The Civil War in the Indian Territory proved to be a test of valor and endurance for both sides. Author Steve Cottrell outlines the events that led up to the involvement of this region in the war, the role of the Native Americans who took part in the war, and the effect their participation had on the war's outcome, particularly in this region. For Indians, as in the rest of the country, neighbor was pitted against neighbor, with members of the same tribe often fighting against each other. Cottrell describes in vivid detail the guerilla warfare, surprise attacks, and all-out battles that stained the grassy plains of Oklahoma with blood. In addition, he introduces the reader to the interesting and often colorful leaders of the military-North and South-including the only Indian to attain the rank of general in the war, Confederate general Stand Watie. With outstanding illustrations by Andy Thomas, this story is a tribute to and a revealing portrait of those who fought and the important role they played in this era of our country's history.

A full, detailed, and accurate history of the struggle in the Glorieta valley. Includes organization, pproach to the battle, military units organized and where, all known participants' accounts.

With limited money or free time, Father Stanley Francis Louis Crocchiola wrote and published 177 books and booklets pertaining to the southwest. He published this work after 19 years of researching the Civil War as the Volunteers of New Mexico lived and fought it.

The Civil War in New Mexico began in 1861 with the Confederate invasion and occupation of the Mesilla Valley. At the same time, small villages and towns in New Mexico Territory faced raids from Navajos and Apaches. In response the commander of the Department of New Mexico Colonel Edward Canby and Governor Henry Connelly recruited what became the First and Second New Mexico Volunteer Infantry. In this book leading Civil War historian Jerry Thompson tells their story for the first time, along with the history of a third regiment of Mounted Infantry and several companies in a fourth regiment. Thompson’s focus is on the Confederate invasion of 1861–1862 and its effects, especially the bloody Battle of Valverde. The emphasis is on how the volunteer companies were raised; who led them; how they were organized, armed, and equipped; what they endured off the battlefield; how they adapted to military life; and their interactions with New Mexico citizens and various hostile Indian groups, including raiding by deserters and outlaws. Thompson draws on service records and numerous other archival sources that few earlier scholars have seen. His thorough accounting will be a gold mine for historians and genealogists, especially the appendix, which lists the names of all volunteers and militia men.

In 1861 and 1862, in the vast deserts and rugged mountains of the Southwest, eighteen hundred miles from Washington and Richmond, the Civil War raged in a struggle that could have decided the fate of the nation. In the summer and fall of 1861, Gen. Henry Hopkins Sibley raised a brigade of young and zealous Texans to invade New Mexico Territory as a step toward the conquest of Colorado and California and the creation of a Confederate empire in the Southwest. Of the Sibley Brigade's sixteen major battles during the war, their most excruciating experiences came during the ill-fated New Mexico Campaign. Civil War in the Southwest tells the dramatic story of that campaign in the words of some of the actual participants. Noted Civil War scholar Jerry Thompson has edited and annotated eighteen episodes written by William Lott "Old Bill" Davidson and six other members of Sibley's Brigade that were originally published in a small East Texas newspaper, the Overton Sharp Shooter, in 1887-88. Written "to set the record straight," these veterans' stories provide colorful accounts of the bloody battles of Valverde, Glorieta, and Peralta, as well as details of the soldiers' tragic and painful retreat back to Texas in the summer of 1862. With his extensive knowledge of Sibley's campaign, Thompson has provided context for the eyewitness accounts-and corrections where needed-to produce a campaign history that is intimate and passionate, yet accurate in the smallest detail. History readers will find much to ponder in these unique first-person recollections of a campaign that, had it succeeded, would have radically altered the history of the Southern Confederacy and the United States.

In the summer of 1862 the Civil War was going badly for the North. The distant New Mexico Territory, however, presented a different situation. After an invading army of zealous Texas Confederates won the field at Valverde near Fort Craig, Colorado Volunteers fell on the Rebels at Glorieta Pass and crushed Confederate dreams of conquering New Mexico and the Far West. The Texans, hungry and disheartened, retreated, leaving uncertainty and social unrest in their wake.By the late summer of 1862, Gen. James Henry Carleton arrived from California, determined to impose federal control on the territory. Major Henry Davies Wallen and Captain Andrew Wallace Evans were appointed inspector general and assistant inspector general, respectively. Fearing a second Confederate invasion, Carleton had Wallen and Evans examine various routes the Rebels might use to invade the territory as well as a variety of logistical and operational issues. Tellingly, their reports repeatedly mention troop drunkenness and poor relations with the locals as primary problems. These inspection reports, edited by award-winning Civil War historl War years.ian Thompson, provide unique insight into the military, cultural, and social life of a territory struggling to maintain law and order.

In early 1862, about 2,400 men fought in four battles in New Mexico Territory, which were critical to winning the War. Few know of these battles, but these skirmishes saved the gold and land of the southwest for the Union. Confederate troops from Texas fought with Federal soldiers and volunteers from New Mexico and Colorado for the right to control this part of the United States. Read about their struggles in their own words.