Matt Quinn said:
If the Confederates had actually gotten into California, what could they have done? They'd have 3-odd thousand regular soldiers and a good number of sympathizers who could serve as irregulars. Were there any populations that weren't very pro-US (Native Americans, Mexican landowners who'd lost their lands, etc) who could also ally with the Confederates?
How many soldiers did the Union have in California?
Well, if we assume the Confederates actually get into California, then we also have to assume that they have already met and disposed of most of the Union forces available for defense of the State. Allow me to explain...In OTL, these forces consisted of several regiments of Infantry and Cavalry which were organized into a Brigade called the California Column. This brigade was commanded by General James Henry Carleton, and, by the time of the battle of Glorietta Pass, was massed at Fort Yuma on the Colorado River in preparation for an invasion of the Confederate Territory of Arizona. Indeed, some advanced units were already in Arizona, skirmishing with Confederate troops under the command of Captain Sherod Hunter.
So, for this scenario to work, Sibley would have had to take Fort Union, transport the supplies there back to Mesilla (present-day Las Cruces, New Mexico, the capital of the Confederate Territory of Arizona), and then march to Tucson to link up with Captain Hunter's forces. He would probably have arrived at Tucson in mid-to-late May 1862...which is about the time that the California Column arrived there. So we can anticipate a big battle at Tucson, say on or about May 20, 1862.
In all likelihood, Captain Hunter would have been informed of Sibley's imminent arrival with reinforcements, and thus would have begun conducting guerilla operations in the rear of the California Column. The California column depended on supplies which were stored at various points...primarily at abandoned stations of the old Butterfield Overland Stagecoach route...along it's route of march from California to Tucson. For obvious reasons, food and fodder were rather scarce in the Arizona desert in 1862, and if some of those stations could have been destroyed, along with the supplies in them, that would have been a severe problem for the California Column, especially if they had to retreat toward California from Tucson. Hunter had, in fact, been following such a strategy before the arrival of the Column in Arizona, and this had delayed the progress of the Column for over a month (otherwise, the Column would have been in Tucson in early April). So it is reasonable to assume he would have done so again.
If we assume the Confederates are victorious at the Battle of Tucson, then, the Californians would likely have found that their supply depots, or a good many of them, no longer existed. Under those conditions, they may not have been able to safely return to California, and would have retreated to Fort Barrett, which was located on the Gila River about 30 miles south of present-day Phoenix. If we assume that Sibley's forces are in close pursuit, then there may be a second battle at this place. Again, assuming the Confederates are victorious, then the California Column may be forced to surrender, as the loss of Fort Barrett would deprive them of their only major supply depot capable of sustaining the Column for any significant amount of time in Arizona.
If the California Column is thus eliminated, there are not a lot of forces left to defend California. Fort Yuma, where another large Union supply depot existed, would have easily fallen to the Confederates. It was estimated at the time that a majority of the population of southern California, and a good portion of northern California's population, was composed of southerners who could be expected to rally to the Confederate cause. Upon capturing Fort Yuma, Sibley would have found Dan Showalter and about 100 other Confederate sympathisers who had earlier been captured while trying to leave California and go to join the Confederacy. Showalter was a very popular politician in California, and with Judge David Terry, another influential Californian who would later travel to Texas to join the Confederacy, would likely have been able to raise significant numbers of troops for Sibley.
So it is very possible that with these reinforcements, Sibley could have marched north and captured the gold fields, and more importantly, San Francisco, including the Mint, the various banks, and other repositories of gold and silver boullion. And they could have probably held it for a while, several months at least, as there was no fast way to get reinforcements to California from the East.
Whether they would have tried to get the gold and silver boullion back to the Confederacy is unlikely, and indeed, they really did not need to do so. All they had to do was to get it into the hands of their agents in Europe. This could have been done by transporting it to the port of Guaymas in the Mexican state of Sonora, whose governor, Ignacio Pesqueira, had reached an agreement with Confederate envoy James Reily in March 1862 and would almost certainly have cooperated with the Confederates in so doing. British and French ships could have then transported the gold and silver to Europe, where agent James Bulloch and others would have suddenly found their efforts to procure arms and ships for the South much simplified. Union naval vessels would probably not have dared to stop the British and French vessels on the high seas, for fear of sparking another TRENT AFFAIR.
The capture of California by the Confederates could also have had another major impact...recognition of the Confederacy by Britain and France.
Either way, the successful conclusion of Sibley's campaign with the capture of California could have been a war-winning move on the part of the Confederacy. But it would have required that a very long string of hurdles be successfully crossed...1) capture Fort Union and it's supplies; 2) eliminate or contain the Union force at Fort Craig, New Mexico; 3) eliminate the California Column; 4) capture the Union supply depot at Fort Yuma.
So, as I said before, it was a pretty crazy scheme. But if EVERYTHING went right for the Confederates, it could have been a war winner.
By the way, if you want to read more about the campaign in Arizona and the personalities involved in it, visit the following site...
http://members.tripod.com/~azrebel/page5.html.
There are some very detailed articles there that I have written over the years on the campaigns in the southwest that you might find very interesting.
