Some historical markers commemorate great battles. This one commemorates a battle with bulls.

On the southeast side of the San Pedro River bridge on East Charleston Road in Cochise County, a stone marker erected in 1960 by Boy Scout Troop 21 reads: "The Narrows — Dec 12 1846 — Battle of the Bulls." It is one of the more quietly remarkable roadside history stops in southern Arizona — a monument to the only major engagement of a military unit that marched 2,000 miles and fought almost no one.

We stopped here on April 16, 2022 — part of our Cochise County day loop from the Double G Alpacas Ranch base camp, between Gleeson Ghost Town and Courtland. The bridge fencing was covered in padlocks — the love lock tradition that has attached itself to bridges across the world has found its way here too, locks added by visitors to the fence rail of the San Pedro River crossing in an echo of the romantic gesture that has nothing to do with the Mormon Battalion but makes the stop visually distinctive regardless.

We stopped briefly — long enough to cross the bridge, look out over the San Pedro River, and take in the marker. In the sand bank below the bridge someone had spelled out "PROM?" in rocks, underlined with a tree trunk. The San Pedro carrying both 176-year-old military history and whatever high school drama was unfolding along its banks simultaneously.

The Mormon Battalion — The Only Unit of Its Kind

The Mormon Battalion was the only unit in American military history recruited solely from one religious group and given a religious title as its unit designation. Recruited in Iowa in July 1846 at the request of President James K. Polk during the Mexican-American War, 500 Latter-day Saint men volunteered to march to California to help secure the Southwest for the United States. The march would take them nearly 2,000 miles from Council Bluffs, Iowa to San Diego, California — through Mexican and Native American territory, across desert and mountain terrain, in conditions that were extraordinary by any measure.

Their commander, Lieutenant Colonel Philip St. George Cooke, paid tribute to his men at the conclusion of the march with words that have become part of the Battalion's legacy: "History may be searched in vain for an equal march of infantry. Half of it has been through a wilderness where nothing but savages and wild beasts are found, or deserts where, for want of water, there is no living creature."

The Battle — December 11, 1846

In December 1846 the Mormon Battalion followed the San Pedro River north from the U.S.-Mexico border through what is now Cochise County, Arizona. The San Pedro riparian corridor provided water, firewood, and meat from numerous cattle — wild descendants of Spanish and Mexican ranch animals that had been abandoned in the region for decades, running feral in the river bottom.

On December 11 — the monument marker reads December 12, but historians have established the actual date as the 11th — the battalion's presence attracted the attention of a large herd of wild bulls at The Narrows, a section of the San Pedro where the river canyon tightens. The bulls charged. What followed was, by all accounts, chaotic.

"The rampaging bulls charged on and on. There was great confusion and fear." Three men of the battalion were injured. Three mules were gored to death. Several wagons were overturned. At least nine bulls — some accounts say more than ten — were killed by members of the battalion. No human deaths occurred.

This was the Mormon Battalion's only major engagement of the entire war. They marched 2,000 miles, occupied the pueblo of Tucson without firing a shot, and crossed the Colorado River at Yuma — and their only recorded battle was with cattle.

Brigham Young had reportedly prophesied before the march that if the men kept faith and obeyed their leaders, no member of the battalion would be killed in combat. The Battle of the Bulls — the only combat they encountered — produced three wounded men and no fatalities. The prophecy held.

The Monument — A Note on Location

The current monument at the San Pedro River bridge on East Charleston Road is not at the original battle site. Historical research places the actual Battle of the Bulls approximately 3.5 miles north of the current marker — closer to the Highway 82 bridge near the ghost town of Fairbanks. The monument was originally located further north along the San Pedro before being moved to its current more accessible location. The marker is also misdated — December 12 rather than the historically established December 11.

These discrepancies are common with early 20th-century historical markers placed by community groups rather than professional historians. The marker is worth visiting regardless — it marks a genuine and unusual piece of American military and pioneer history, correctly identified if not precisely located.

The Bridge and the Padlocks

The San Pedro River bridge on East Charleston Road where the monument sits has accumulated a collection of padlocks on the bridge fencing — the love lock tradition that began on the Pont des Arts in Paris and has since attached itself to bridges around the world. The locks here have nothing to do with the Mormon Battalion or the Battle of the Bulls, but the bridge fencing covered in locks makes for a visually striking and unexpected detail at a historical marker in the middle of the Cochise County desert.

The San Pedro River

The San Pedro River — one of the last free-flowing rivers in the American Southwest — runs through this section of Cochise County in a riparian corridor of cottonwood and willow that is globally significant for migratory birds. The river flows north from the U.S.-Mexico border through the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area before joining the Gila River near Winkelman. The same corridor the Mormon Battalion followed north in December 1846 is today one of the most important bird migration routes in North America.

A Second Mormon Battalion Marker — AZ-90

There is a second related marker worth noting for those traveling the area. On AZ-90 heading westbound toward Sierra Vista, a small white stone marker sits on the north side of the highway just before crossing the San Pedro River — another acknowledgment of the Mormon Battalion's passage through this river corridor. The battalion's camp on the San Pedro following the Battle of the Bulls eventually became the settlement of St. David, Arizona — a living legacy of the 1846 march still present in the landscape today. If you are traveling AZ-90 watch for the marker on the north side before the river crossing.

Contact

San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area — BLM Tucson Field Office

(520) 258-7200

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