Ledes from the Land of Enchantment

At the Battle of Glorieta Pass long ago, Texas learned not to mess with New Mexico

DIXON, NM—Ok, I have to confess. Wimps we may be, but we just couldn’t take the heat any longer. We fled Hades for this village nestled in a narrow valley on the banks of the cottonwood-lined Rio Embudo between Santa Fe and Taos. Here at the moment, cherries and apricots are at their peak in acequia-watered orchards; apple trees, their loading branches bending downward, will be ready for picking in a couple of weeks. Oh, and it was 55 degrees when we woke up the other morning.

As wife Laura, Albuquerque born and bred, occasionally reminds me, Texans have been “invading” her beloved native state for centuries. As I remind her, we usually come in peace. If it weren’t for Texans, I suggest, Ruidoso and Red River just might be ghost towns. Without Texans, Santa Fe’s chic Canyon Road might be desolate. Reservation casinos probably welcome a goodly share of Texans, as well, although I’ve never tried my luck.

I’ll admit we haven’t always been good neighbors. New Mexicans who know their history are likely to sneer at the name Lamar, for example. That would be Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar, Sam Houston’s successor as president of the Republic of Texas.

With ambitions worthy of his middle name, Lamar in 1841 dispatched an expedition of 321 government officials, merchants, teamsters, soldiers and journalists to Santa Fe to persuade New Mexicans that their self-interest lay in joining the fledgling Republic. The Texans brought with them 21 ox-drawn wagons carrying merchandise worth $200,000 – enticements, so to speak, for a southern Santa Fe Trail. They had no doubt not only that the New Mexicans would welcome them, but also that a Texas-New Mexico rapprochement would be the first step in Lamar’s dream of a Republic stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific.

The Texans were deluded. Lamar’s emissaries not only got lost on the punishing plains of the Llano Estacado, but when they straggled into Santa Fe, they found themselves under arrest as invaders. The New Mexicans draped the Texas interlopers in heavy chains and marched them toward Mexico City, where they were held for more than a year in a castle-like prison called Perote.

And did our forebears learn not to mess with New Mexico? uh, no

Two decades later the Civil War had broken out, and Texas Confederates reenacted Lamar’s folly. In the winter of 1861, Texans envisioning a Confederate Manifest Destiny invaded New Mexico once again. The rebels dreamed of railroads connecting Charleston, New Orleans and Houston to San Diego and Los Angeles. California gold would be theirs for the taking. They might even conquer the Mexican states of Sonora, Chihuahua and Baja California.

Thirty-five hundred Texas rebels calling themselves the “Army of New Mexico” marched westward out of San Antonio. Despite losing several hundred men to smallpox and Apache attacks, they made their way to El Paso and then up the Rio Grande Valley. They were victorious against Union troops at a site along the river called Valverde, took Albuquerque without a fight and occupied Santa Fe, before meeting stalwart opposition in the majestic Sangre de Cristo Mountains 25 miles southeast of the capital. The ensuing Battle of Glorieta Pass in March 1862 has been called the “Gettysburg of the West.”

The Confederate commander was Brig. Gen. Henry Hopkins Sibley, whose weakness for the bottle had earned him the nickname “the Walking Whiskey Keg.” Sibley was well-acquainted with New Mexico. His final post before joining the Confederacy had been in Taos, where he led a campaign against the Navajos.

He also knew his adversary, Col. Edward Canby. The Union commander had been his classmate at West Point and best man at his wedding. Although Canby had graduated 30th out of a West Point class of 31, he had earned a reputation through the years as a capable leader of men.

The Union general had at his disposal some 4,000 men at Fort Craig, 180 miles south of Santa Fe. Only 1,200 were army regulars; the rest were volunteers, mostly Hispanic farmers and sheepherders who spoke little English and had no experience in battle. Their commander was the already legendary Kit Carson, the trapper, scout and Indian fighter who had been made a colonel in the Union Army. Carson spoke fluent Spanish.

In his superb biography (Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West), Hampton Sides notes that the word “Confederate” meant next to nothing to the volunteers under Carson’s command, but they did know the word “Texans.” “In New Mexico, Texans were like bogeymen,” Sides writes. “Parents used to tell their children that if they didn’t behave, the Tejanos would come get them.”

Meanwhile, nearly 500 Colorado miners under the command of Maj. John Milton Chivington were rushing to the aid of the federal forces. Calling themselves the Pikes Peakers, they were making the 400-mile trek from Denver through snow and howling winds to join up with Canby’s men. The miners arrived in time to engage the enemy in a pine- and pinon-covered mountain pass called Glorieta, near the ancient ruins of Pecos Pueblo.

The first day’s battle at Glorieta was inconclusive, but on the third day one of the New Mexican volunteers, a veteran Indian fighter named Manuel Chaves, made an important discovery. The lieutenant colonel, known as El Leoncito for his small size and his leonine bravery in battle, was a descendant of Spanish conquistadors and had been involved 20 years earlier in thinking Lamar’s Santa Fe Expedition. On this cold March afternoon he peered down from the rocky rim of Glorieta Mesa and saw that the Texans had left their entire 80-man supply train pretty much unguarded on the canyon floor.

“You are right on top of them, Major,” Chaves told Chivington. The Coloradan instantly changed his battle plans. Instead of attacking the Confederate rear, he would sabotage the supply train on the flats 700 feet below.

Several hundred of Chivington’s men secured themselves with ropes and leather straps and dropped over the rim, silently reaching the floor without incident. Caught almost completely off guard, a handful of Texans guarding the supplies surrendered within minutes. Chivington ordered his men to pull the 80 wagons in tightly and set them ablaze. “Nothing,” Sides writes, “escaped the torch — tents, flour, Bibles, horse tack, bedrolls, cookware, coffee, clothing, tools, whiskey.”

Dreams died, as well. The bedraggled Texans, now appointed of supplies and ammunition, made their way back to Santa Fe, where Col. Canby’s wife Louisa took pity and made her home a hospital. When Union friends tried to shame her for showing compassion to the enemy wounded, she told them: “Friend or foe, their lives must be saved if it is possible. They are the sons of some dear mother.”

Louisa Canby’s husband, his troops reinforced with the Pikes Peakers, slowly “herded” the dispirited sons of the Lone Star down the Rio Grande and out of the territory. When the Texans straggled back into San Antonio, their numbers had dwindled by about a third.

I asked New Mexico historian Steve Martinez whether the Union victory at Glorieta Pass deserved the “Gettysburg of the West” label. What is it that significant?

It’s “historically fitting,” he said, noting that if the Confederates had taken New Mexico, they would have controlled the Santa Fe Trail, gateway to the West. And, they would have taken over Colorado’s silver and gold mines, while opening a passage to California’s ports, not to mention its gold. “Do you see where this is going?” he asked.

It’s been 160 years since cannon fire echoed through beautiful Glorieta Pass. These days Texans and New Mexicans manage to get along, for the most part, even though the two states are still quite different. Like a longtime married couple – one a Texan, one a New Mexican – both parties are happy to proclaim, “Viva la diferencia!”

[email protected]

Twitter: holleynews

Comments are closed.