Abstract

 

Submitted for the Ninth Annual Symposium on the 19 Century Press,

The Civil War, and Free Expression,

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga,

November 8, 9, & 10, 2001

 

SNAGGLE-TOOTH JONES, MACE'S HOLE, AND CONFEDERATES IN COLORADO

Confederate activity in Colorado during the first eighteen months of the Civil War and the Influence of the Rocky Mountain News

 

By Meredith Campbell

 

Author and faculty in the department of Arts and Humanities

J. Sergeant Reynolds Community College

Richmond, Virginia

 

When William N. Byers, founder and senior-editor, of the Rocky Mountain News printed "Stand by the Union" on April 20, 1861, for many in the city of Denver his words fell on deaf ears. Confederate flags flew in downtown Denver. Women wore Confederate rings. A popular saloon and theatre performed secesh-slanted shows. In Denver and up and down the Front Range--that area from Denver south to Raton Pass that fronts the foothills of the Rocky Mountains-- Confederate recruiting officers openly urged men to join their regiments and fight for the Confederacy. Yet, only eighteen months later the political climate had changed, so that Byers could report with glee the arrest of a drunken worker who hurrahed Jefferson Davis at a Union rally. Confederate soldiers had moved underground to a hiding place deep in Southern Colorado called "Mace's Hole." Rebel leaders perpetuating guerrilla warfare had been either captured or had fled the territory. And Colorado had been made safe from a Confederate invasion.

Geographically far removed from the borders of the Confederacy and having no African slavery, one would think the mountain air would have bred a uniform loyalty to the Union. However, such was not the case. Why did Colorado, of all places, have a large pro-south element? To answer the question this paper will explore an overview of Colorado's demographics and settlement. After prospectors found gold along Dry Creek, near Denver, the "Pike's Peak" gold rush caused phenomenal growth. In February 1861 Colorado became an official territory of the United States. In April of that year The Rocky Mountain News, founded 1859, crowed about Denver emerging from being "a village of mud huts" to a city of "universally admitted importance." All the while, migration from the East continued and most of it from the southern states.

 

Research demonstrates that the Confederacy wanted Colorado and the Southwest, badly. It counted on the large number of Southern sympathizers inside the territory to help them obtain it. What happened? What kept a "fifth column" from exploding into an overt take over? Why didn't Confederate General Henry Sibley lead his Texas troops in victory up the Front Range? Three things kept Colorado out of the Confederate camp: the Rocky Mountain News as an agent of change, influencing political attitudes, the efforts of territorial Governor, William Gilpin as political leader, and the battle at Glorietta Pass, as the definitive military action in the Southwest. Using oral histories, extant issues of the Rocky Mountain News between December 1860 to the autumn of 1862, and other sources, this study shows how those three elements effectively kept Colorado in the Union.