California Center for Military
History, State Military Reserve
A veteran dragoon who rose to command the Department
of New Mexico during the Civil War. It was the approach of Carleton's
California Column in September 1862 that finally caused Confederate
General H.H. Sibley to abandon all thoughts of taking New Mexico
and, in turn, to quit El Paso and march his brigade eastward.
After serving as a volunteer in the Aroostook
War in his native Maine, Carleton received a commission in the
Regular Army in 1839. He served under Brigadier General Stephen
W. Kearney on the Rocky Mountain Expedition of 1846, then joined
the staff of General John Wool on the latter's march into Mexico.
He was brevetted for gallantry in the Mexican War and thereafter
served on surveying, exploring and Indian fighting expeditions.
From 1851 to 1856 he served in New Mexico with the First Dragoons.
After duty in the East he was back in 1859 at Fort Tejon, California,
with the 1st Dragoons.
The outbreak of the Civil War found him
a major in the newly formed 6th U.S. Cavalry. General George
Wright, responding to a plea from Canby in New Mexico, ordered
Carleton to raise a relief force. The latter raised the 1st California
Infantry and the 1st California Cavalry as the nucleus of the
relief force and was appointed Colonel, 1st
California Volunteer Infantry. He moved his force eastward
almost at once.
'A remarkable march through the hostile
Indian country of Arizona to join Canby made by eleven companies
of infantry, two of cavalry, and two batteries under Colonel
J. H. Carleton...overland from Southern California," we
are informed by the editors of Battles and Leaders of the
Civil War (Vol. II, p. 698).
The Confederate threat was ended, but
the concentration of the troops along the Rio Grande had given
the Indians an opportunity to raid and pillage. Apaches, Kiowas,
Navajos and Comanches were striking throughout the territory.
Shortly Carleton was promoted Brigadier General (US Volunteers)
succeeding Canby in command of the Department of New Mexico.
He moved immediately against the hostiles, combining his California
Volunteers with those from New Mexico and Colorado, together
with a handful of Regulars, "Carleton's principal field
commander was himself no novice at Indian fighting," writes
Utley "Kit Carson, now Colonel of the 1st New Mexico Cavalry,
was the mailed fist with which the general struck at the hostiles.''
For the rest of the war the troops campaigned
without let-up. Carleton was relentless, harsh, hardbitten. "All
men... are to be killed whenever and wherever you find them,"
he ordered a subordinate. "The women and children will not
be harmed, but you will take them prisoners ." The Mescaleros
were suppressed and moved east to the Pecos. Then Carleton crushed
the Navajos and brought their 250-year reign of terror to an
end with a scorched-earth policy which ruined their crops, captured
their stock and wrought devastation in their homeland. The shattered
Navajo bands drifteded in to surrender. Kit Carson was next sent
into the Panhandle to war upon the Kiowa and the Comanche, while
escorts were provided for the vulnerable wagon trains
At the Battle of Adobe Wells, Carson found
himself besieged by a large party of Kiowas and Comanches. The
outnumbered Carson kept the Indians at bay with his howitzers
and successfully withdrew that night after first burning the
Kiowa village.
As the Civil War ended in the East, the
volunteer regiments continued in action until relieved by the
Regulars in late 1866.
Carleton was promoted to Major General,
USV, and brevetted Major General, U.S. Army. With the postwar
reduction of the Army, Carleton was appointed Lieuteant Colonel
of the 4th U.S. Cavalry. He wrote numerous articles for military
publications and published a book on the Battle of Buena Vista.
He died in uniform at age 59 in 1873.
It should be noted that although he was
strong on discipline, General Carleton was popular with his men,
a careful writer and tactician who impressed both Jefferson Davis
and George McClellan, and a faithful and beloved husband and
father.
Sources
The quotations are from Robert M. Utley, Fort Union National
Monument, National Park Handbook Series No. 35, Washington
DC 1962. p. 37.
Robert U. Johnson and Clarence C. Buel, editors Battles and
Leaders of the Civil War, 4 volumes NY 1887, 1956 edition,
Vol. II.
Mark M. Boatner III, Civil War Dictionary. NY 1959.
Aurora Hunt, Maj. Gen. James H. Carleton (1814-73), Western
Frontier Dragoon, Glendale, CA 1958.
Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of California,
7 vols., Vol. vii, SF 1890.
Francis B. Heitman, Historical Record, 2 vols., Washington
DC 1903.
Biography
by Floyd Farrar
Drum Barracks
Volunteer, March 2001
James Henry Carleton was
born at Lubec, Maine, on December 27, 1814. He was the son of
John and Abigail (Phelps) Carleton. His father John was a ship
captain. At age twenty-five he was commissioned a lieutenant in
the Maine militia in 1838 and participated in the boundary dispute
with Canada known as the "Aristook War." He received
appointment as a second lieutenant in the First Dragoons on October
18, 1839, and then trained at Carlisle Barracks. In October 1840
he married Henrietta Tracy Loring of Boston. Henrietta accompanied
Carleton to his duty assignment at Fort Gibson, Indian Territory,
where she died in October 1841. Later in the 1840s Carleton served
as assistant commissary of subsistence at Fort Leavenworth, accompanied
Maj. Clifton Wharton's expedition to the Pawnee Villages in Nebraska,
served as an officer on Col. Stephen Watts Kearny's 1845 expedition
to South Pass, and saw action in 1847 in the battle of Buena Vista.
In 1848 Carleton married Sophia Garland Wolfe, niece of Gen. John
Garland. During the 1850s Carleton served under Garland in New
Mexico Territory.
Summer of 1858 saw him,
his family and 700 raw recruits stationed at Fort Tejon, California
as commander of the Fort with the First Dragoons. In 1859 he was
ordered to Salt Lake City to investigate the massacre at Mountain
Meadows in 1857 of 120 Arkansas emigrants. He concluded that it
was Mormons dressed as Indians and 20 years later a court convicted
one and he was executed at the spot of the crime. At the outbreak
of the Civil War, Carleton was appointed to Colonel of 1st Infantry,
California Volunteers on 26 July 1861 by then Governor John L.
Downey. He would ultimately become brigadier general of the California
volunteers and command the "California Column" on its
march to the Rio Grande. This journey consisted of around 2350
men and was done largely on foot, in summer, wearing wool uniforms,
and carrying heavy rifles & knapsacks. In a very hot and dry
environment, amazingly not one man was lost due to non-battle
causes. The hike from Wilmington, CA to El Paso, TX has been reported
to be the longest infantry march in US Infantry history. Carleton
was basically in command in Southern California from January of
1861 to April of 1861. In September 1862 he replaced Gen. Edward
R. S. Canby as commander of the Department of New Mexico. One
of Carleton's first acts upon assuming command was to reissue
Canby's order establishing martial law in New Mexico. He also
devised a passport system to distinguish loyal citizens from Confederate
spies. Although Carleton never attempted to set himself up as
a military governor, he believed he had authority to carry through
any policy he deemed essential to the peace and prosperity of
the territory. Many of his actions antagonized the citizens.
In addition to securing
the territory against Confederate intrigue, Carleton took steps
to subdue hostile Indian tribes. He sent Col. Kit (Christopher)
Carson and other subordinates against the Mescalero Apaches with
orders to kill all Indian men "whenever and wherever you
can find them." By February 1863 the Mescaleros had been
relocated on the new Indian reservation of Bosque Redondo on the
Pecos River. Carleton then waged war against the Navajos, ordering
Carson and other officers to destroy all crops in Navajo country
to starve them into submission. Carleton's strategy brought immediate
results. Some 8,000 Navajos surrendered and then made the "Long
Walk" to Bosque Redondo, where Carleton planned to turn them
into Christian farmers. The Bosque Redondo experiment ended in
failure, however. The Mescaleros quietly fled the reservation,
and the Navajo captives faced death, disease, and a constant shortage
of food. The cost of maintaining Bosque Redondo persuaded the
government to allow the Navajos to return to their homeland. Carleton's
policies became ensnarled in territorial politics. Although his
superiors believed him an efficient and capable officer, hostile
criticism led to his reassignment early in 1867. After a long
overdue furlough he returned to duty in 1868 with his regiment,
the Fourth United States Cavalry in Texas. He served with his
regiment until summer of 1872. He was granted six months medical
leave in a "cold climate" for chronic excema problems
with his legs. He returned to duty in December of 1872 probably
by ship. He was hospitalized with bronchitis contracted enroute.
He never fully recovered and left New Orleans for San Antonio
in the cold rainy season. After arriving on December 28th he contracted
pneumonia the next day. He was hospitalized the next day and died
in San Antonio on January 7, 1873. Carleton and his second wife,
Sophia, had five children; two died in childhood. Carleton published
several accounts of his military experiences. His oldest son,
Henry Guy Carleton, became a journalist, playwright, and inventor.
What Kind of
a Man Was James Henry Carleton?
He lived fifty-eight adventure
filled years and we know what he did in those years. As a human
being he is hard to pin a label on because he was a very different
man at different times. He was sensitive, literate, emotional,
and creative; a patriot through and through; capable and dedicated
military man who sometimes used what seems toe be and excess of
disciplinary zeal; a good husband and father who had to neglect
his family when duty called; a compassionate peace keeper with
his Indian charges when conditions permitted but an implacable
foe when he had to be. There were reports that in the end he turned
to the "bottle" in the twilight of his career. It was
mentioned in some reports, but moderate drinking was very common
on the frontier to combat loneliness and boredom. So without actually
being there we will never know. He was never the less a good soldier
and great leader at a time when he was desperately needed.
Bibliography
Aurora Hunt, Major General
James H. Carlton, 1814-1873: Western Frontier Dragoon (Glendale,
California: Clark, 1958).
Paul Andrew Hutton, ed.,
Soldiers West: Biographies from the Military Frontier (Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press, 1987).
William A. Keleher, Turmoil
in New Mexico (Santa Fe: Rydal Press, 1952).
Gerald Thompson, The
Army and the Navajo (Tucson: University of Arizona Press,
1976), and
A veteran dragoon who rose to command the Department
of New Mexico during the Civil War. It was the approach of Carleton's
California Column in September 1862 that finally caused Confederate
General H.H. Sibley to abandon all thoughts of taking New Mexico
and, in turn, to quit El Paso and march his brigade eastward.