New Mexico Campaign
The New Mexico Campaign was a military operation during the Civil War , which lasted from February to April 1,862th The General of the Confederate Army Henry Hopkins Sibley marched with his troops into the New Mexico Territory . The aim of the Confederate was to control the territory as a starting point for further ventures against California .
Preliminary remark
At the time of the secession , the New Mexico Territory comprised the areas between California in the west, Texas in the east, Nevada , Utah and Colorado in the north, and the Republic of Mexico in the south. It was only with the creation of the Arizona Territory by the Union in 1863 that New Mexico determined its present-day boundaries. With the exception of California and Texas, none of the areas mentioned was a state; all were listed as so-called territories.
prolog
After Texas seceded from the Union on February 23, 1861 , the politician John Robert Baylor began to recruit militias to ensure the independence of the state. On March 19, 1861, the approx. 1,000-strong 2nd Texas Mounted Rifle Regiment ("Mounted Rifle") was set up and was placed in the service of the Confederate Army two days later. With the rank of lieutenant colonel , Baylor commanded the 2nd battalion with six companies and was commissioned to occupy the forts in West Texas , which had been abandoned by the Union Army . On the march, garrisons had to be left behind at various bases, so that on July 1, 1861 only 400 men arrived at Fort Bliss ; Baylor himself arrived on July 13th.
On July 23, he invaded neighboring New Mexico Territory and marched with 250 men on Fort Fillmore, which was defended by over 700 Union soldiers under Major Isaac Lynde. The Texans bypassed the base and occupied Mesilla , where a brief gun battle broke out on July 25th. The Union forces gave up Fort Fillmore and evaded to Fort Stanton, Baylor cut their way and forced the surrender of the exhausted soldiers on July 27th. When he returned to Mesilla on August 1, 1861, he declared the areas of the New Mexico Territory south of the 34th parallel to the Confederate Area of Arizona; he proclaimed himself governor. Despite the support of the population, Baylor's association and around 200 local volunteers were overwhelmed. They had to repel Union patrols and prevent Mexican bandits and Apaches from raiding, which is why he complained about his situation in a letter dated September 26 to the government in Richmond. She promoted him to colonel on December 15 , but made no effort to help him.
Sibley's plan
The plan to conquer the New Mexico Territory came from Henry Hopkins Sibley, a career officer from Louisiana . Since 1838 he had served in a dragoon regiment, with which he was last stationed in Fort Union, New Mexico. On May 13, 1861 he was promoted to major there, but left the US Army in the same month to immediately join the Confederation in El Paso , Texas , which promoted him to colonel.
The secession of the confederate states had induced the Union to relocate large troops from the western border to the east. Sibley therefore wanted to first seize the forts and depots in the New Mexico Territory, which in his view were insufficiently defended. The captured weapons and supplies would then be used to conquer Colorado with its gold deposits. Another step would have been the advance to California to avoid the sea blockade on the east coast with the ports on the Pacific .
It is unclear to what extent Jefferson Davis , President of the Confederation, was aware of Sibley's visions. However, he promoted him to brigadier general on June 13, 1861 and allowed him to raise troops. In the late summer and autumn of 1861, the 4th, 5th and 7th Texas Mounted Rifle Regiments were set up, a militia force of volunteers who did not even have uniforms and had to provide horses, weapons and equipment themselves. Together with an artillery battery and a supply train, they formed the Sibley Brigade, which set out west on October 22, 1861 from San Antonio , Texas. In order not to leach out the pastures and water holes along the route, it was only possible to march in smaller groups, which is why it took until the end of December 1861 for all 3,200 men to arrive at Fort Bliss. Once there, Sibley incorporated over half of Baylor's men into his brigade and placed them under the command of Major Charles Pyron.
There were some weak points in Sibley's plan, he hoped for the support of the residents of the New Mexico Territory, but overlooked the fact that the Hispanic population had no sympathy for the Texan invaders. The assumption that only sparsely occupied forts could be conquered was simply wrong. In addition to around 2,000 regular soldiers, the Union was able to muster over 2,500 volunteers and militiamen from the New Mexico Territory as well as over 1,300 volunteers from Colorado. By far the biggest shortcoming, however, was Sibley himself. It is unclear whether he had started to bottle because of an illness or was already a habitual drinker. In any case, he was not sober for most of the campaign and did not lead his units in any engagement.
Valverde
In January 1862, the Sibley Brigade was reorganized in the Mesilla area and called itself from then on "Army of New Mexico". On February 7th, they marched north up the valley of the Rio Grande with 2,500 Texans and 15 guns . After 70 miles, she reached Fort Craig on February 16, defended by 3,800 men under the command of Colonel Edward Richard Sprigg Canby . Sibley realized that a frontal attack would be pointless and decided to bypass the fort in the east via the Mesa del Contadero . He then wanted to swing back into the valley of the Rio Grande and block Canby's connection with Santa Fe , New Mexico.
Canby spotted the project and sent 2,500 men north to occupy Fort Valverde on February 21st and fire at the Texans. Sibley had gone to the ambulance and given command to Colonel Tom Green , the commander of the 5th regiment. Green managed to form his units for a counterattack and to overrun the artillery position of the Union; the soldiers then turned the guns against their fleeing opponents, who evaded to Fort Craig.
The success turned out to be a Pyrrhic victory , the Texans had lost almost 200 men and they had not succeeded in conquering Fort Craig, which from now on cut off supplies from the south. In addition there was the loss of several hundred riding and pack animals, so that large parts of the brigade had to continue the campaign on foot. The Confederates therefore made slow progress, which gave Canby time to countermeasures. The Texans were able to raise a depot in Socorro , New Mexico, but when they arrived in Albuquerque , New Mexico on March 2, all supplies had been burned, and when Santa Fe was occupied on March 10, the Union soldiers had fort Marcy has already given up and all material carried to Fort Union , New Mexico on 120 carts . This most important base in the New Mexico Territory was therefore Sibley's next destination, the way there led over the Glorieta Pass through the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. He himself stayed in Albuquerque and entrusted Lieutenant Colonel William Read Scurry , the commander of the 4th Regiment, with the march on Fort Union, which was delayed by snowstorms for a good two weeks.
Glorieta Pass
The slowed advance of the Sibley Brigade had also favored the 1st Colorado Regiment; under the command of Colonel John Potts Slough and Major John Milton Chivington , it had rushed across the Rockies to reinforce the Fort Union garrison. The ambitious Slough, however, sought a confrontation with Sibley; he set out with over 1,300 men to the south, about 500 men of whom formed the vanguard under Chivington, who would also come over the Glorieta Pass on their way.
The Confederates were scattered along the Rio Grande, their northernmost force was the advance guard under Pyron, who rode into Apache Canyon , which forms the western end of the Glorieta Pass, on March 26th . When the Texans met Chivington's detachment in the middle of the canyon and were defeated by them, the first phase of the battle at Glorieta Pass was over. After their defeat, the Texans had moved to the western end of the canyon to wait for reinforcements to arrive. Chivington also gave up the positions they had reached and waited in Apache Canyon for Slough and the rest of the regiment to arrive the following day. On March 28, both sides decided to attack independently and moved towards each other in the canyon, but Slough sent Chivington and his detachment across the plateau to stab the enemy in the back. While the Texans under Lieutenant Colonel Scurry inflicted heavy losses on the Union soldiers and forced them to evade, they suffered a crushing defeat off the battlefield. Chivington had discovered the entire Confederate supply train at the exit of the canyon, which was inadequately secured. He put the guards on the run, then he had the 80 wagons set on fire and all horses and mules killed - the campaign had failed and the Sibley Brigade had to march back to Texas.
Peralta
In the meantime, Canby and 1,200 men had made their way north from Fort Craig. On April 8th he forced the Texans to withdraw from Santa Fe and on April 12th from Albuquerque. He joined forces from Fort Union and drove Sibley's brigade south before him. Twenty miles south of Albuquerque, there was a final battle near Peralta , New Mexico, where Canby had encountered Green's men who opened fire on Union soldiers. As a result, an artillery duel ensued that laid the city in ruins. When a sandstorm hit, Green took the opportunity to escape. While trying to come to Green's aid, Sibley came under fire. This was the only time in the entire campaign that he was exposed to danger.
On his march back, Sibley bypassed Fort Craig this time to the west through the desert of the San Mateo Mountains; after eight days he arrived in Mesilla. By early May 1862, most of the Confederates had left New Mexico Territory, and by the second week of July the rearguard had left. Baylor also fled Union forces, and Confederate Arizona ceased to exist, and Fort Bliss and El Paso in Texas were also abandoned.
epilogue
To avoid unnecessary losses, Canby kept distance from the evasive Texans; in a pursuit through the Trans- Pecos area, the hostile desert would have been a more dangerous enemy than the defeated Confederates. They embarked on a 700 mile, excruciating march, some of which even had to discard their equipment and weapons just to survive. By the time the brigade arrived in San Antonio, it had lost about half its total strength and had lost more than twice as many men to illness and exhaustion as to the fighting.
Although Sibley had to answer to an Army Investigative Committee in Richmond , Virginia for the failure, in 1863 he was back in command of his brigade, which was now stationed in Louisiana. Division commander Major General Richard Taylor judged the Texans to be daring but undisciplined. In the fighting for Fort Bisland on April 13th and 14th, Sibley's alcohol consumption and weak leadership became apparent again; He was brought before a court martial by Taylor , which accused him of cowardice, among other things. Although he was acquitted, Sibley was withdrawn from command and was not entrusted with any tasks until the end of the war. The brigade was initially placed under Green's command and lasted until the Confederate surrender in 1865.
Trivia
Sergio Leone used different personal names and locations of the New Mexico campaign as background coloring for his film Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (English title: Two glorious scoundrels ). However, the plot has no relation to the historical events and only uses a few motifs from the campaign as very freely interpreted set pieces.
literature
- Alvin M. Josephy Jr .: Civil War in the American West , Vintage Books, 1993, ISBN 0-679-74003-1
- Donald S. Frazier: Blood and Treasure: Confederate Empire in the Southwest. College Station, TX 1995
- Flint Whitlock: Distant Bugles, Distant Drums: The Union Response to the Confederate Invasion of New Mexico. Boulder, CO 2006
