Since the civil war:
1)Union troops sent into CA to prevent CA (and the gold fields) from siding with the Confederacy - CA was almost evenly split in sympathy before the war, with a slight majority favoring the South. In fact, just before the war the California legislature (in Northern California, with northern sympathies), had passed a resolution and forwarded to congress the request that the state be split in two parts, with southern California being named "Colorado". Once the war started, the congress ignored the request, and wasn't about to give southern California it's own senators and House seats after the war. So, even more vicious than carpetbaggers, they left us with Sacramento making the laws!
2)The Union troops used CA as a base to fight Confederate soldiers in Arizona, and as a base for their Navy in the Pacific. Union troops from Fort Yuma, CA engaged and lost to Confederate troops 50 miles north of Tucson in
the westernmost battle of the civil war.
3)A
conflict occured in So Cal between Union soldiers vs California volunteers attempting to leave CA to join Confederate troops.
4)Establishment of Union POW camps in San Pedro and San Francisco. (
Alcatraz was a POW facility, and temporary storage facility early in the war for 10,000 rifles the Union wanted guarded by troops to prevent diversion by sympathizers from the California state armory to the Confederacy.)
5)But California troops did manage to reach the south despite Union efforts -
The Los Angeles Mounted Rifles. The main contributions of this unit consisted of the following: There were in Los Angels several former officers of the U. S. Army who had resigned their commissions and were awaiting acceptance of their resignations before returning to their homes in the South. including Albert Sidney Johnston and Lewis A. Armistead. The Los Angeles Mounted Rifles were able to safely convey them from California through enemy territory and past union forts until they joined Confederate forces in Texas, after which they proceeded to Richmond. Albert Johnson's friend Jefferson Davis made him the second-ranking General of the Confederate Army. Lewis A. Armistead was commissioned Colonel of the 54th Virginia Infantry and soon after promoted to Brigadier General of a Virginia brigade. All the officers and men of the LAMR took positions with other Confederate units, and the LAMR was disbanded.
6)In 1863 and again in 1864, the Confederate Secretary of the Navy ordered actions against California mail ships and capture of a California ship to become a commerce raider to attack whaling, guano, gold, and mail shipments, and to harass the Union's understrength
Pacific Squadron of 1861-1866
7) Two former Confederates who were unsuccessful in their attempts at secession in the 1860’s became very successful at their attempt to secede from Los Angeles County in the 1880’s.
Orange County was the result of their efforts - over 700 civil war vets are buried in Orange county. (In Disneyland, I'll take my stand...)
Lots of other southern links between California and the South, including the Mississippi steam boat
Delta Queen - originally built as a Sacramento river boat in 1927, comandeered by the US army for use during WW2, then transplanted to the Mississippi in 1946.
So that is why they call it Southern California!
