The Drum Barracks, also known as Camp Drum and the Drum Barracks Civil War Museum, is the last remaining original

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...

era military facility in the Los Angeles area. Located in the Wilmington section of Los Angeles, near the

Port of Los Angeles The Port of Los Angeles is a seaport managed by the Los Angeles Harbor Department, a unit of the City of Los Angeles. It occupies of land and water with of waterfront and adjoins the separate Port of Long Beach. Promoted as "America's Port", ...

, it has been designated as a California Historic Landmark, a Los Angeles Historic Cultural Monument and has been listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

. Since 1987, it has been operated as a Civil War museum that is open to the public.

History

With the outbreak of the American Civil War in April 1861, there were concerns on the Union side about the loyalty and security of the Los Angeles area. Many of the area's residents were recent arrivals from the Southern states, and southerner John C. Breckinridge received twice as many local votes as

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation throu ...

in the 1860 Presidential election. A company of secessionists was also holding public drills in

El Monte, California } El Monte ( Spanish for "The Mountain") is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The city lies in the San Gabriel Valley, east of the city of Los Angeles. El Monte's slogan is "Welcome to Friendly El Monte" and is historica ...

, displaying California's Bear flag instead of the Stars and Stripes.

Phineas Banning Phineas Banning (August 19, 1830 – March 8, 1885) was an American businessman, financier and entrepreneur. Known as "The Father of the Port of Los Angeles," he was one of the founders of the town of Wilmington, in Los Angeles County, Califor ...

, the founder of Wilmington (then known as New San Pedro), wrote a letter to President Lincoln advising that the Union would lose California unless some provision was made to quell pro-Confederacy sentiment. Initially, the Union moved a garrison from

Fort Tejon Fort Tejon in California is a former United States Army outpost which was intermittently active from June 24, 1854, until September 11, 1864. It is located in the Grapevine Canyon (''La Cañada de las Uvas'') between the San Emigdio Mountains and ...

to Camp Latham near

Culver City, California Culver City is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 40,779. Founded in 1917 as a "whites only" sundown town, it is now an ethnically diverse city with what was called the "third-most ...

. Later in 1861, Banning and

Benjamin Davis Wilson Benjamin Davis Wilson (December 1, 1811 – March 11, 1878), commonly known as Don Benito Wilson,Excerpt: ''"Wilson, now known as Don Benito, became a Californio – that group of Mexicans and Angols who thought of themselves as Californians rathe ...

, the first mayor of Los Angeles, donated in Wilmington to the government for one dollar each for use in construction of a Union garrison. By January 1862, the military command had moved from Camp Latham to Camp Drum in Wilmington, and by March 1862, all but one company of Camp Latham's troops had been moved to Camp Drum. The camp was built between 1862 and 1863 at a cost of $1 million and consisted of 19 buildings located on in Wilmington with another near the harbor. By March 1864, official letters and papers referred to the encampment as Drum Barracks rather than Camp Drum. Camp Drum and Drum Barracks get their name from Col.

Richard Coulter Drum Richard Coulter Drum (May 28, 1825 – October 15, 1909) was Adjutant General of the United States Army from 1880 to 1889. Early life He was born in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, and graduated from Jefferson College before entering the printing bus ...

, then Assistant Adjutant General of the Army's

Department of the Pacific The Department of the Pacific or Pacific Department was a major command (Department) of the United States Army from 1853 to 1858. It replaced the Pacific Division, and was itself replaced by the Department of California and the Department of Or ...

, stationed in San Francisco, and not after a percussion instrument. There is no record that Col. Drum ever saw or set foot in the station bearing his name. During the Civil War, Camp Drum was the headquarters of the

District of Southern California The District of Southern California was a nineteenth century district of Department of the Pacific, a command of the United States Army. History Department of the Pacific was created January 15, 1861, during the American Civil War. The District o ...

and the home to the

California Column The California Column was a force of Union volunteers sent to Arizona and New Mexico during the American Civil War. The command marched over from California through Arizona and New Mexico Territory to the Rio Grande and as far east as El Paso, ...

, commanded by Colonel

James Henry Carleton James Henry Carleton (December 27, 1814 – January 7, 1873) was an officer in the US Army and a Union general during the American Civil War. Carleton is best known as an Indian fighter in the Southwestern United States. Biography Carleton ...

. Between 2,000 and 7,000 soldiers were stationed at Camp Drum, and Wilmington became a thriving community with a population greater than Los Angeles during the war. In 1862, Texas Volunteers had taken control of large portions of

New Mexico Territory The Territory of New Mexico was an organized incorporated territory of the United States from September 9, 1850, until January 6, 1912. It was created from the U.S. provisional government of New Mexico, as a result of '' Nuevo México'' becomin ...

(which included present-day Arizona) for the Confederacy, and Colonel Carleton was ordered to retake control of the territory. Approximately 2,350 soldiers from the California Column marched from Camp Drum and fought the

Battle of Picacho Pass The Battle of Picacho Pass, also known as the Battle of Picacho Peak, was an engagement of the American Civil War on April 15, 1862. The action occurred around Picacho Peak, northwest of Tucson, Arizona. It was fought between a Union cavalr ...

, the westernmost battle of the Civil War. In 1864, the federal government feared attempts by Confederate sympathizers to outfit privateers to sink ships carrying gold and silver from the

Comstock Lode The Comstock Lode is a lode of silver ore located under the eastern slope of Mount Davidson, a peak in the Virginia Range in Virginia City, Nevada (then western Utah Territory), which was the first major discovery of silver ore in the Unit ...

to aid the Union. To deprive them of an anchorage, Company C,

4th California Infantry The 4th California Infantry was a volunteer infantry regiment recruited from northern California during the American Civil War. It was organized at Sacramento, Placerville, and Auburn in September and October 1861. 4th California Regiment of In ...

under Captain West, occupied Catalina Island on January 1, 1864, and put an end to gold mining by ordering everyone off the island. A small garrison of Union troops were stationed at Camp Santa Catalina Island on the isthmus on the island's west end for about nine months. Their barracks remain as the oldest structure on the island in the Two Harbors area and are currently the home of the Isthmus Yacht Club. Camp Drum also served as a deterrent to Confederate sympathizers in the Los Angeles area, helped keep the territory loyal to the Union, and prevented Confederate use of the Los Angeles harbor. 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 Fort Yuma was a fort in California located in Imperial County, across the Colorado River from Yuma, Arizona. It was on the Butterfield Overland Mail route from 1858 until 1861 and was abandoned May 16, 1883, and transferred to the Department o ...

. In 1873, the government returned the land to Banning and Wilson after auctioning off the buildings. Banning bought five of the buildings for $2,917, and Wilson bought one for $200.

Historic designations, preservation and use as a museum

In 1927, the Drum Barracks was designated a historic monument by the

Native Sons of the Golden West The Native Sons of the Golden West is a fraternal service organization founded in the U.S. state of California in 1875, dedicated to historic preservation, documentation of historic structures and places in the state, the placement of historic ...

, and in 1935 it was officially designated as California Historic Landmark #169. With the formation of the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission in 1962, Drum Barracks was one of the first sites designated as a Historic Cultural Landmark (HCM #21), receiving the monument designation in 1963. It was also designated as and listed on the

in 1971. In 1963, the owner of the property offered the property for sale, and concerns arose about its potential demolition. Under the leadership of Walter Holstein, local residents formed The Society for The Preservation of Drum Barracks, raising funds to purchase the property. In 1967, under the leadership of Oliver Vickery, curator of the

Banning House Banning House, also known as the General Phineas Banning Residence Museum, is a historic Greek Revival- Victorian home in the Wilmington section of Los Angeles, California. Built in 1863 by Phineas Banning near the original San Pedro Bay, it r ...

, and Joan Lorenzen, the State of California purchased the Drum Barracks, with the Society retaining responsibility for maintenance and operation of the barracks as a historic site. In 1986, the State turned over the property to the City of Los Angeles on the condition that it be operated as a Civil War museum. The surviving 16-room structure was the officers' quarters, which was once one of 19 similar buildings on the site. Today, the barracks is open as a museum which commemorates California's contribution to the Civil War.

Disturbances

The surviving building holds a local reputation as the locale of various

paranormal Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Not ...

activity, with visitors and local residents claiming to hear the sound of rattling chains or wagon wheels and horses' hooves, seeing smoke (presumably from soldiers' pipes), spotting apparitions of a woman in a

hoop skirt A hoop skirt or hoopskirt is a women's undergarment worn in various periods to hold the skirt extended into a fashionable shape. It originated as a modest-sized mechanism for holding long skirts away from one's legs, to stay cooler in hot climat ...

, and smelling a strong lavender violet perfume. The Drum Barracks was profiled on ''

Unsolved Mysteries ''Unsolved Mysteries'' is an American mystery documentary television show, created by John Cosgrove and Terry Dunn Meurer. Documenting cold cases and paranormal phenomena, it began as a series of seven specials, presented by Raymond Burr, Ka ...

'' in the early 1990s in a segment called 'Civil War Ghosts'. Some of the 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 ''Most Haunted'' is a British paranormal reality television series. Following complaints, the broadcast regulator, Ofcom, ruled that it was an entertainment show, not a legitimate investigation into the paranormal, and "should not be taken s ...

''.

California Historical Landmark

California Historical Landmark Marker #169 at the site reads:californiahistoricallandmarks.com 963, Mojave Road Los Angeles
/ref> *NO. 169 DRUM BARRACKS - Established in 1862, Drum Barracks became the United States military headquarters for Southern California, Arizona, and New Mexico. It was a garrison and base for supplies, and a terminus for camel pack trains operated by the Army until 1863. Abandoned in 1866, the site remains a landmark of the Civil War in California.

Footnotes

External links

Official ''Drum Barracks Civil War Museum'' website

* 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 {{Registered Historic Places American Civil War army posts American Civil War museums in California Barracks on the National Register of Historic Places Museums in Los Angeles Wilmington, Los Angeles California in the American Civil War Forts in California Formerly Used Defense Sites in California California Historical Landmarks Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monuments Military facilities on the National Register of Historic Places in Los Angeles Closed installations of the United States Army Government buildings completed in 1863 Residential buildings completed in 1863 History of Los Angeles Reportedly haunted locations in Los Angeles Supernatural legends 1863 establishments in California 1870 disestablishments in California 19th century in Los Angeles American Civil War on the National Register of Historic Places