Historic California
Posts, Camps, Stations and Airfields
Camp New Supply
(Old Supply Camp; Scorpion Point
Camp; Boyle's Camp; Peninsula Camp)
The first supply depot established for
the long protracted Modoc War in 1873, it is historically known
as the Old Supply Camp or Scorpion Point Camp to differentiate
it from the new depot which soon replaced it nearer the town
of Newell, northeast of the eastern edge of today's Lava Beds
National Monument, in Modoc County.
The Battle of Scorpion Point took place
in the near environs of the camp, about six miles south of Newell
(apparently named for Frederick H. Newell, the first chief engineer
of the U.S. Reclamation Service).
Camp New Supply, alternately known as
Boyle's Camp or Peninsula Camp, was established by Major William
H. Boyle, one of General E. R. S. Canby's battalion commanders
during the war against Captain Jack and his Modocs, after the
Indians fled into the Lava Beds. Major Boyle suffered a thigh
wound and did not finish the campaign. Late in the campaign the
supply base served as a prisoner of war camp.