Desert Tiger: Captain Paddy Graydon and the Civil War in the Far Southwest

by Jerry D. Thompson

Non-fiction: Southwestern Studies This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0874041929
• ISBN13: 9780874041927
• Release Date: January 1992
• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Length: 86 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

The Civil War Certainly Spread to the American Southwest

There is an endless fascination with the American Civil War. It was, perhaps, the American Iliad. One estimate is that a book on the Civil War has appeared for every day that has passed since Lee surrendered to Grant. That is an awesome production. Jerry D. Thompson's monograph, Desert Tiger is one of that number, and it will find a place among a small group of Civil War aficionados. The central character of this book is James "Paddy" Graydon, a 21 year old Irish immigrant who came to the United States in 1853. Once in the U.S. he joined the Army and served in the Southwestern frontier. In 1858 Graydon left the Army to become proprietor of the United States a bar/hotel/whore house near Fort Buchanan, known as one the toughest "watering holes" in the region. Graydon gained fame as a man who could hold his own against anyone. In addition to personal daring, which he demonstrated repeatedly, Graydon mastered the difficult skills of "westering," gaining fame as a scout, hunter, and Indian fighter. When the Civil War erupted in 1861 Graydon entered military service and commanded a company of volunteers in the Arizona/New Mexico region. Thompson asserts that Graydon quickly became the "eyes and ears" of Federal forces in New Mexico His success in command resulted from impressment of civilians into his unit and questionable (even for that time and place) disciplinary actions that led to rampant desertion and even more impressments to keep his command at full strength.The author also describes two of Graydon's less than heroic military exploits. The first took place on the night before the battle of Valverde in February 1862. On that occasion Graydon placed boxes of lit howitzer shells on the backs of two pack mule and sent them into the Confederate lines with the intent of blowing up some rebels and creating a little havoc. But the animals got scared and ran back toward the Union camp where the shells exploded killing only the mules. The "mule raid" was a source of amusement for Federal troops--none of whom appear to have been animal rights activists--thereafter. More suspicious was the murder of a party of Mescalero Apaches by Graydon and his men in October 1862 in what was called the "Gallinas Massacre." The massacre led directly Graydon's murder on November 5, 1862, because of a disagreement with a union surgeon named John Whitlock over the nature of the engagement. In an exchange of gunfire between the two, Graydon was mortally wounded and some of his company then killed Whitlock.This small study tells what there is to know about "Paddy" Graydon. Thompson has done a commendable job of telling the story of a disagreeable character in the history of the American Southwest.

An excellent study of the unknown Civil War

Not all the Civil War was fought in Virginia. The vast expanses of the dry Southwest were claimed by the Confederacy. Here, in this harsh land, Paddy Graydon, an Irish immigrant and veteran Army man, recruited a company of Spanish-speaking recruits to harass the Confederate invaders. The Apaches, the Spanish and the rebel Texans met in bloody struggle. The true-life Old West shootout that ended Captain Graydon's outdoes anything thought of by Hollywood.