friction between the two as Chivington viewed Tappan as a rival whom he sought to discredit. Tappan participated in action at Peralta on April 15, 1862, as the Union troops pursued the retreating Confederate forces under Brig. Gen. Henry Hopkins Sibley southward back towards Texas. Tappan, with the rest of the First Colorado, remained in New Mexico billeted at Fort Craig, serving under Canby well into the summer of 1862. Return to Colorado After an act of perceived insubordination in 1863, Tappan was relegated by Chivington to the command of Fort Garland, a command in a remote part of southern Colorado near the traditional lands of the Ute and containing a large Hispanic population. During his command of Fort Garland, he was assigned by Governor John Evans and Colonel Chivington to hunt down the Espinosa brothers, brigands and murderers who killed 32 Colorado citizens in cold blood and engaged in rape, robbery and other destructive acts. A $2500 reward had been offered by Governor Evans for the capture either dead or alive of the Espinosas. Employing the services of noted mountain man, Indian scout and tracker Tom Tobin, Tappan assigned a group of troopers to accompany Tobin and track down the Espinosas. On the fourth day, Tobin tracked down the Espinosas and killed the two brothers, bringing their severed heads back to Tappan as proof of his success. When Tappan forwarded the trophies to Denver, Chivington used the opportunity to lambast Tappan for such "unchristian" behavior despite the common use at the time of such methods. Tappan also paid Tobin from his own pocket when Governor Evans failed to pay the full reward he was owed. Years later as a matter of personal honor, Tappan sponsored an effort to make restitution to an aged and penniless Tobin. In 1864, Tappan's father died in Massachusetts and, after numerous queries to Chivington, Tappan was finally granted his first leave of the war. He returned home to help comfort his mother and sisters and then traveled to Washington, D.C. where he had many connections in the military hierarchy. His cousin Elizabeth Tappan Tannatt's (sister of his Colorado cousins' Lewis, William and George Tappan) husband, Col. Thomas R. Tannatt commanded the First Massachusetts Heavy Artillery in the city's defenses and John P. Slough, his former Colonel in the First Colorado, had been appointed a Brigadier General and was the Military Governor of Alexandria and