Drum Barracks

Drum Barracks Civil War Museum, August 2008

Drum Barracks was the Union Army's headquarters for Southern California and New Mexico during the Civil War. It consisted of 19 buildings on 60 acres (240,000 m2) in what is now Wilmington, with another 37 acres (150,000 m2) near the waterfront. Its junior officers' quarters has been preserved as the Drum Barracks Civil War Museum. Its powder magazine stands on private property three blocks away, protected by a chain-link fence.

History

The impending withdrawal of regular troops from California to fight in the Civil War presented Los Angeles with a threefold crisis:

• The majority of the population favored the Confederacy, and pro-Confederate demonstrations were made in Los Angeles and El Monte. There was fear that they might seize Southern California, gain control over the gold being mined near San Bernardino and use San Pedro Bay as a base for privateers that would raid the gold ships leaving San Francisco for Cape Horn.
• The Indians in California and what is now Arizona saw the war as the chance of a lifetime to seize cattle, drive off settlers and reclaim their lands.
• The ongoing turmoil in Mexico (the Reform War) and the impending French invasion could allow the Confederates to stir up border trouble or even invade by way of Mexico.

The response was to build a major installation, adjacent to San Pedro Bay and 25 miles south of Los Angeles, to be garrisoned by troops moved from Fort Tejon and later by recruits from Northern California and from among the loyal minority in the area. While the land was donated by Union sympathizers, the construction cost eventually reached $1 million.

Naming the new post

The Drum Barracks is named for Richard Coulter Drum, Assistant Adjutant General of the Army's Department of the Pacific in San Francisco. He supervised construction from his office, visiting the new post only once.

In 1863, Major Bennett, the post commander, wrote to the Adjutant-General in Washington asking that the name be changed to Fort Drum, comparing it to Fort Snelling, Minnesota and Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. No response to the letter has been found.

Arrest of Confederate sympathizers

At least three of the leading citizens of Los Angeles were arrested and taken to the Drum Barracks.

One of these men is Los Angeles publisher Henry Hamilton

Newspaper publisher Henry Hamilton was arrested In Los Angeles on October 17, 1862 and taken to the Drum Barracks. From there he was placed aboard a steamer to be taken to San Francisco and confinement at Fort Alcatraz. He took an oath of allegiance to the United States and was back in Los Angeles within two weeks.

The immediate cause of his arrest is not known, but one of his many editorials had said that the Northern mobilization was an abolition war, "instigated, carried on, and to be consummated, by the degradation of the white race, and the elevation of the African family over them" and that "Black Republican" rule "has degenerated into worse than an Oriental despotism."

The photo shown here has inscriptions stating that Hamilton is on the left. A copy of the photo, taken decades later, has a description indicating that Hamilton is on the right.

Undersheriff A.J. King

Undersheriff A.J. King was arrested at the request of the newly appointed US Marshal, Henry D. Barrows, for saying "that he owed no allegiance to the United States Government; that Jeff Davis' was the only constitutional government we had, and that he remained here because he could do more harm to the enemies of that Government by staying here than going there" and for publicly displaying "a large lithograph gilt-framed portrait of Beauregard, the rebel general, which he flaunted before a large crowd at the hotel." He took an oath of allegiance to the United States and was released.

State assemblyman Edward J. C. Kewen

In October, 1862, a month after he had been elected to the state Assembly, former California Attorney General and later Los Angeles District Attorney E.J.C. Kewen was arrested for ‘treasonable utterance’ and sent to Fort Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay. After two weeks, he took an oath of allegiance, posted a $5,000 bond and was released.

The report of the arrest does not say what the utterance was, but one of his speeches was published later:

“What sorcery is there in the name of Lincoln that it should move the world to extraordinary homage and devotion, and obliterate all the monuments of ancient security and freedom? … It is not remarkable, therefore, that the Executive should be delirious with power, when the magic of his influence is illustrated by such extraordinary effects of willing obedience and fanatical proscription…

“I am not enamored with this word loyalty. It belongs to kingly and not to free government.”

Preventing civil unrest

Drum Barracks troops were stationed at San Bernardino for most of the war and made intermittent encampments at El Monte.

When the news of the Union victory at Gettysburg and the fall of Vicksburg was received in Los Angeles, battles between Union and Confederate factions broke out. A detachment of troops, on their way to the Owens Valley as an escort to a supply train, intervened. Continuing demonstrations by secessionists required the dispatch of 25 additional men to take up a post near Los Angeles in a position to command the town.

Indian battles

A new wave of Indian raids began as soon as troops were withdrawn to the Eastern theater of war. Troops sent east from Los Angeles to confront Confederates first "had to fight the Apaches, hereditary enemies of the Pumas and Maricopas; and the Navajos were also war-like. From Tucson into New Mexico, in fact, the column had to fight its way through hostile Indians, who lurked in every mountain pass, and guarded every water hole."

Named battles and campaigns fought by Drum Barracks troops against Indians included the Battle of Sulphur Springs and the Owens Valley Indian War.

Incursions into Mexico

Drum Barracks troops, including the Spanish-speaking Native California Cavalry, made incursions into the Mexican state of Sonora at Hermosillo, Altar and Magdalena. One incursion led to a shooting incident with troops loyal to Emperor Maximilian and his French allies.

A letter from General Grant, written late in the war, passed on a rumor that former California Senator William M. Gwin had been appointed governor of Sonora by the Imperial government in Mexico and was organizing a Confederate invasion of California. Grant authorized the Army to pursue the invading force back into Mexico and to keep troops there indefinitely. The rumor proved to be false.

Postwar years

After the Civil War, Camp Drum remained active for several years in the Indian Wars. By 1870, it had been deactivated and fallen into disrepair. In October 1871, the Los Angeles Star reported that all remaining troops at Drum Barracks had been ordered to Fort Yuma. In 1873, the government returned the land to its original donors, Phineas Banning and Benjamin Davis Wilson, after auctioning off the buildings. Not surprisingly, there were no winning bids from buyers who would have to move the buildings or dismantle them for building materials. Banning bought five buildings for $2,917 and Wilson bought one for $200.

Ghost sightings

The museum's resident ghosts were profiled by the Los Angeles Times in 1992, including a description of a ghost who "doesn't know he's dead." The same article says that the building was saved from demolition following "a drawn-out battle more fierce than any of the soldiers stationed here had ever fought." Another profile, "Ghost stories from LA's old Civil War barracks", was published in 2018.

The Drum Barracks was profiled on Unsolved Mysteries in the early 1990s, in a segment narrated by Robert Stack, called 'Civil War Ghosts'. People interviewed in that segment claimed to have seen apparitions of Civil War soldiers. In 2005 the Barracks was featured in an episode of Most Haunted.

Historical designations

Drum Barracks has been designated as a California Historic Landmark, a Los Angeles Historic Cultural Monument. It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Since 1987, it has been operated as a Civil War museum that is open to the public.

External links

• Official Drum Barracks Civil War Museum website
• California State Military Museum: "History of the Drum Barracks" webpage
• Los Angeles Public Library files:
  • Brochure from Drum Barracks Museum
  • Pamphlet used by tour guides at Drum Barracks Museum
  • "Drum Barracks and Camel Corps" – article by The Society for Preservation of Drum Barracks.
  • Articles on Drum Barracks
  • "Is local museum haunted?", by Eric Wilhelmus – article in Random Lengths, Oct. 31 – Nov. 13, 1991
• "Drum Barracks - California Historical Landmark no. 169". California Historical Landmark Project Collection. MSS 204. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego (library.ucsd.edu). 1936–1940.