Burial Site: SFNC, Plot Section 1, unmarked
After graduating from West Point, George Bascom first stationed at Camp Floyd in Utah. With the start of the Civil War, Bascom was sent to the New Mexico Territory where he was appointed Captain.² On February 21, 1862, Bascom was killed in action against Confederate forces at the battle of Valverde. Prior to his service in the Civil War, Bascom was a participant in a significant part of NM and US history, “Cochise and the Prelude to the Bascom Affair.” This event in American history marks the start of., “open warfare between Cochise and Americans, although not the beginning of hostilities in Arizona, 1861.” A simple kidnapping of an Arizonian farmers son, would spark violent warfare between the US Army and the Chiricahua Apache for a decade.³
Notes:
- Find A Grave
- George N Bascom in the US Civil War Soldier Records and Profiles, 1861-1865.
- New Mexico Historical Review, Volume 64, Number 4, Article 3, Cochise and the Prelude to the Bascom Affair, by Edwin Sweeney, 1989.
Prepared by Steve Martinez, Ph.D. Santa Fe Community College