Union sympathizers, the construction cost eventually reached $1 million.

Naming the new post

The Drum Barracks is named for Richard Coulter Drum, Assistant Adjutant General of the Army's Department of the Pacific in San Francisco. He supervised construction from his office, visiting the post only after its completion in 1863.{{cite book |title=Post Return, Camp Drum Cal. |date=October 1863 |location=National Archives microfilm}}

In 1863, Major Bennett, the post commander, wrote to the Adjutant-General in Washington asking that the name be changed to Fort Drum, comparing it to Fort Snelling, Minnesota and Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.{{cite book |title=The War of the Rebellion : a compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate armies |date=8 November 2024 |publisher=Secretary of War |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.hwanrk&seq=458}} No response to the letter has been found.

Drum was also honored with Fort Drum in the Philippines, built shortly after he died in 1909.

Fort Drum, New York is named for Lieutenant General Hugh A. Drum, while Fort Drum, Florida is named for a post built during the Second Seminole War in 1842.

Arrest of Confederate sympathizers

At least three of the leading citizens of Los Angeles were arrested and taken to the Drum Barracks.

[[File:Henry Hamilton portrait.png|thumb|left

|One of these men is Los Angeles publisher Henry Hamilton]]

Newspaper publisher Henry Hamilton was arrested In Los Angeles on October 17, 1862 and taken to the Drum Barracks. From there he was placed aboard a steamer to be taken to San Francisco and confinement at Fort Alcatraz. He took an oath of allegiance to the United States and was back in Los Angeles within two weeks.

The immediate cause of his arrest is not known, but one of his many editorials had said that the Northern mobilization was an abolition war, "instigated, carried on, and to be consummated, by the degradation of the white race, and the elevation of the African family over them" and that "Black Republican" rule "has degenerated into worse than an Oriental despotism."{{cite journal |last1=Robinson |first1=John W. |title=A California Copperhead: Henry Hamilton and the Los Angeles Star |journal=Arizona and the West |date=1981 |volume=23 |issue=3 |page=218 |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/40169161 |access-date=4 April 2021}}

The photo shown here has inscriptions stating that Hamilton is on the left. A copy of the photo, taken decades later, has a description indicating that Hamilton is on the right.

File:A.J. King, Los Angeles, California, lawman and pioneer.png

Undersheriff A.J. King was arrested at the request of the newly appointed US Marshal, Henry D. Barrows, for saying "that he owed no allegiance to the United States Government; that Jeff Davis' was the only constitutional government we had, and that he remained here because he could do more harm to the enemies of that Government by staying here than going there" and for publicly displaying "a large lithograph gilt-framed portrait of Beauregard, the rebel general, which he flaunted before a large crowd at the hotel." He took an oath of allegiance to the United States and was released.{{cite web |last1=Barrows |first1=Henry |title=The War of the Rebellion : a compilation of the official records of the Union and Confederate armies. / Pub. under the direction of the ... Secretary of War ser.1:v.50:pt.1:Reports & Correspondence |url=https://hdl.handle.net/2027/coo.31924077730129 |website=HathiTrust |publisher=Secretary of War |access-date=28 November 2024 |ref=pp. 1013(993) to 1014(994)}}

File:Kewen.jpg

In October, 1862, a month after he had been elected to the state Assembly, former California Attorney General and later Los Angeles District Attorney E.J.C. Kewen was arrested for ‘treasonable utterance’ and sent to Fort Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay. After two weeks, he took an oath of allegiance, posted a $5,000 bond and was released.{{cite news |title=Metropolitan News-Enterprise |url=http://www.metnews.com/articles/2006/perspectives071906.htm |access-date=26 November 2024 |date=19 July 2006}}

The report of the arrest does not say what the utterance was, but one of his speeches was published later:

{{poem quote

|text=“What sorcery is there in the name of Lincoln that it should move the world to extraordinary homage and devotion, and obliterate all the monuments of ancient security and freedom? … It is not remarkable, therefore, that the Executive should be delirious with power, when the magic of his influence is illustrated by such extraordinary effects of willing obedience and fanatical proscription…

“I am not enamored with this word loyalty. It belongs to kingly and not to free government.”}}

Preventing civil unrest

Drum Barracks troops were stationed at San Bernardino for most of the war and made intermittent encampments at El Monte.

{{cite journal |last1=Gilbert |first1=Benjamin Franklin |title=The Confederate Minority in California |journal=California Historical Society Quarterly |date=1941 |volume=20 |issue=2 |pages=154–70 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/25160938 |access-date=24 July 2023}}

When news of the Union victory at Gettysburg and the fall of Vicksburg was received in Los Angeles, the celebrations were interrupted when armed secessionists appeared. Shots were fired, and Drum Barracks troops, on their way to the Owens Valley as an escort to a supply train, intervened. Continuing demonstrations by secessionists required the dispatch of 25 additional men to take up a post near Los Angeles in a position to command the town.{{cite web |title=California Historical Landmarks Series: Drum Barracks, Registered Landmark #169 (1936) |url=https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb5468816g/_1.pdf |access-date=7 November 2024}}

Conflict with Native Americans

A new wave of Indian raids began as soon as troops were withdrawn from outlying posts.{{cite book |last1=Mazich |first1=Andrew E. |title=Civil War in the Southwest Borderlands 1861-1867 |date=26 January 2017 |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |isbn=978-0806155722 |pages=43-46}} Troops sent east from Los Angeles to confront Confederates first "had to fight the Apaches, hereditary enemies of the Pumas and Maricopas; and the Navajos were also war-like. From Tucson into New Mexico, in fact, the column had to fight its way through hostile Indians, who lurked in every mountain pass, and guarded every water hole."{{cite web |last1=Spaulding |first1=Imogene |title=The Attitude of California to the Civil War |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41168901 |website=JSTOR |publisher=Historical Society of Southern California |access-date=20 May 2021 |ref=page 129}}

Named battles and campaigns fought by Los Angeles troops against Indians included the Battle of Apache Pass and the Owens Valley Indian War.

Incursions into Mexico

Los Angeles troops, including the Spanish-speaking Native California Cavalry, made at least three incursions into the Mexican state of Sonora. In 1862, Captain Fritz pursued a group that had stolen government horses, saddles and carbines. He recovered the property at Hermosillo, 350 miles south of Tucson. The following year, Captain Tuttle pursued a group of Confederate sympathizers who had stolen cattle on their way to join Confederate forces in Texas. He captured them, and the livestock, in the village of Altar. In September, 1865, five months after Robert E Lee had surrendered, Captain Pico left Fort Mason in pursuit of 16 troopers who had deserted with their arms and equipment and 30 good army horses. He caught up with them at Magdalena, 90 miles away. They were challenged by the local Mexican garrison, loyal to Emperor Maximilian, who was not recognized by the United States. After two tense weeks, they withdrew, empty-handed.{{cite book |last1=Mazich |first1=Andrew E. |title=The Civil War in Arizona: The Story of the California Volunteers, 1861–1865 |date=2006 |publisher=University of Oklahoma |isbn=0806137479 |p=97,115-16,122-123}}

A letter from General Grant, written late in the war, passed on a rumor that former California Senator William M. Gwin had been appointed governor of Sonora by the Imperial government in Mexico and was organizing a Confederate invasion of California. Grant authorized the Army to pursue the invading force back into Mexico and to keep troops there indefinitely. The rumor proved to be false.{{cite journal |title=A Threatened Invasion of California: Letter Addressed to Major General McDowell by General U. S. Grant |journal=California Historical Society Quarterly |date=1934 |volume=13, no. 1 |page=38–42 |url=https://online.ucpress.edu/ch/article-abstract/13/1/38/26429/A-Threatened-Invasion-of-California-Letter?redirectedFrom=fulltext

|access-date=24 July 2023}}

Plot to seize California gold

Steamers leaving San Francisco for Panama during the war years carried an average of $1 million in gold each. One shipment exceeded $3 million in value. Kentuckians Asbury Harpending and Ridgely Greathouse proposed a surprise attack on Alcatraz Island followed by occupation of San Francisco. They would then establish an overland gold route "through savage Arizona" to Texas, which would necessarily pass through Los Angeles. The plot was eventually abandoned.

{{cite book

|last1=Richards

|first1=Leonard L.

|title=The California Gold Rush and the Coming of the Civil War

|publication-date=2007

|publisher=Knopf

|isbn=978-0-307-26520-3

|pages=230-231

}}

Postwar years

After the Civil War, Camp Drum remained active for several years in the Indian Wars. By 1870, it had been deactivated and fallen into disrepair. In October 1871, the Los Angeles Star reported that all remaining troops at Drum Barracks had been ordered to Fort Yuma. In 1873, the government returned the land to its original donors, Phineas Banning and Benjamin Davis Wilson, after auctioning off the buildings. Not surprisingly, there were no winning bids from buyers who would have to move the buildings or dismantle them for building materials. Banning bought five buildings for $2,917 and Wilson bought one for $200.

Ghost sightings

The museum's resident ghosts were profiled by the Los Angeles Times in 1992, including a description of a ghost who "doesn't know he's dead." The same article says that the building was saved from demolition following "a drawn-out battle more fierce than any of the soldiers stationed here had ever fought."{{cite news |date=26 April 1992 |title=Where Ghosts of War Still Walk |work=Los Angeles Times |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-04-26-vw-1123-story.html |access-date=31 March 2021}} Another profile, "Ghost stories from LA's old Civil War barracks", was published in 2018.{{cite news |last1=Meares |first1=Hadley |date=26 October 2018 |title=There's a Civil War museum in LA—and of course it's haunted |language=en |work=Curbed LA |url=https://la.curbed.com/2018/10/26/17962966/civil-war-museum-los-angeles-wilmington-history-haunted |access-date=31 March 2021}}

The Drum Barracks was profiled on Unsolved Mysteries in the early 1990s, in a segment narrated by Robert Stack, called 'Civil War Ghosts'. People interviewed in that segment claimed to have seen apparitions of Civil War soldiers.{{cite web |title=Unsolved Mysteries with Robert Stack - Season 5, Episode 7 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls_QcE_d4S4&t=1030s |website=YouTube |access-date=30 November 2024}} In 2005 the Barracks was featured in an episode of Most Haunted.Most Haunted episode: 92; original airdate October 4, 2005. [http://www.livingtv.co.uk/mosthaunted/210.php www.livingtv.co.uk] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060930151804/http://www.livingtv.co.uk/mosthaunted/210.php |date=September 30, 2006 }}

Historical designations

Drum Barracks has been designated as a California Historical Landmark, a Los Angeles Historic Cultural Monument. It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Since 1987, it has been operated as a Civil War museum that is open to the public.

References

External links

{{commons category|Drum Barracks Civil War Museum|
Drum Barracks Civil War Museum}}

[http://www.militarymuseum.org/DrumBks.html California State Military Museum: "History of the Drum Barracks" webpage]
Los Angeles Public Library files:
[http://dbase1.lapl.org/webpics/calindex/documents/11/521034.pdf Brochure from Drum Barracks Museum]
[http://dbase1.lapl.org/webpics/calindex/documents/13/522521.pdf Pamphlet used by tour guides at Drum Barracks Museum]
[http://dbase1.lapl.org/webpics/calindex/documents/13/522522.pdf "Drum Barracks and Camel Corps"] – article by The Society for Preservation of Drum Barracks.
[http://dbase1.lapl.org/webpics/calindex/documents/13/522519.pdf Articles on Drum Barracks]
[http://dbase1.lapl.org/webpics/calindex/documents/13/522517.pdf "Is local museum haunted?", by Eric Wilhelmus] – article in Random Lengths, Oct. 31 – Nov. 13, 1991
{{Cite web |date=1936–1940 |title=Drum Barracks - California Historical Landmark no. 169 |url=https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb5468816g |access-date= |work=California Historical Landmark Project Collection. MSS 204 |publisher= Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego (library.ucsd.edu) |language=en}}