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Robert E. Lee, "Stonewall" Jackson, and Ulysses S. Grant are names synonymous with the American Civil War. Henry Hopkins Sibley and James Carleton are less familiar or altogether unknown names yet their importance to the outcome of the Civil War cannot be overstated. In 1862, General Sibley of the Confederate States of America (CSA) Army marched his brigade from Texas, along the Rio Grande, and was destined for California. Colonel Carleton, commander of the Union's California Column, led his troops eastward from Fort Yuma with the mission of preventing the Sibley Brigade from reaching California. The leaders in Washington, D.C. and Richmond both understood the importance of possessing New Mexico and Arizona territories as they were the gateway to the ports of California.

[[File:confedscript.jpg|thumbnail|350px|Confederate script. Note the slave in the center of the bill]]

Without the revenue generated by the exportation of cotton, the CSA was in dire economic straits. The newly established government "possessed no machinery for levying internal taxes," therefore began printing paper money and financed their war effort primarily with "a billion and a half paper dollars that depreciated from the moment they came into existence."<ref>James McPherson, ''Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 439.</ref> Inflation exacerbated exponentially and goods were in short supply. Salt, which prior to the war was purchased from the North and was the only means by which to cure meat, increased in price from $2 per bag before the onset of war to $60 per bag by the end of 1862.<ref> McPherson, 440.</ref>The Confederate dollar was essentially worthless and without cotton revenue the economy was sure to crumble further. While the economy of the CSA was facing devastation, the southwestern territories were beginning to flourish. Gold was discovered in Arizona along the Gila River in 1857. Three years prior, copper was found in the territory and via the then flowing Colorado River was shipped to Wales for the cost of $360 per ton.<ref>Thomas Sheridan, ''Arizona: A History'' (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995), 63, 162.</ref> The Confederacy needed open ports in order to reestablish trade and eyed the mineral treasures of the Southwest to fund its war effort and feed its citizens.

== Action in Arizona ==