Camp Reynolds

Camp Reynolds was established on Angel Island during the Civil War as a Union Army post intended to protect the bay from Confederate or foreign attacks on gold or trade ships and to provide a base for responding to pro-Southern unrest in California. Life there could be difficult, with harsh winds around wooden buildings meant to be temporary, yet some of those structures still survive more than 150 years later. Angel Island became a military reserve in 1850 but was not occupied until 1863, and a bakehouse built that year is one of the island's oldest buildings. After the Civil War, troops passed through Camp Reynolds before being sent to fight in the Indian Wars. At the height of its use in the 1870s and 80s, more than a dozen buildings supported camp life, and when barracks overflowed, soldiers stayed in tents on the parade ground. Wives, children, and pets were part of the camp's small-village life, military musicians both entertained and played during fighting, and the hospital also served as a teaching hospital for medicine and administration. Samuel Clemens, Mark Twain, visited in 1864 and said it "bears the appearance of a pleasant little village." In 1900 the camp became the West Garrison of the newly established Fort McDowell, headquartered on the east side of the island, and its grounds continued in use as overflow housing through World War II. Colonel Allensworth, the first African American to reach the rank of lieutenant colonel, served there as chaplain.

Tiburon, California · United States