Camp Grant was the name used from 1866 to 1872 for the United States military post at the confluence of the San Pedro River and Aravaipa Creek in the Arizona Territory. It is near the site of the Camp Grant massacre.
The post was first constructed in 1860, and between 1860 and 1873, the post was abandoned or destroyed and then rebuilt multiple times, and it was known by a variety of names, starting with Fort Breckinridge in 1860 before becoming Camp Grant in 1866. In 1872 The "old" Camp Grant on the San Pedro River (located in present day Pinal County) was replaced by a "new" Fort Grant at the base of Mount Graham (in present day Graham County). Little evidence of "old" Camp Grant (formerly Fort Breckinridge) is visible today.
Early names Camp on San Pedro River, May, 1860. A generic name used for the site during fort's initial construction phase. Fort Aravaipa, or Fort Aravaypa [sic], 1860. Name used for post for a few months after construction, until an official name was designated. Fort Breckinridge, August 1860 to 1861. Following construction the fort was officially named for the then-serving Vice President of the United States, John C. Breckinridge and this was the official name of the post during and after the time the post was destroyed and the site abandoned, following removal of the Union garrison at the start of the Civil War. Fort Stanford, or Camp Stanford, 1862 to 1865. Unofficial name used while California volunteer troops reoccupied the site in 1862 to 1865 as a U.S. Army post during the Civil War, in honor of then acting California governor Leland Stanford. Fort Breckenridge, 1862 to 1865. Vice President John C. Breckinridge had "gone south" after his term of office concluded in 1861 and he accepted a commission as a General of the Confederate Army, later becoming the Secretary of War of the Confederacy. In October, 1862 the Fort was renamed Fort Breckenridge by the U.S. Army, with the slight change in spelling reflecting unhappiness with the original namesake. The fort continued to be sporadically referred to by this name, while also being referred to as Fort (or Camp) Stanford, until it became designated by the Army as Camp Grant. Camp on San Pedro River and Camp Wright, 1865. The Fort was re-constructed starting in 1865. The first few months of construction was undertaken by the 2nd Regiment California Volunteer Infantry commanded by Colonel Thomas F. Wright, and both the river location and the commander's name were used generically for the post during this brief limbo period. Camp Grant, 1865 to 1872. The construction of the post was completed by the U.S. Army. After the U.S. Army took over, the post was demoted from a Fort to a Camp in 1865 and officially designated "Camp Grant" honoring Ulysses Grant, of Civil War fame. The name "Camp Grant" was used for the post through 1866 when floods caused it to be relocated, and reconstructed yet again on a higher terrace above the rivers. The name "Camp Grant" continued to be used until closure in 1872 and abandonment in 1873, during which time the Camp Grant Massacre occurred (1871), and a temporary Indian reservation was located in the area (1871), later moved to San Carlos. Fort Grant, Although the U.S. Army designated the post a "camp", not a "fort", there were still historical references which sometimes named the post as "Fort Grant". in 1872 the post was replaced by an officially designated Fort Grant which was re-located to the east under Graham peak in Graham County.
Strategic importance
In 1859, the time of the decision to found the military post on the San Pedro River at the mouth of Aravaipa Creek, the site was uniquely situated to command important avenues of then current Indian travel. This location commanded the intersection of four important routes. To the south, the San Pedro Valley stretched away into Sonora, and gave access to Mexico; this route was a vast natural highway for Apache raids into Mexico. To the west running up the Camp Grant Wash a road/trail extended over a divide toward the Santa Cruz River Valley and Tucson. To the north, only 10 miles down the valley, lay the Gila River and along it the Kearny Expedition trail extended from the Rio Grande to California. The post was placed to block the fourth route to the east, the Arivaipa Canyon connection to the San Pedro Valley. Aravaipa Creek cuts a narrow canyon completely through the Galiuro Mountains, affording a short cut access between the San Pedro Valley and the Upper Gila and the Sulphur Spring Valley. Because Arivaipa canyon cut through a mountain range and because it had wood and water all along its length, it was a much used east-west Apache travel route.
Purpose The military fort at the junction of Aravaipa Creek and the San Pedro River had the purpose of providing security for a steadily increasing stream of settlers and miners into this area of the Arizona territory, both before and after the end of the Civil War.
For more than two full centuries prior to the United States involvement in the New Mexico/Arizona area, Apache bands had been engaged in warfare to resist the Spanish advance in Northern Mexico. The Spanish employed a method of conquest in which the first step was to conquer Indian tribal groups using the horse and superior technology including steel weapons and, later, firearms. The tribe was then subjugated to a form of vassalage, very close to slavery.
The Apaches, and other Indian tribes sought to avoid this advancing subjugation by the Spanish. By their determined resistance over two centuries the surviving Indian tribes of the American southwest, but primarily the Apaches, brought the advance of the Spanish to a halt at about the border of present day U.S. and northern Mexico. In so doing they preserved a claim to a homeland, as well as their freedom. The price of this autonomy and freedom was a continuous bitter guerrilla warfare between the Indian groups and the outposts of Spanish civilization – the communities, ranches and missions in the Mexican Territories of Chihuahua, Sonora and New Mexico.
As the Spanish sought to subjugate the Indian bands, their resistance was met with savage retaliation. Spanish military units marched from supply centers and went into the areas belonging to the Indians and sought out resisting tribes, and attempted to kill or captured them. Captured Indians were sold into slavery. Some tribes who resisted the Spanish were exterminated or scattered by these retaliatory responses. For those tribes that resisted the Spanish and survived, like the Apache, each side developed a traditional and virulent hatred for the other.
In conducting this never-ending warfare, the Apache become expert at conducting raids. Whenever possible they avoided involvement in pitched battle with larger groups of armed Spanish. Over two centuries raiding become the Apache's preferred method of warfare, and it also became a cultural norm and a way of life. Children were trained and individually mentored from an early age in discipline and skills critical to this type of warfare. Men and women, young and old, had roles within the Apache band that supported the raiding process.
Over the 200 years of warfare with the Spanish, raiding became the established economic basis of Apache bands. The raids literally kept them fed and provided with goods at a much higher level that could be achieved by subsistence hunting/gathering. A primary goal of the raiders was to acquire cattle, horses or mules, as well as any plunder that appeared attractive or useful. The Apache did not keep or breed herds of cattle. They did not keep and breed horses as did other plains Indians tribes. Cattle captured in raids were used for food, and mules and horses were used for both transportation and also as food. Once the captured herds were used up, the raiders went out seeking more.
The excess livestock and plunder taken in raids were traded to unscrupulous trader/merchants. The Apaches frequently made a temporary "treaty" with certain Spanish communities to trade excess goods from raids. In the trades the Apache received the goods they wanted but could not produce—clothing, certain foods, whiskey, more arms and ammunition, and other items. The persons trading with the Apache got animals and goods at low prices that they could then use or resell for a good profits. In these trading sessions, the trader sometimes resorted to treachery, lulling the Indian group into a sense of complacency (sometimes employing mescal), and then capturing them, killing those who resisted. The captives were sold into slavery.
Indians who felt wronged would then indiscriminately kill Hispanic persons, sometimes first subjecting them to torture, and would conduct or participate in raids and ambushes whose goal was retaliation/revenge more than economic gain. Over the two centuries of interaction with the Spanish the Apache bands had acquired a deep distrust of outsiders.
Following the Mexican War, for a brief time the Apache adopted the view toward the people of the United States that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", but this did not last, and in response to the growing invasion of Anglos, and the inevitable conflicts that arose, Indian raiding parties began attacking US ranches, camps, prospectors, freighters, wagon trains, stages, immigrants and small groups and settlements of all kinds.
In conducting raids, the Apache had a very high level of expertise. They employed caution, and exercised discipline. They employed advance preparation, swift movement, and surprise, with sophisticated and well-coordinated small-unit tactics honed by generations of experience. The raiders picked their targets. They knew the country and the raids were almost always successful, after which the raiders moved swiftly from the area. If followed the raiders weighed ambush. The raiders usually killed or attempted to kill all the persons they encountered to prevent being identified, and the development of close pursuit.
During the period of the existence of a fort on the San Pedro River, from 1860 to 1872, the U.S. Army garrison was constantly occupied by responding to these raids, and pursuing and attempting to interdict and kill or capture the raiders. The Apache raiders almost always had superior knowledge of the country, and the Army sometimes did not even get a glimpse of those they pursued. However, the Army kept up pursuit, and did inflict casualties, and the resulting slow attrition of the relatively small Apache bands eventually had an impact. By 1886 the previous Apache population had become either a casualty of war, or had surrendered and was kept under close watch on reservations, often far from their homeland.
Fort Breckinridge 1860 to 1865 The United States military post at the confluence of the San Pedro River and Aravaipa Creek in Arizona Territory existed from 1860 to 1872. The post was built in May 1860 by B Company, U.S. 8th Infantry Regiment, sent from the first Fort Buchanan.
The Fort was sited along the San Pedro River which was a major route of travel from pre-historic times. In 1857, the Leach Wagon Road had been built to provide a freight road from New Mexico to California, and part of the wagon road ran through the San Pedro valley. Reportedly, Leach suggested the fort be built on the route of his wagon road to provide protection for travelers on the wagon road, as well as area settlers and emigrants.
While under construction in May 1860 the post was referred to as the Camp on San Pedro River. It was named Fort Aravaipa (or Aravaypa), when constructed, then officially designated as Fort Breckinridge in August 1860 to honor John C. Breckinridge, vice president from 1857 to 1861 under President James Buchanan. This was the second military post in the area of the Gadsden Purchase (1853).