Follows are two presentations authored by Colonel Hughes.

Battle of Glorieta Pass by Dave Hughes

Forgotten Battles of the Civil War

ex-West Point Cadet Gilpin - First Colorado Territorial Governor

By Col (Ret) David Hughes

It was a series of coincidences that precipitated a number of decisions – by both the Confederacy and the Union that firmly started the Civil War in Colorado.

First of all, as the sheer number of gold rushers, opportunists, mixed in with abolitionists and secessionists answering the call of “Pike Peak or Bust” arrived at the base of the Rock Mountains it became clear that a better form of local government was badly needed. When Kansas was admitted as a State to try and keep it in the Union, the land to the west of it reverted to ‘Indian Lands’ (by treaty) with no effective governance.

So local men from Denver, Auroria, and Colorado City traveled to Washington to lobby to create a new Territory. Because the representative from Colorado City already had a colorful name, derived from the Spanish terms from the color 'red' after the Red Rocks close to the new town   – he persuaded Congress to call the new Territory ‘Colorado’ rather than two others bandided about – Idaho or Corona. Denver had been named after the Governor of Kansas Territory. That would not do. And so ‘Colorado’ Territory – taking its name from Colorado City - was created by Congress.

With territorial government one had to have an appointed governor. So President Lincoln appointed an extensively travelled westerner ‘William Gilpin’ to be Colorado Territory’s first governor. With the admonition “Save Colorado for the Union.”

While Gilpin was still enroute to the new Territory in early April, 1861 Fort Sumter was fired on by the Rebellious Confederacy.

About then Texas, which had been on the fence, decided to join the Confederacy in spite of the opposition by legendary Texan Sam Houston.

At the same time, southern-born officers of the Union Army started resigning their commissions, and started raising their southern units and Armies.

In fact, one of the reasons I, a Colorado native West Point graduate of a much later era – the 1950’s – became keenly interested in the 1860’s Civil War in the West – was because I learned that a large number of southern graduates of the 1830s and later, switched their loyalty from the United States and became, and joined or led western Confederate Armies. The Civil War extended to California.

Although few Historians of the Civil War took more than passing note of those commanders – on both sides – who had not only graduated from West Point but had invaluable military experience that would pay off in battles to come, I am one of the few – in fact I am the only – military historian who has named no less than 38 West Point graduates including 8 ex-cadets whose leadership (one of which was Governor Gilpin ) and skills were decisive in the biggest Civil War engagement in the West - the ‘Glorieta Pass Battle’ which has been called the ‘Little Gettysburg of the West’.

And that battle which ‘saved Colorado for the Union’ while Colorado City was the 1861-62 Territorial Capital came about only because a West Point ex-cadet, William Gilpin saw the Confederate threat coming before others did, and did something controversial - borrow money to raise a military force about it.

The arrival of the Civil War, in which many of those travelling the Arkansas River westward were avowed sessionists, coming from southern states, caused the southern oriented Arkansas River --> Fountain Creek route to be avoided by Northerners. Gold seeking travellers dried up, which had a large negative impact on Colorado City's early development.

Colorado City was just beginning to grow into its intended ‘Gateway to the Gold’ country - after its founding August 12^th, 1859 - when signs of the troubles already starting up back East began to emerge in the west.

It helps to understand that the vast majority of ‘Pikes Peak or Bust’ gold rushers travelled either the North Platte river route northeast of Denver into Colorado Territory, or followed the southern Arkansas River route. The southern route first became busy because the first gold had been panned out in 1858 along Cherry Creek that  flowed north west from the Palmer Divide by a party of southerners headed by Green Russell from Georgia, which had some gold. They travelled north from the Arkansas via the Cherokee Trail that lay east of the Black Forest. There were secessionists among them.

The larger number of gold and fortune seekers came by the north Platte route. Most tended to be pro-union from more northern states. Denver and Auroria grew faster than Colorado City, 70 miles south and 40 miles from the southern Arkansas River which branched into Fountain Creek that flowed through Colorado City down Ute Pass.

By 1860 the first rough census taken in Colorado showed that while 18,000 were northerners 6,000 were from the South. They were outnumbered, but armed quarrels about sessesion were frequent.  The Criterion Saloon in Denver became a hangout for sessesionists. There were several formal duels.

Five hundred spectators lined up on the banks of Cherry Creek to see Park McClure shoot it out with Colt revolvers with Richard Whitsett, outspoken Unionist. McClure, who had been appointed by southern sympathizer President Buchanan as Postmaster, was wounded in the hip. Shortly after Fort Sumpter was fired on, a number of men raised the ‘Stars and Bars’ flag over a Denver store next to the Criterion. A meelee ensued before an intrepid blacksmith named Logan climbed up and brought the flag down. He later became a Captain in the 1^st Colorado Volunteer Regiment. At a large festive 4^th of July picnic gathering near Pueblo, someone put up a Stars and Stripes American flag, whereupon a huge argument started resulting in an armed standoff between the more numerically superior Southerners and fewer Northerners. Finally cooler heads prevailed and the flag stayed up. For now.

Yet gold rush commerce went on. The Colorado City Land Company had been formed, largely by Denver investors listening to Anthony Bott, who had tried and failed in late 1858 to start a town near Fountain Creek, 70 miles south. One of them, W.P. McClure - a sessesionist - appeared on the Fosdick Plat as a Director of the Company that was staked out as ‘Colorado City’ at Pikes Peak,. For a time he was even the Secretary of the El Paso Claim Club, which recorded the first deeds of Colorado City in 1860 and 1861 in the absence of any local government offices. He had been trained as a Lawyer. But he was an extreme secessionist.

The outnumbered rebels went underground. And soon were holding up stagecoaches and supply trains for money and guns as Confederate guerillas.

There even arose a Confederate training place at Mace's Hole - near today's Buleah, Colorado.

Colorado City was caught in the middle, physically and politically, though it eventually became strong Unionist.

The original Colorado City, now known as Old Colorado City and parts of the Westside of today’s Colorado Springs suffered and triumphed through the Civil War right from its 1861 beginnings, 150 years ago. For this - 2009 was the Sesquicentennial Year of that great war which so shaped this country.

Colorado Springs never went through that war.  It was not even founded until 1871, six years after the Civil War was over. That is why very little will be printed or broadcast in greater Colorado Springs or Manitou Springs about the Civil War here in the far West. If the Gazette writes anything, it will only try to lionize ‘General’ Palmer who was a veteran of that war far back east years before. (But he was involved in one of the most controversial mutinies of that war which has ever since been covered up locally, including by the Pioneer’s Museum, and by the Colorado Springs Telegraph newspaper even while Palmer was alive.)

Above all, those 20,000 souls who today live west of Limit Street and east of Manitou – the “Westside” and ‘Old’ Colorado City - deserve to know the true history of those pioneers who settled here where Fresh Ink is distributed, and were caught up and engaged in that war.

Colorado City folk seeking gold came from the north and the south, had strong opinions on states rights and slavery, on Lincoln and the Union, Davis and the Confederacy. There were shootouts in downtown Denver. One founder of Colorado City was a closet Rebel who paid for it with his life! Volunteer settlers engaged in everything from guerilla and counterinsurgent warfare - also involving  Indians tribes - in southern Colorado. There were stand up classic Blue-Gray battles in which Colorado City volunteers were recruited, West Pointers and Regular Army men were involved. A Regiment marched right down Colorado Avenue in 1862 to stop a Rebel Army from Texas taking over this Territory and its Gold.

So I intend to run a series of stories in Fresh Ink right through 2012 to educate locals about the real Civil War history that happened right here. And how it shaped Colorado and Colorado City.  For I have spent 35 years mastering the distinct history of the earliest El Paso County, the original Colorado City, and the life and times on the Westside since it was annexed in 1917.

So lets get started, with extracts of one of the only copies of the Colorado City Journal of 1861 which still exists and I own. Given to me in 1976 by elderly Leroy Ellinwood, once Principal of Buena Vista School, who knew I would do it justice as part of the Colorado City story. Now is the time.

Look at the masthead!  The great American Eagle gripping the flagstaff and Old Glory. Proclaiming “Union and Constitution” With the motto below it “Faithful But Fearless” And the paper identified as Volume 1, Number 1. Colorado City, Colorado Territory, August 1^st, 1861.

You don’t think that ‘59er gold rushers tramping up Colorado Avenue through Colorado City in the summer of 1861 weren’t caught up in that War, which had started April 12^th with the shelling of Fort Sumter back east? Think again.