New Mexico Territory in the American Civil War

• 1. Introduction

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  New Mexico Territory sent roughly 7,000-8,000 soldiers to fight for the Union, more than any other western state or territory. The territory was remote, sparsely populated, and far from the great battlefields in the east. It stretched across what are now New Mexico, Arizona, and the southern portion of Nevada. Yet both the Confederate and Union governments claimed it, and several important battles took place within its borders. The Confederacy had a clear goal: open a corridor through the Southwest to Union-held California. Why most of the territory chose the Union, and how the Confederates tried to seize it, are the questions this story explores. The answers reach back to the years before the war, when settlers in Tucson were already arguing over the territory's political future.

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• 2. Contested Ground

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  Organized as a U.S. territory in 1850, New Mexico quickly became a source of internal friction. Settlers in its newly expanded southern portions, added through the Gadsden Purchase in 1853, felt poorly served by the government in Santa Fe. Proposals for a separate Arizona Territory appeared as early as 1856. On the 29th of August 1856, a conference in Tucson produced a petition, signed by 256 people, requesting Congress to organize the region separately. The gathering elected Nathan P. Cooke as its delegate to Congress. A bill introduced in the House in January 1857 failed because the proposed territory's population was deemed too small.

  In April 1860, thirty-one delegates met in Tucson and adopted a provisional constitution for the area south of 34 degrees north latitude. They elected Dr. Lewis S. Owings as provisional governor. Congress still declined to recognize any of the proceedings. On the 2nd of March 1861, the federal government canceled its contract with the Butterfield Overland Stagecoach Company. That cancellation severed the mail link running from San Antonio through El Paso, Mesilla, and Tucson to California. The timing angered settlers across the region at precisely the moment several Deep South states were seceding.

  Along the Santa Fe Trail, the northern part of the territory had deep trade ties to Kansas and Missouri, linking it to the Union. The territory's population was primarily Hispanic, and many residents harbored a deep wariness of Texans rooted in old grievances. When Texas voted to secede in early 1861, that animosity pushed much of New Mexico firmly toward the Union. The southern portions of the territory, with closer ties to Texas, moved in the opposite direction.

  On the 16th of March 1861, a convention at Mesilla adopted an ordinance of secession. It called on settlers in the western part of the territory to join the Confederate cause. A second convention met in Tucson on the 28th of March, chaired by Mark Aldrich, Tucson's first mayor. Those delegates chose Dr. Lewis S. Owings as governor and Granville Henderson Oury as delegate to the Confederate States Congress. Oury departed for Richmond, Virginia on the 1st of October 1861.

  Texas Congressman John Reagan introduced a bill to formally create the Confederate Territory of Arizona on the 22nd of November 1861. After two months of debate, it passed on the 13th of January 1862. Jefferson Davis proclaimed the territory into existence on the 14th of February 1862, with Mesilla as its capital. In March 1862, the U.S. House of Representatives passed its own Arizona bill, using a north-south border at the 107th meridian. That line stood in deliberate contrast to the Confederate east-west boundary. The bill also abolished slavery in the proposed territory. President Abraham Lincoln signed the Arizona Organic Act on the 24th of February 1863. The first capital of the U.S. Arizona Territory was Fort Whipple, followed by Prescott, both in Union-controlled northern Arizona.

  Abraham Rencher, New Mexico's territorial governor at the war's start, was a Democrat from North Carolina who refused to support secession. He called out the territorial militia to resist the Confederate advance. In July 1861, he was replaced by Henry Connelly, a New Mexico native who served as governor through the rest of the war. Under Connelly, the territory's slavery laws were repealed and the Indian tribes of the territory were moved to reservations.

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• 3. The New Mexico Campaign

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  In July 1861, Lieutenant Colonel John R. Baylor led a Confederate force of Texans into the territory and captured Mesilla. The town's Union garrison had abandoned its fort, and Baylor's troops cut off the retreating soldiers and forced their surrender. On the 1st of August, Baylor issued a proclamation declaring himself military governor of all territory south of the 34th parallel. He cited the "general anarchy" of existing territorial government as his justification. His forces then dismantled the remaining Union forts, leaving white settlers exposed to Apache raids. A convention in Tucson on the 28th of August 1861 ratified the proclamation despite these consequences.

  The Confederate Army of New Mexico arrived in the southern territory in February 1862, marching west from Texas. Its goal was to push north into Colorado and seize the region's valuable mineral resources. Union forces, including regulars, the 1st Colorado Infantry, and New Mexico volunteers, moved to counter the advance. At the Battle of Glorieta Pass in March 1862, Confederate forces won the field but lost the campaign. A detachment of the 1st Colorado Infantry under Major John M. Chivington burned the Confederate supply train. Without supplies, the Confederate Army of New Mexico was forced to retreat. The battle was later counted among those dubbed the "Gettysburg of the West."

  Kit Carson, the celebrated frontiersman and explorer, helped organize and command the 1st New Mexico Cavalry. He had participated in the Battle of Valverde against Confederate forces earlier in the campaign. His unit went on to engage in campaigns against the Apache, Navajo, and Comanche across New Mexico and Texas.

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• 4. The Apache Factor

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  Federal troops had been withdrawn from Arizona early in 1861 to reinforce operations elsewhere. Mangas Coloradas and Cochise led a series of raids on white civilians that left dozens dead. Many settlers fled to Tucson for safety. The Apache showed equal hostility to both Union and Confederate forces. The engagements that resulted are often counted as part of both the Civil War and the American Indian Wars.

  Colonel Edward R.S. Canby, commanding the Union Department of New Mexico, concentrated his remaining troops in forts along the Rio Grande. He began raising volunteer regiments to replace the regular army units that had been sent east. On the Confederate side, Captain Sherod Hunter led the Confederate Arizona Rangers into southern Arizona during the spring of 1862. Hunter carried orders from Governor Baylor to bring Apache leaders into Tucson for peace talks and then exterminate the adults. Hunter's men spent most of their time expelling Union supporters and skirmishing with federal troops, so the order was never carried out. A detachment of Hunter's force destroyed hay caches along the Butterfield Overland Mail route to deny them to Union forces. That detachment traveled within eighty miles of Fort Yuma before turning back.

  An entirely different force, marching east from California, was about to enter the contest.

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• 5. Carleton's Column

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  Colonel James H. Carleton led a force of California volunteers east through the desert in 1862. In April of that year, a small Confederate party moving northwest from Tucson encountered a Union cavalry patrol near Stanwix Station. The skirmish that followed, in which one Union cavalryman was wounded, is often called the westernmost engagement of the entire Civil War. Carleton's advance elements then fought the Battle of Picacho Pass at Picacho Peak, roughly fifty miles northwest of Tucson. That engagement drove Confederate forces out of the town.

  Carleton pushed his column east toward Mesilla, the capital of Confederate Arizona. By July 1862, the Confederates had withdrawn into Texas. They continued to manage the Confederate Arizona territorial government from El Paso. Confederate troops marched under the Arizona flag until the end of the war, even as the territory they claimed was firmly in Union hands.

  Marching through Apache Pass in Arizona's Chiricahua Mountains, the column was ambushed by warriors led by Cochise and Mangas Coloradas. The Californians withstood the attack. They subsequently established Fort Bowie to secure the pass. The conflict between Carleton's troops and the Apache continued throughout the war and for years after it ended.

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• 6. Legacies in Stone and Law

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  Peralta, New Mexico was burned in the Battle of Peralta, one of the smaller engagements of the New Mexico Campaign. The town was rebuilt and is still inhabited today. The New Mexico territorial legislature arranged for a monument in the Santa Fe Plaza, honoring the Union war dead. That monument also formally condemned the Confederacy.

  Confederate Arizona, established by Jefferson Davis, was in historical terms the first Arizona Territory to exist on American soil. The Union version, signed by Abraham Lincoln in February 1863, drew a north-south boundary: Arizona to the west, New Mexico to the east. The Confederate version had used an east-west line instead, carved from the southern tier of New Mexico Territory. The boundary Lincoln signed is the one that shapes the map today.

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