On to Albuquerque
The Confederate victory at Valverde temporarily halted Union opposition. The Federals prepared for the further Confederate incursions. Canby instructed Major James Donaldson and part the 3rd U.S. Cavalry to head north and remove or destroy all supplies along Sibley’s route. He further wanted all Union forces in northern New Mexico to consolidate at Fort Union. Fort Union sat at the other end of Apache Canyon, the entryway into Colorado Territory. Donaldson followed his orders, destroying or taking all that was in Santa Fe. Santa Fe itself, despite its importance as the territorial capital, was deemed indefensible because it was surrounded by hills. It would be abandoned for the time being. Once finished, Donaldson joined Colonel Gabriel R. Paul and his 4th New Mexico Volunteers at Fort Union. The colonel as a veteran of the Mexican War and frontier fighting and noted for his competency. Paul now had under him a company of regular soldiers, two cavalry units, two howitzers, Coloradans (more on them later), and additional New Mexican volunteers under Manuel Chaves, the descendant of a conquistador and a prominent New Mexican himself.[1]
The Sibley Brigade’s first major stop was at Socorro. The march there was very unpleasant. The ground was “deep sand. Our progress was slow as our mules were about worked down and could hardly pull the empty wagons.” The men had to physically help out and push the wheels to keep the wagons moving. The shortage of litters for Valverde’s wounded exacted a further logistical price. Texans had to cut up some of their tents to fashion new litters. The destination was worth it. Socorro was held by Captain Nicolas Pino and 200 Hispanic militiamen. The rebel guns opened fire and most of the militia abandoned Pino. The captain surrendered and the Texans moved in. Socorro provided the first real housing in over a month. The Sibley Brigade stayed there for four days, turning it into a hospital where the wounded could be left. With the wounded there, the Sibley Brigade would be able to move on without their weight slowing them down. One of the wounded, Captain Lang of the lancers, was in such agony that he begged his slave for his revolver. He promptly committed suicide with it. The brigade, aside from the wounded and some doctors and guards, marched out on February 26. These would be brought up later, but were practically at the mercy of Canby’s men should they decide to leave Fort Craig. As Sibley’s Brigade moved, small parties of Federals followed them, but at a “respectful distance.” The Confederates were actually glad to have the enemy nearby, as they were one of the only reliable sources of supplies, meaning they could steal from them through small raids and forays. They also looted the various villages they came across, to ravenous extents. They not only deprived hundreds to thousands of New Mexicans of food, livestock, and tools, but sometimes tore up their roofs and house frames for much-needed wood. Up to this time they lost about 1,000 horses to hard marching effects and Apache raids. In spite of their victory a week earlier, the rank-and-file were in tough straits. They marched with thirst and “gnawing hunger,” with little transportation to haul their baggage. Stragglers lined the route. Even the hard-fighting Lieutenant-Colonel Scurry began to lose heart and made a failed bid to resign. The officers and men of the Sibley Brigade hoped that the capture of Albuquerque would relieve their suffering.[2]
Donaldson’s destruction of supplies along Sibley’s projected
route was not complete. When the Union soldiers tried to fire the supplies at
Albuquerque, the local Hispanics rushed in and rescued many of the goods for
themselves. Further south the Texans reached the town of Cubero and acquired 60
guns along with 3,000 rounds of ammunition. Still, it was not as much as they
would like, or need to continue their campaign.[3]
The Confederates themselves had to burn some of their wagons. The heavy loss in
horses and mules meant less teams to pull them and thus less capacity for
carrying supplies. The Texans would have to seize wagons and animals from the
civilians to rebuild their logistical base.[4]
 |
| This is sketch of a building in Albuquerque is one of many Texan Albert Peticolas drew in his journal. Though no fan of the Hispanic inhabitants, Peticolas was quite taken with the Mexican architecture he saw throughout the state. |
The
capture of Albuquerque did not yield the desired fruits. Many noted that if
mounted men had been sent ahead to seize it right after Valverde, then the
stock of supplies there could have been saved for the Sibley Brigade. Texans
were crushed before they even entered the town. They saw the large column of
smoke from the burning supplies. Once there they found a “pool of grease” where
a stockpile of bacon had been. All other supplies were had been taken by the
town’s citizens.[5]
The men stopped here for a brief winter camp. About 50 of them died of various
causes getting to and at Albuquerque.[6]
One sign of hope was a warmer civilian welcome. As a major town in New Mexico,
Albuquerque had a good number of pro-Secessionists. Even some of those with no
personal feelings on the war were glad to see the Texans Union soldiers in
northern New Mexico had tried to force the male inhabitants into their army.
One grateful Hispanic farmer showed the Texans he was hosting a bayonet wound,
gained when a solider tried to prod him into service. For the time being many
of the locals were generous in feeding and housing the Sibley Brigade.[7] The
Sibley Brigade also received new recruits out of their next target at Santa Fe.
This mounted group of men was known as the Santa
Fe Gamblers, otherwise called the Brigands. They were notoriously unruly.[8]
Baylor’s Grip Loosens
While
Sibley continued his drive towards the gold mines of Colorado, Baylor, leaving
Colonel William Steele as acting governor, left Mesilla to wage war against the
Chiricahua Apaches. Baylor, Sherrod Hunter (the captain of the Arizona
Rangers), and others had a personal vendetta to fulfill. Many of their ranches
and farms had been raided by the Apaches and other Indians in recent years.
While the men were ready for a fight, Baylor did have his eye on diplomacy.
Hunter was instructed to forge a relationship with the Pima and Maricopa
Indians. These Indians could serve as scouts and defend supply depots, enabling
a westward thrust at California as opposed to Sibley’s circuitous route. At the
same time the trade relationship with the Mexican state of Chihuahua, forged by
Colonel Reilly months earlier, continued. However, Reilly was still not able to
procure permission for Confederate troops to pass through Chihuahua and Sonora.
Both he and Terrazas were acting outside of any oversight or approval from
their respective national leaders and any such provision could cause an
international incident. However, Baylor violated the agreement by pursuing
Apache sheep raiders across the border. To make matters worse, some of the men
he came upon and killed were not the raiders, but a mine owner’s Apache slaves.
The Mexicans did not take kindly to this violent breach of the treaty. “The
atrocities of Baylor’s men,” noted a U.S. Consul in northern Mexico, “will
serve to revive the hatred of the Chihuahuans to the Texans.”[9]
 |
| A sketch of Sherrod Hunter, leader of the Arizona Rangers. He was a farmer in New Mexico when the Apache drove him from his home. He joined Baylor's Confederates to fight the Apache. |
Baylor’s
aggressive action against the Apaches did bring Mangas Coloradas to the
negotiating table. However, Baylor gave sinister instructions to Captain Tom
Helm, who was to meet Coloradas. Under the auspices of peace, Helm would get as
many Apaches together as possible. After getting them drunk on whiskey, he and
his men would “kill all the grown Indians and take the children prisoners and
sell them to defray the expense of all the whiskey.” Baylor also committed a
political mistake when he boldly stated that the official Confederate policy
towards enemy Indians was “extermination.” The planned peace talks and thus any
attempt at the massacre did not occur, but Baylor had caused controversy within
the Confederate government. He, a territorial governor, had not only presumed
to speak for the national government, but had also nearly implicated it in his
personal, vengeful plot.[10]
Baylor further stirred the pot regarding Sibley. He was bitter that Sibley had
taken command of the planned Confederate conquest of the West and that he had
been forced into an administrative role. His ally Steele wrote to Richmond with
a highly derogatory, if somewhat accurate, report of Sibley’s failures so far.[11]
Foragers
Back in New Mexico, Sibley was trying to revitalize his campaign. Colonel Green put William sent out some foraging parties from Albuquerque. They proved fairly successful and “greatly relieved our sufferings.” William Davidson once came upon a Union ambulance alone with two horses. He did not find the driver, but unhitched the horses and took them back to his regiment. Meanwhile Major Teel worked on fixing the artillery guns and caissons, as well as finding and allocating horses to the batteries. Among his charges were McRae’s former guns. Things for the Sibley Brigade’s artillery arm.[12]
Despite
the good that the rest at Albuquerque and the foraging parties were doing,
Sibley still believed he needed more. He sent the 4th and 7th
Texas, with many of the horses, east to the Sandia Mountains, where there was
more grass and wood available. It was hoped that the animals would regain their
strength here. Though they had to endure a sandstorm of at the start, the men
in this excursion had at first a comparatively pleasant interlude. They got to
enjoy dense pine and cedar forests as well as periods of leisurely inactivity.
Not as pleasant was a snowfall which covered them while they slept one night.
Scurry, in charge of this advance force, tried to find better living
conditions. Many of the men were able to find refuge in the homes of Hispanics.
Nevertheless, the cold weather spread pneumonia among the troops. This movement
east was the first step to traversing Apache Canyon to Fort Union, the next
major target. This path would actually put the Texans in a southward direction
for a short while, as the canton ran in this direction before opening to a path
north.[13]
Santa Fe
On March 10, mounted men from Pyron’s 2nd Texas entered Santa Fe. Among them were the Santa Fe Gamblers. On March 13 Pyron personally arrived, raising the Confederate flag over the town. The Texans did not do much to endear themselves to the local population. While they allowed captured militia to go free on parole, they also looted and harassed the civilians. They deprived hundreds of New Mexicans of livestock, food, bedding, and other goods. In a couple instances the Confederates resorted to destroying a home altogether. This reinforced the Hispanics’ anti-Texan feeling.[14] On the other hand, The Sibley Brigade was able to make connections with pro-Confederate civilians. One, Dr. Finis Kavanaugh, was able to bluff a small Federal detachment guarding 25 wagons of supplies into surrender. The wagons were delivered to Santa Fe, giving Sibley’s campaign another much-needed boost. The Texans received more New Mexican recruits. Thomas Carter, an Irish-born citizen, enlisted. He would be killed five days later at the Battle of Glorieta Pass.[15]
These
gains seemed to portend success. But all across the Sibley Brigade’s path,
Hispanics and plenty of Anglo inhabitants suffered from the effects of the
Texans’ presence. The mass impressment and looting of supplies had a horrid
effect on New Mexicans, who were mostly poor to start with. In order to stave
off their own starvation, the Rebels had stripped all they came across of food.
The mother superior in Santa Fe lamented, “Our poor and distant territory has
not been spared. The Texans, without any provocation, have sacked and almost
ruined the richest portions and have forced the most respectable families to
flee from their homes...” The entire region faced the prospect of mass
starvation.[16]
Sibley had predicted that most people in the West would flock to the
Confederate cause. But a good number had been indifferent to the war. Now they
were simmering with rage with the newcomers’ depredations. For the time being
the Sibley Brigade ruled, but if it experienced any serious reversal of
fortune, the New Mexicans were waiting to get back at them.
The Coloradans Arrive
The
Texans needed to take Fort Union. It sat along the Santa Fe Trail and
controlled the link between New Mexico and Colorado. If the Federals were
pushed out, the Sibley Brigade could pass north into Colorado or, if desperate
conditions made it necessary, go east to Kansas and Missouri and link up with
Rebel forces there. Fort Union was still held by Colonel Gabriel Paul and his
mix of volunteers and regulars. Paul needed more men to hold the fort and these
would have to come from Colorado.[17]
 |
| Colonel John P. Slough |
William Gilpin, the territorial governor of Colorado, had clamped down on pro-secessionists, but was slow to send any military support to New Mexico. He mistakenly believed that Colorado was in danger of a Secessionist takeover and needed a defense force in-territory. Lewis Weld, the territorial secretary, worked against him, managing to send small units to assist Canby. The first such group was Dodd’s Independents, who had already proven themselves at Valverde. The next wave of Coloradan reinforcements were affectionately named Pet Lambs, an ironic name since they were the polar opposite of gentle and innocent creatures. Most of the regiments were composed of rough, hardened men from mountain mining camps. They were “wild, gay, rollicking, tempestuous sons of the frontier, with little respect for formal law but with an innate sense of fundamental justice.” In short they were individualistic to the point of indiscipline and could terrorize their officers with insubordination, and the local populace with what they felt was necessary theft. A Christmas dinner near Denver resulted in a collection of drunken soldiers. The sheriff and police arrived to calm things down, but this only started a large brawl. The commander of these rough-and-ready recruits was Colonel John P. Slough, a lawyer from Denver. His lieutenant-colonel was Samuel F. Tappan, an abolitionist. Gilpin gave the position of major to John M. Chivington. Chivington was a fiery Methodist who had done missionary work in Indian Territory and was serving as high-ranking organizer and supervisor within Colorado’s part of the Methodist Episcopalian Church. Weld ordered the now fully organized 1st Colorado to head south.[18]
 |
| Governor Henry Connelly |
The
Coloradans’ march was incredible. In the midst of snowing, freezing weather,
they marched up to 40 miles a day. “The frost was severe; it broke the lock
bolt of one of the heavy freight wagons like it was a pipe-stem,” recalled the
wife of one soldier. That’s right, some of the soldiers brought along their
wives, and children, too. These were allowed to ride the wagons, but
nevertheless endured the hard weather conditions alongside the men. When they
learned how close Sibley’s Brigade was to their border, they upped the ante
with a 36 hour 92 mile march. After a rest, they made it the rest of the way
into For Union. Overall they trekked 400 miles in 13 days.[19]
Slough, claiming seniority in volunteer command, wrested control of the men
from Colonel Paul of the 4th New Mexico Volunteers. Paul was
“mortified.” He had years of experience, but because he was given command of
volunteers an amateur had been able to go over him. Paul also did not approve
of Slough’s plan to march out and strike the enemy. He saw Slough’s plan to
meet the enemy as a full-fledged and ill-advised campaign to hit Scurry’s force
at the other end of the canyon. He also did not approve of the plan to empty
the fort of almost all its men. This went against Canby’s strategy to hold a
defensive posture. Regardless of Paul’s reservations, New Mexican Governor
Connelly, who had abandoned Santa Fe and now resided at the town of Las Vegas
(New Mexico, not Nevada) expressed his support for the Coloradan. Slough
immediately set out from the fort to find and engage the enemy, briefly taking
credit for Paul’s organization and preparation for such a foray. Hearing that
Texans had gotten to Santa Fe, he sent Chivington ahead with a small force to
go there and engage the enemy. Scurry’s Texans were also moving out, examining
the next leg of Sibley’s campaign. The two armies were set for a collision
course and the second great battle for New Mexico.[20]
Next: The two force meet in Apache Canyon to start off the final battle for New Mexico.
Primary
Sources
Peticolas,
A.B. Rebels on the Rio Grande: The Civil
War Journals of A.B. Peticolas. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico
Press, 1984.
Tate,
Michael L. (1987) “A Johnny Reb in Sibley’s New Mexico Campaign: Reminiscences
of Pvt. Henry C. Wright, 1861-1862, Part I.” East Texas Historical Journal: Vol. 25: Iss. 2, Article 7.
-
(1988)
“A Johnny Reb in Sibley’s New Mexico Campaign: Reminiscences of Pvt. Henry C.
Wright, 1861-1862, Part II.” East Texas
Historical Journal: Vol. 26: Iss. 1, Article 7. Thompson, Jerry (ed.). Civil War in the Southwest: Recollections of
the Sibley Brigade. Texas A & M University Press, 2001.
Thompson,
Jerry (ed.). Civil War in the Southwest:
Recollections of the Sibley Brigade. Texas A & M University Press,
2001.
United
States. The
War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and
Confederate Armies Vol. IX, L. Washington
D.C. 1894.
Secondary
Sources
Alberts,
Don E. The Battle of Glorieta: Union
Victory in the West. Texas A & M University Press, 1998.
Austerman, Wayne. “The South’s Legion of Lancers.” Civil War Times Illustrated (March
1985), pp. 20-25.
Frazier,
Donald S. Blood & Treasure:
Confederate Empire in the Southwest. Texas A & M University Press,
1995.
Josephy,
Alvin M. The Civil War in the American
West. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991.
Nelson,
Megan Kate. The Three-Cornered War: The
Union, the Confederacy, and Native Peoples in the Fight for the West. New
York: Scribner, 2020.
Pittman,
Walter E. New Mexico and the Civil War,
The History Press, 2011.
Thompson,
Jerry. Henry Hopkins Sibley: Confederate
General of the West. Natchitoches: Northwestern State University Press,
1987.
[1] OR IX, 527; Pittman, 26.
[2] Thompson, 2001, 74, 76;
Peticolas, 54, 56; Wright, 272; Frazier, 183, 193-194; Austerman, 23.
[3] OR IX, 527-529.
[4] Peticolas, 52.
[5] Thompson, 2001, 77.
[6] Thompson, 2001, 79.
[7] Frazier, 195.
[8] Peticolas, 88.
[9] Nelson, 81-85, 87-88; Frazier,
188.
[10] OR Vol. L, 942; Frazier, 197.
[11] Frazier, 196-198.
[12] Thompson, 2001, 79. 87-88.
[13] Peticolas, 66-69; Alberts,
17-18.
[14] Josephy, 73-74; Thompson, 1996, 273.
[15] Pittman, 27, 34.
[16] Pittman, 28; Alberts, 15.
[17] Frazier, 188.
[18] Pittman, 30; Alberts, 23-24,
26-29.
[19] Josephy, 77; Alberts, 23.
[20] OR IX, 534, 646; Alberts, 35-36,
39.
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