The First Battle of Dragoon Springs was a minor skirmish between a small troop of Confederate dragoons of Governor John R. Baylor's Arizona Rangers, and a band of Apache warriors during the American Civil War. It was fought on May 5, 1862, near the present-day town of Benson, Arizona, in Confederate Arizona. Background Creation of a separate Arizona Territory distinct from the New Mexico Territory in the late 1850s was thwarted over disagreement in Congress on the new territory's boundary: Northern representatives argued for a north–south division along the present Arizona-New Mexico boundary, whereas Southern representatives pushed for an east–west division along the 34th parallel. With the coming of the Civil War, the new Confederate government was free to establish the boundary as it saw fit. Shortly after the arrival of Confederate forces from Texas, secessionists met at Mesilla to adopt an Ordinance of Secession, on March 16, 1861. This aim became a reality following the Confederate victory at the First Battle of Mesilla on July 25, 1861. On August 1, 1861, Lt. Col. John R. Baylor, commanding the victorious Confederate troops at Mesilla, issued a proclamation declaring the creation of a provisional Confederate Territory of Arizona, to include all of the former United States Territory of New Mexico south of the 34th parallel north. Baylor named himself governor and set up a territorial government that would continue in operation until the Confederates were forced out of New Mexico in July 1862. This Territory of Arizona was officially declared by Confederate President Jefferson Davis on February 14, 1862, and shortly thereafter Confederate forces were deployed on the ambitious New Mexico Campaign to gain control of the Southwest. In order to make good the Confederacy's claim to the western portion of their new Arizona Territory, Confederate soldiers, commanded by Capt. Sherod Hunter, were ordered to occupy Tucson, arriving there on February 28, 1862. They occupied the town until May 14, 1862, and it was a detachment of these troops that was involved in the fight at Dragoon Springs on May 5. Battle On May 5, 1862, a small band of mounted Confederates escorting Union prisoners to Texas was encamped at an abandoned Butterfield Overland Mail stagecoach station and spring in the Dragoon Mountains, about 16 miles from the present-day town of Benson and near Dragoon, Arizona. A force of about 100 Chiricahua Apache warriors, commanded by the war chiefs Cochise and