Hysterical Journey to Historic Places

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COMING HOME



Day 31: May 22, 2013



Las Vegas, NM is a poor place to have breakfast in. I had to settle for the “free pottage” offered by the motel. It consisted of a stale biscuit and some thin gravy with no tabasco sauce, a hard-boiled egg of questionable origin, a few of those tofu sausages, some sour orange juice and a cup of bad coffee. If those motel breakfasts were part of a regular diet regimen it would provide women, little children and sissies with a cast iron constitution. I already have mine and can choke down about anything, but prefer a tasty stack of blueberry pancakes with some strawberries on top. I got my cast iron constitution from years of overindulgence in cheap whiskey and bad chili. It has served me well where these motel breakfasts are concerned, but I seldom eat them.



Valverde Ford



The Confederacy invaded New Mexico during the winter of 1861/62. They had resolved to open lines of communication to California in order to have unfettered access to sea ports. They established command headquarters at Mesilla and captured a small federal garrison fleeing northward to healthier climes. Those prisoners they had taken were quickly paroled because the Confederates did not have the means to guard prisoners or feed them. From Mesilla General Baylor ordered a brigade commanded by General Henry Hopkins Sibley to advance up the Rio Grande River, capture the federal supply depot at Fort Craig, capture Santa Fe, and move on to the federal stores held at Fort Union.



Sibley was an 1837 graduate of the military academy at West Point, a veteran of the Seminole War, the Mexican War, the occupation of Mormon Utah, and long-time campaigner in frontier Texas. Along the way he had become an alcoholic, but had earned promotion to the rank of major for his design of a military field tent and stove. On the day his promotion came down he resigned from the army and joined the Confederacy. Being placed in command of a brigade probably stretched his abilities.



The commander of federal forces in New Mexico was fellow named Colonel Edward R. S. Canby. He was an 1838 graduate of West Point. Canby and Sibley chewed much of the same dirt through roughly parallel military careers. Canby also campaigned against the Seminole, fought in Mexico, took part in the occupation of Utah, and served at posts in Texas. In Utah Canby defended Sibley in court martial marshal proceedings arising from charges of drunkenness and insubordination. In New Mexico Canby was Sibley’s commanding officer and had gotten Sibley’s promotion to major approved. The two officers were certainly friends, although probably not cordial ones. Canby was more of a parade ground officer who knew how to get things done in the army and get promotions. He was an able commander, but not much of a fighting man. Sibley was troop commander of dragoons, a scrapper, and a boozer. Sibley wanted badly to defeat Canby and would get his chance at the Battle of Valverde Ford on February 21, 1862.



Valverde Ford was a crossing on the Rio Grande River just above Fort Craig where Canby had his headquarters, and where Sibley had tendered his resignation in 1861. Sibley knew that Valverde Ford was not protected by artillery and chose that ground for his crossing to assault Fort Craig from behind. He met heavy opposition there and was being soundly throttled until Canby arrived on the field and assumed personal command of the fight. Canby quickly got himself outflanked and ordered a retreat back to Fort Craig. Other officers accused him cowardice in official reports but Canby got the best of those reports by blaming the New Mexico militia commanded by Kit Carson, who actually fought gallantly, and was about to take Sibley’s flank when the retreat was ordered. As it turned out the retreat made a certain amount of good sense. Fort Craig was strongly fortified and Sibley could not have taken it. The federal stores were safe there, and Sibley figured that driving Canby from the field was victory enough. He continued upriver to pillage Albuquerque and Santa Fe of needed stores, but he faced strong opposition from federal forces both in his front and to his rear.







Glorieta Pass



By March 10, 1862 the federal forces at Fort Union were augmented by the First Regiment of Colorado Volunteers commanded by Colonel John P. Slough. He hungered for an engagement with the Confederates, left a few of the regulars and the New Mexico militia to defend the stores, disobeyed orders, and marched off with most of the regulars down the trail toward Santa Fe. On March 26 he found a fight in a narrow defile called Apache Canyon near Glorieta Pass just to the east of Santa Fe. Sibley decided to remain in Santa Fe where he could better manage to nurse a keg of cheap whiskey that had come to his attention. He sent regiments of the Texas Mounted Rifles commanded by Colonels Pryor and Scurry to thwart the federal advance at Johnson’s Ranch near the mouth of Apache Canyon on the Santa Fe Trail. The Yankee, Slough’s lead elements were commanded by Major John Chivington, the hero of Sand Creek. Chivington encountered Confederate pickets in the canyon below the pass and a sharp engagement ensued there in which the outnumbered Confederates were driven back. Both sides retreated to their camps to lick their wounds and await further developments. The federals set up their encampment at Kozlowski’s stage stop and called their new home Camp Lewis. Pryor and Scurry called in reinforcements that arrived on March 27. Both armies clashed again on March 28 near Pigeon’s Ranch on the east side of the pass. Both sides fought hard but the Yankees were giving ground hoping to draw the Confederates into a trap. Early in the morning Slough had split his command sending part of his men down Gallisteo Canyon to come in behind the Confederates in Apache Canyon. By midafternoon Slough had not received word that the trap had been set and called a truce so that each side could tend to their wounded and bury their dead. The Confederates did not have shovels and had to wait until the Yankees were done before they could borrow them, bury their dead men and resume the fight. They thought they were winning it because the Yankees were giving up ground. In the meantime the Yankees who were struggling down Gallisteo Trail got lost and came out on a mesa overlooking Johnson’s Ranch and the Confederate supply train. The Confederates who were guarding the train abandoned their duties and fled back to Santa Fe; except for one who ran the other way to inform The Confederate commanders that disaster had just struck. The Yankee’s destroyed the train and captured the horse herd. Pryor and Scurry were forced to surrender. They were quickly pardoned and honorably fled in disarray back to Texas. Canby, sitting on his big round butt down at Fort Craig was glad to see them go. When the California Column commanded by Colonel Carleton finally arrived in New Mexico they had missed all of the fun, but Canby was reassigned to duties back east and Carleton assumed command in New Mexico. The Batte of Glorieta Pass is sometimes called the Gettysburg of the West. It may be as close as I will ever get to Gettysburg,







Ojo Caliente



All through the War Between the States the Apache had been ravaging Arizona and New Mexico pretty much without military opposition. After the war army posts were rebuilt and garrisoned and the Apache found their usual old haunts a little more untenable. The Apache War continued but it had become much more difficult. By 1870 Cochise had begun swimming towards the boat of peace. He tried to get a reservation in Sonora where he could live in peace except for the occasional raid into Arizona or Chihuahua but the officials in Sonora did not trust him and rejected the plan. Then he tried the same thing in Chihuahua and was rejected again. Finally he had begun to negotiate with Americans for a reservation at Ojo Caliente. It was a little valley that had been for generations the homeland of the Warm Springs bands. Every Apache liked Warm Springs. The army maintained a small detachment there manned by a rotating company out of Fort Craig. The army didn’t much care for it but if it meant peace with the hostile Apache that difficult outpost would be worthwhile. The negotiations for a reservation continued until 1872 when General Oliver Otis Howard arrived on the scene to make peace Cochise come hell or high water. Cochise was given a sweet deal by Howard that gave him land in his own beloved mountains where the army was not allowed to interfere, and where Tom Jeffords was agent. The army abandoned the post in Ojo Caliente and settlers flooded in to file claims before anyone could change their minds about the reservation. A community called Monticello sprang into existence where the old army post once stood. Descendants of those settlers are still happily farming and ranching in that peaceful little valley. I drove clear up through that valley; well beyond Monticello and did not see a single person at work anywhere. It was eerily peaceful. If the Apache had it things would be much livelier there.



I ended the day at the Comfort Inn in Deming, NM. I had some absolutely top notch carnitas in a nearby Mexican joint.



Day 32: May 23, 2013



I got up in the morning and went to Manolo’s for breakfast. It is a friendly little place across the street from McDonalds. I have been eating there for years. They have great cinnamon rolls and plenty of pictures of Marilyn Monroe. One of those pictures is so stunning it has to be kept on display in the men’s room. That picture is better than the breakfasts are. I made yet another unsuccessful attempt at finding a way in to the McComas tree. After a drive of 8437.9 miles I came back home. Boy, am I glad to be back from this wonderful journey.

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Photos

VALVERDE
The Rio Grande River, what I scarcely left of it, flows through that area of green trees in the mid-distance. The battle raged to the left of the dark colored mesa.

FIRST DAY
Fighting opened in Apache Canyon on March 26, 1862 near the red outcrop.

END OF FIRST DAY
Apache Canyon pinches shut just to the right of the photo. The Confederates were allowed to escape through that arrow opening. The Yankees retreated to their encampment at Kozlowsky;s Station. Fighting would resume at Pigeon's Ranch on March 28, 1862.

RAIDERS
The Gallisteo Trail goes through the canyon behind the railroad tracks. The Yankee riders were supposed to come back into Apache Canyon right here in order to cut off the Confederate retreat back their encampment at Johnson's Ranch. They missed the turn here and continued southward until they came out on top of a mesa overlooking the supply train.

TRUCE
The truce was called in the canyon between those two bluffs in the background. They dawdled along with the burials until the Confederate supply was destroyed. The Confederates learned of that disaster before the Yankee commanders did. The Yankees must have been astonished at the sudden offer of surrender.

SUPPLY TRAIN
The supply train was captured and destroyed here. The Confederates never got around to another attempt at making seaport on the Pacific cost. Those plans remained on the back burner until the war was over though. An Arizona Brigade commanded by Colonel Sherrod Hunter was authorized to do so, but it was never funded.

OJO CALIENTE
This was once he homeland of the War Springs Apache. Victorio and Loco both were born here.