The Los Angeles Mounted Rifles was a company of the California State Militia formed in 1861. It was the only California state unit to serve the Confederacy.
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The Los Angeles Mounted Rifles was formed in response to a call by Governor John G. Downey for the formation of militia companies "to preserve order" just before the start of the American Civil War. In mid-February 1861, after the secession of several Southern States, a petition was presented to Los Angeles County Judge Dryden to "open a book" to enroll a volunteer militia company. The petition was signed by George Washington Gift and seven other prominent Angelenos:
Maryland-born Judge Dryden approved the petition and, on February 25, Gift announced the opening of the enrollment book. Enrollments proceeded rapidly and with 80 to 85 enrolled, an organizational meeting for the company was held at the Los Angeles County Courthouse at 7:00 PM on March 17, 1861. Gift acted as chairman of the meeting and Joseph Huber, Jr., acted as secretary. The name "Los Angeles Mounted Rifles" was selected and officers for the company elected. The company was mustered into service under Captain Alonzo Ridley and First Lieutenant Joseph Cattick. One of its two Second Lieutenants was Tomas Avila Sanchez (Los Angeles County Sheriff). Its muster roll had eight non-commissioned officers, and 64 privates.[1] From its inception, the Los Angeles Mounted Rifles was known to be pro-Southern and a worry to Union authorities. Its organizer, George Washington Gift, and Captain Alonzo Ridley both in later years acknowledged that the unit's purpose was to serve the Confederacy.
After the news of the Battle of Fort Sumter and the beginning of the war reached Los Angeles on April 24, Ridley believed that the unit should cross the deserts to Texas. He arranged for the departure of the Rifles despite nervous and watchful Union authorities. However a more rushed departure was forced on him when US Army officers Albert Sidney Johnston and Lewis Addison Armistead joined the party, fearful of arrest by the authorities. Ridley had planned for the Rifles to leave for Texas on June 30, but now the departure was moved up to June 17, but to deceive the authorities word was circulated that it had been delayed to June 25.
Only twenty six of the Rifles gathered at Warner's Ranch on May 26. With other Southern sympathizers forming a party of thirty five they followed the Butterfield Overland Mail route east toward Fort Fillmore, Texas. They cautiously approached Fort Yuma and their scout found that the officers at Fort Yuma were sick and that night they found that loyalties in the garrison were in doubt.
During their first night there, their first sentinel, Lewis Armistead, had been approached by a sergeant and some men from the fort with the proposal that a number of the garrison would be willing to desert and join with the Rifles, seize and plunder the fort. Most of the Rifles were in favor of this. However Johnston dissuaded them, saying that since the Company was not yet mustered into Confederate service and that none of them as yet held Confederate commissions, it would be like an act of piracy.[2] They camped within sight of the fort for the next three days to rest and make repairs, unmolested despite the fact that orders had been issued to capture Johnston and any with him.
Leaving Yuma on July 7, the Rifles move up the valley of the Gila River, across to the Pima villages just south of present-day Phoenix, Arizona, then up the Santa Cruz Valley to Picacho Pass and down to Tucson on July 18. Tucson made the Rifles welcome. In March 1861, Tucson had held a convention "seceding" as the Arizona Territory. Federal troops had abandoned Fort Breckinridge and had burned the town's only grist mill enroute to Fort Buchanan. About 30 Tucsonians wanted to combine with the Rifles to attack the Federal troops but Johnston again counseled against this action with the same argument he had used at Yuma. His advice was again followed.
After three days in Tucson, the Los Angeles Mounted Rifles left and were joined by three citizens of Tucson. Fort Buchanan's commander had orders to intercept them, and Apache under Cochise were on the warpath. It was essential that they reach Dragoon Springs, where the trail to Fort Buchanan intersected the road east, ahead of Union troops evacuating the fort lest they be cut off. After two and a half days hard marching over 85 miles without water on the route they beat the advance scouts of U. S. dragoons. They reached the wells and found them foul and noxious with dead rats. The Rifles cleaned the wells and slaked their thirst.
After only a brief rest, they pushed on to Apache Pass some 40 miles east. Here a party of Texas Unionists headed for California disputed the right to use of the water. Tired, thirsty, and in ill temper, the Rifles took the water by force. Some of the Rifles then proposed that the Company remain here and surprise the evacuating Federal forces in the pass, so that, cut off from water, they would be forced to surrender. Johnston again persuaded them not to do so with his usual argument, and they resumed their march before noon on July 25.
Over the next two days they made a 105 mile march to Cooke's Spring, encountering burned wrecks of two stagecoaches and the bodies of fourteen killed by the Apache. From Cooke's Spring it was 60 miles to the Rio Grande which the Rifles reached on the afternoon of the 27th, just seven miles north of Mesilla. Fearing Fort Fillmore only eight miles south of Mesilla was still well-garrisoned with Union troops, they approached with caution and stopped two miles short of the river. They captured a local Mexican who told them that all of the Fort Fillmore troops had been captured. They did not believe him and after explaining that they were the advance party for Major Lord's U.S. command, let him go with a caution to tell nobody of their arrival. The Mexican went straight to the rebels and told them.
Shortly after, a prisoner was brought in that had sneaked in to spy upon the camp. Enrique D'Hamel was a Cuban member of Captain Bethel Coopwood's Spy Company of Col. John Robert Baylor's command of Texans and Arizonan militia. He also said that Fort Fillmore had been captured. Ridley knew Coopwood who had been Assistant District Attorney in San Bernardino County. He had left California earlier in 1861 and in early July enlisted the San Elizario Spy Company, composed mostly of Californians, for John Baylor.
Ridley sent D'Hamel to inform Coopwood that he and a party of Californians had arrived. Soon Coopwood arrived. The next day, they met Baylor's troops at Mesilla, New Mexico, on July 28, 1861. On August 1, Baylor proclaimed the Confederate Territory of Arizona with himself as its Governor. After a delay of two weeks, the Los Angeles Mounted Rifles were completely disbanded as a unit.
Most of the former Rifles served in Texas units while Armistead and Johnston went east to serve as generals. George Washington Gift was commissioned as an officer of the Confederate Navy in December 1861. Captain Alonzo Ridley remained with Johnston as captain of his bodyguard through the Battle of Shiloh then went to Texas to fight there. In August 1861 Gift was hanged in effigy in Sacramento as a traitor,[3] and the Los Angeles Mounted Rifles were mustered out of the California State Militia in the latter part of 1861.[4]
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