The New Mexico Campaign, 1861-1862 Part III: The Battle of Valverde

Valverde

Canby’s Forces

Canby was aware as early as June 1861 that the Texans were preparing a major invasion of New Mexico. For the first few months of the war, however, he was much more focused on ending an upsurge in Apache and Navajo raids. He sent small teams of soldiers around the territory to skirmish with Navajo warriors and seize their sheep herds. This strategy was starting to yield results when the Texan Confederate threat was confirmed. Though Sibley’s Brigade had many logistical obstacles to overcome, Canby, as was common with Civil War commanders, overestimated the size of the enemy’s and felt he needed more men.[1] Canby requested that Colorado and Utah Territories raise troops, to be sent to him if necessary. Colorado was quicker to respond Recruitment for Coloradan units proceeded at Denver. Hundreds of gold miners, many having not achieved the rich successes they had expected, answered the call. With winter coming in, there would be a halt of mining activity. Unable to make income and for the most part not having stockpiled enough gains, the miners saw a chance to receive guaranteed pay and food, and perhaps some excitement. The first ready unit, Company B of the 2^nd Colorado, fell under the command of West Point graduate Theodore Dodd. Meant to be part of a full regiment, they were already equipped and trained ahead of the other companies in their unit. On January 1, the Coloradans learned that they would not be spending the winter in camp. Canby needed all the help he could get and Dodd was to lead his company to Santa Fe. The men were motivated. They would not only get some adventure, they would ensure that Colorado Territory was represented in the war. As they would go ahead without the rest of their regiment, they came to be known as “Dodd’s Independents.” The Coloradans marched through snow-covered trails in the mountains. The men took their first experience of military campaigning well. They had already led rough, physical lives in their search for gold and would not leave a trail of stragglers and discarded items as many early Civil War armies did.[2] Upon arrival, the Coloradans found New Mexico exotic. They appreciated the native and Mexican architecture and loved the fandangos where they could dance and drink to their heart’s content. On the other hand they did not think much of the inhabitants. They thought the Hispanics a collection of laborers and criminals and a few thought the Anglo-Americans there to be deeply immoral.[3]

They arrived at Fort Craig to find that Canby’s white and Hispanic troops were not getting along with each other very well. The Hispanics felt correctly that they were perceived as inferiors and reacted strongly to insults or perceived slights. They were also concerned that they had made a grievous mistake by agreeing to spend several years in the US Army while their homes were under assault by Indians. The whites were equally flustered thanks to the language barrier. Many Hispanics understood little to no English and it was hard to pass down orders. The New Mexican volunteer units were not a hundred percent Hispanic. Many whites lived in the territory and volunteered as well. Whites in primarily Hispanic volunteer units could understand orders passed down by high-ranking white officers, but their own Hispanic officers might not, resulting in confused disputes regarding orders.[4] Canby was not above prejudices and was determined not to come to battle with Sibley in a way that would require the Hispanics to maneuver under fire. His prejudice, however, was less concerned with any racial or cultural issues and more with the performance of inexperienced men under fire.[5]

The New Mexico Campaign, 1861-1862 Part II: Confederate Arizona and Sibley's Scheme

Confederate Arizona

 

Further Fights with the Federals

By late summer of 1861, the Confederacy had a firm foothold in New Mexico Territory. Confederate Arizona was the first conquest of the emerging nation and it was hoped that it would just be the first of many. Recognizing that Canby’s Union force would soon largely outnumber the Confederates, Baylor appointed native Hispanics to prominent posts in an effort to win over the majority of the population and keep his position secure until more aid could arrive from the east.[1] Even with the establishment of a new government, the violence still raged between Texan and Federal forces. Small groups of Baylor’s men and Federals got into several skirmishes. In these the Texans usually claimed victory. The first such victory came when they beat off a Union raid on a Confederate horse herd. On the night of September 24 a small force of Federal Hispanic volunteers under Captain John H. Minks were investigating the town of Alamosa when they heard what sounded like an Indian war whoop. Instead of Indians they found Texan pickets. After a short firefight the Texans withdrew. The following day Minks found himself and his volunteers in a poor position. The Texan commander, Captain Bethel Coopwood, had been sent to scout the area around Fort Craig and now stood between Minks and safety at his home base. The New Mexican Volunteers made a dash for it, but a good chunk was force into a fight. An hour long firefight ensued, with the Texans enjoying the benefits of two high ridges. The Federals attempted to fight their way out towards Fort Craig. With a spyglass Minks saw that 60 horsemen were about to charge his line.  He surrendered along with a few wagons, but most of his men had already got away, the skirmish giving them time to put some distance towards Fort Craig. The Texans escaped with 2 killed and 10 wounded. In addition to those captured on the 25^th, the Federals lost about a dozen killed and wounded in these engagements.[2]

 

The New Mexico Campaign, 1861-1862 Part I: Confederate Conquest of the West

In popular media the Civil War has often been linked to the Old West. Sergio Leone’s spaghetti western The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly has played a large role in this. In this classic, three ruthless gunslingers search for gold that was hidden by a ring of Confederate soldiers. Complicating their quest, as well as their competition with each other, is the war unfolding around them. While the Civil War serves as more of a backdrop and obstacle, the fact that the war was fought in the deserts and adobe towns of the southwest was little known by the general public. But in reality the area was a major battlefield in the first year of the war. The secession and creation of the Confederate States of America was motivated by a desire to preserve slavery for the future. For slavery to continue to flourish, the would-be nation needed new land and territory, and it was to be found to the west and south, in locations such as southern California, New Mexico, and even northern Mexico. Even while a war was raging to the east, a few thousand Texans decided that the time was ripe in 1861 for their imperial ambitions to be realized. One general who had served in Mexico as a Federal officer, Henry Hopkins Sibley, would spearhead the main thrust of this military operation. What followed was a long war, lasting almost a year, in which ambitious Texans, Federal troops, and also the Apache battled for the future of the American West. At the end of this series I hope to provide an answer to the questions of whether this campaign was important to the Civil War and if it was possible for the Confederacy to accomplish their goals.

New Year's Battle: The Fight for Galveston (1862-1863)

One of the Union’s grand strategies was to strangle the Southern Coast with the Anaconda Plan. The Union government and navy purchased or enlisted as many civilian ships as it could to fulfill the enormous task of blocking off every Southern port. Up to 1863 the blockade was maintained with difficulty. Blockade runners regularly slipped through the cordon. To ease the blockade, the navy coordinated with the army to seize major Southern ports. This not only deprived the blockade runners of sites to drop off war supplies, it gave the navy facilities for maintaining and supplying their ships and the army launching points for further incursions. By the end of 1862, few major Southern ports remained open to blockade runners. At the dawn of 1863, however, Confederate General John Bankhead Magruder, newly arrived in the westernmost seceded state of Texas, launched a scheme that would defy the blockade. He aimed to take back Galveston and save Texas from a planned Union invasion.

 

The Great City of Texas

At the time of the Civil War Galveston was the largest city in Texas. Much of the state was still considered frontier territory and the time had not come yet for locations such as Houston and San Antonio. Galveston originated as a base of operations for the privateer Louis-Michel Aury, but soon the infamous Lafitte family from New Orleans took over. One of their most successful criminal enterprises was human trafficking. As Texas was part of Mexican territory and loosely controlled at that, the Lafittes were able to participate in the illegal slave trade with less intervention from the United State government. Even after Texas became an American state pirates continued to intercept slave ships in the Caribbean and sell their human cargo to Texas and Louisiana. The legal internal slave trade flourished as well, and Galveston boasted the largest slave market west of New Orleans. Since many slaves were involved in maritime businesses, slavery was enforced more rigidly than in other locations of the South. Heavier punishments and restrictions on the movement of blacks were necessary to prevent escape as slaves trained in ship work could would have the necessary skills to seize a boat and make for any number of Caribbean or Latin American countries where slavery was illegal. For a Southern city, Galveston also boasted an incredible number of immigrants. As a coastal city it was an ideal spot for people from Ireland, the German states, and other locations to enter the United States. By 1860 about 40 percent of the city’s population was foreign-born.[1]

Longstreet's Great Failure: The East Tennessee Campaign of 1863 (part 2 of 2)

 The Fortified City

The Federals reached the lines in and around Knoxville on the 17^th, but they could not be considered safe yet. The Confederates approached on the 18^th. Captain Orlando Poe, the engineer in charge of the defenses, had already set to work building upon the unfinished Rebel entrenchments. The exhausted soldiers found themselves having to hurriedly work on their own entrenchments before the Confederates arrived and hit them. Poe believed that he needed only a few hours before the army could have effective defenses. He and Burnside decided that General William Sanders and his cavalry would have to hold off the Confederates for the duration of that time. It was a large thing to ask of Sanders and his men. Dismounted cavalry could buy time for the infantry to come up, as General John Buford did at Gettysburg, but did not fare as well when expected to play defense on their own. Sanders took up the challenge with determination.

General William Sanders, the
martyr of the Knoxville Campaign

McLaws’ division was the first to reach Sanders’ line. Sanders’ men used piles of rails, intended for an unfinished railroad, as their breastworks. For hours they managed to hold off the Confederates. Poe wrote years later that their stand “excited the wonder of the rest of our army.” Whenever the line began to falter, “Sanders would walk up to the rail piles and stand there erect, with fully half his height exposed to a terrific fire at short range, until every retreating man, as if ashamed of himself, would return to his proper place.” Sanders also worked with the artillery. He directed its fire to a house full of sharpshooters, and Federal shells struck the building and drove them out. Sanders’ bravery cost him. One bullet found him and mortally wounded him. However, he had bought the necessary time for the rest of Burnside’s army. The grateful commanding general sat by his bedside as he passed away. In honor of the cavalry general Fort Loudon, one of the most prominent fortifications at Knoxville, was renamed Fort Sanders.[1] The armies now settled into a siege.

Longstreet's Great Failure: The East Tennessee Campaign of 1863 (part 1 of 2)

General James Longstreet is popularly portrayed as a voice of modern warfare in the Civil War. He has also become the voice of reason at the Battle of Gettysburg. If his superior General Robert E. Lee had listened to him and avoided frontal assaults than the Confederacy would have had a much better summer of 1863. One would think that, given independent command, Longstreet would excel. He did in fact have a good shot at independent command at the end of 1863. But rather than excelling, he performed poorly. Casual and even some avid Civil War buffs might be surprised to learn that he was defeated by Union General Ambrose Burnside, a man often regarded as just another incompetent general to lose to Lee in Virginia. So why did one of the most highly regarded Confederate generals do so poorly and to what extent should credit be given to Burnside? Here is a short look at the Knoxville Campaign, which was waged in November and December of 1863.

Longstreet Goes West

Georgia-born James Longstreet was working as an army paymaster in New Mexico Territory when the war broke out. Resigning from the army, he soon led a brigade at the First Battle of Bull Run. In 1862 he rose to become one of the South’s greatest generals and Lee’s most reliable subordinate. Commanding the First Corps, he did exemplary service up to the Battle of Gettysburg. While his criticisms of Lee’s risky offensive tactics were valid, his execution of these tactics were themselves mishandled. After the disaster at Gettysburg he looked west for both practical and personal reasons.

Ten Battles from the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945)

 

The Second Sino-Japanese War was one of the largest yet overlooked fronts of World War II. In this theatre of war Chiang Kai-Shek’s Nationalist government forces and Mao Tse-Tung’s Communists forged an uneasy alliance to stave off Japanese conquest. After victory was achieved, they quickly turned on each other. Though it was the first theatre of war to open up, predating Nazi Germany’s attack on Poland by two years, little has been written about it beyond the opening phases. Many sources and documents were destroyed by the upheaval of the continuing Chinese Civil War and then Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Information from Chinese or Taiwanese scholars are often heavily slanted in favor of the Communist or Nationalist causes or simply difficult to translate, while Japan’s presentation of its role in World War II is often purposefully hazy. Here are ten battles from an often ignored front of World War II, a couple fairly well-known and the others not so much.

 

#1: Shanghai (August 13 – November 26, 1937)

 

Shanghai was a major world economic center with thousands of foreign residents. It was therefore a natural target for Japanese military planners, who hoped to end the war with one swift blow. Chiang Kai-Shek also hoped to end the war soon. Thus both sides continuously funneled reinforcements into a desperate bid for quick victory. The battle itself largely took place within the city itself, resulting in furious and confusing building-to-building fighting. Ironically many Chinese units were led into battle by their German advisers (Germany was already under Nazi control and was turning towards an alliance with Japan).[1] The battle was a grueling stalemate, the Chinese using their numerical advantage to counter Japan’s advantage in aircraft and tanks. This changed in mid-November when the Japanese 10^th Army arrived and made a major breakthrough with an amphibious operation.[2] The Chinese army was sent retreating towards Nanking. China had lost much of its industrial base as well as many of its best units. However, it displayed a newfound determination to resist decades of Japanese aggression. The Chinese lost over 250,000 out of 750,000 men while the Japanese lost about 40-60,000 out of 300,000.[3] The latter army would soon seize Nanking and commit one of the greatest atrocities of the 20^th Century.