DID YOU KNOW THAT THERE IS A CONFEDERATE CIVIL WAR CEMETERY HIDDEN BENEATH DOWNTOWN EL PASO?
A brigade of Texas Mounted Volunteers, under the command of Brigadier
General Henry H. Sibley, passed through Fort Bliss in late 1861 en
route to invade the Territory of New Mexico. When these Confederates
retreated to El Paso in April and May 1862, they utilized the Overland
Mail Station as a temporary hospital. Those who died at the
hospital—about 40 soldiers—were buried in the vacant lots across the
street, near the southwest corner of El Paso Street and Overland Avenue.
They likely succumbed to disease, but some may have died of wounds in
battle.
To this day it is
not known what happened to the dead Confederates. The bodies may have
been exhumed and reburied after the Civil War; or they may have been
unearthed when the lots were developed during the 1880s. Both the St.
Charles Hotel and the Myar Opera House were later built across from the
Overland Mail Station and W. W. Mills claimed the cemetery was located
“near where the Opera House now stands.” Some of the bodies may still be
there. The Sibley Trail Association, which delved into this mystery
many years ago, thought it “probable that bones or artifacts still lie
beneath some of the open spaces.”
