Alonzo Ridley was born on June 3, 1826, in Bowdoin, Maine, to Ambrose Ridley and Abigail Nash. Ridley grew up in New England, and his father may have died around 1831. In January 1849, he travelled to California aboard the steamship Pharsalia. By the early 1850s, he was working as a trader and Indian agent in southern California. In February 1861, he helped organize the Los Angeles Mounted Rifles, a cavalry company that threw its support behind the Confederacy. The soldiers elected Ridley as their captain, and they travelled with Albert Sidney Johnston across the southwestern desert until they reached Texas in July 1861. The company disbanded soon afterward, but Ridley became a major in the 3^rd Texas Cavalry, Arizona Brigade, in February 1863. He was captured during the Battle of Fort Butler in June 1863 and spent the next two years as a prisoner of war. He moved to Mexico after war and built railroads and bridges for the Mexican government. He settled in Tempe, Arizona, in the late 1870s, and he died there on March 25, 1909.

SOURCES