On the morning of March 26, 1862, Confederate and Union armies met in Glorieta Pass in the southern Sangre de Cristo Mountains of New Mexico. A series of skirmishes, jockeying for position, and a pitched battle on March 28 took a heavy toll on both sides and left the Rebels under Gen. Henry Hopkins Sibley apparently victorious over Gen. John P. Slough's troops.
However, the tide turned when Union soldiers under Col. John Chivington located the Confederate supply train and destroyed it. Without supplies, replacement arms, and ammunition, the Rebel troops could not maintain themselves against the still strong Federal forces in the area. After a few additional skirmishes, the dispirited and disorganized Rebels straggled back to Texas. The Confederate quest for expansion into the Southwest was abandoned.
The Battle of Glorieta, some twenty miles southeast of Santa Fe, marked the Rebels' farthest advance northward in the Far West, just as the encounter at Gettysburg the following year would define their farthest significant northward penetration in the eastern theater.
The Battle of Glorieta: Union Victory in the West offers the first full, detailed, and accurate history of this blind, groping struggle in the smoke-filled Glorieta valley. The definitive work on the battle, it includes not only the Confederate organization and approach to the key battle, but also that of the Federal military units as they organized within New Mexico and Colorado Territories. It incorporates for the first time under one cover all the known Union participant accounts, including a number never before published. Based on his own research on the battlefield, Don E. Alberts also presents a thorough understanding of the deployment of troops and their actions.
Alberts reveals, with rigorous supporting evidence, a whole new site for the Battle of Apache Canyon, miles from that previously described. From his field research and discovery of artifacts, he details the exact complement of both Confederate and Federal artillery. Finally, he marshals evidence to reach the startling, yet now inevitable, conclusion that the Battle of Glorieta was indeed a clear and significant Union victory.
What Readers Are Saying:
“. . . Don Alberts’s volume contains a detailed analysis of each of the three phases of the battle (Apache Canyon, Pigeon’s Ranch, and Johnson’s Ranch), as well as detailed maps of the progress of each battle, noting unit positions and movement. The book’s strongest point is the author’s expertise. Alberts writes with a familiarity for the terrain. He has been there; he has walked the fields and climbed the slopes. He also was the consulting historian for the archaeological project that exhumed the Confederate mass grave at Pigeon Ranch. He knows his subject. The book is replete with the anecdotes that historians, amateur and professional, dearly love.” --Southern New Mexico Historical Review
“. . . Alberts’ prose is lively and his knowledge encyclopedic. Nothing with the depth of this volume has been produced previously concerning this battle. If you are interested in military history and the Civil War in the West, it is a must-read book.” --Southern New Mexico Historical Review
“Out of this beautifully researched historical analysis, comes a story so sincere and heart warming that it must be remembered for its simple beauty. . . .For the devoted scholar of Civil War and Southwestern history, The Battle of Glorieta is a ‘keeper’.” --The Manhattan Mercury
“He fills the book with memorable portraits of engaging characters of all ranks on both sides, and he reminds us that even the smallest campaign can be a via dolorosa for its casualties. A solid addition to Civil War studies.” --Booklist
“According to Mr. Alberts, The Battle of Glorieta Pass...was more significant than most historians acknowledge. He makes a convincing, and very well written, argument to support that opinion. . . . It was an intricate battle, excitingly described by Mr. Alberts, who includes lively details, good maps, and much quotation. --Atlantic Monthly
“This finely crafted narrative, based on thorough research in primary sources, is the best of the lot. . . . Highly recommended.” --Wagon Tracks
“ This book offers a sound overview of the campaign and a highly detailed account of the battle. --Choice
...an interesting and well-researched presentation of a little-known part of this much-studied conflict.” --Choice
“...Alberts, who has his doctorate in history from the University of New Mexico, has come through his 20 years of research on the battle on the most thorough understanding of the fight and its prelude, aftermath and ramifications than anyone else to date. . . . An appendix on the order of battle for both the U.S. and C.S. forces and detailed endnotes make this book a keeper.” --New Mexico Magazine
“This very excellent, long-awaited study is the work of Don E. Alberts who, if there were the position of Dean, Civil War Studies in Northern New Mexico, should assume that mantle.” --Journal of Southern History
“Anyone writing in the future about the Civil War in the far West must take Alberts’s important study into account.” --Journal of Southern History
“Alberts has a superior command of troop movements in those passages discussing the actual fighting–one can hardly downplay the importance of that in relating military history. Likewise, his intimate grasp of the topography of the battlefield itself is readily apparent, lending a higher degree of coherency to the overall story. . . . the depth of Alberts’s research on the battle, and the presentation of it in this wonderful volume, must rightly be called unparalleled with respect to Glorieta.” --Civil War