In 2011, this nation will begin a four-year-long commemoration of the American Civil War. Few who participate in the activities of that event will pause to consider the importance of New Mexico’s central role in the coming of the war. by Dwight T. Pitcaithley Originally published in New Mexico…
Before well-known Battle of Glorieta Pass, Texans captured Santa Fe By Tom Sharpe The Confederates who briefly occupied Santa Fe 150 years ago this month found it an inhospitable city with Jewish merchants who refused their money, terrified nuns and a Hispanic majority neutral in the fight between Anglos….
4 10 1827 By William H. Wroth Lew Wallace (1827-1905) served as territorial governor of New Mexico from 1878 to 1881. Wallace was born in Brooksville, Indiana, on April 10, 1827, and moved to Indianapolis in 1837 when his father David Wallace was elected governor of Indiana. With the…
Brig. Gen. Henry H. Sibley led his force of 2,500 men across the Rio Grande River and up the east side of the river to the ford at Valverde, north of Fort Craig, New Mexico, hoping to cut Federal communications between the fort and military headquarters in Santa Fe….
Glorieta Pass was a strategic location, situated at the southern tip of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, southeast of Santa Fe, and on the Santa Fe Trail. In March 1862, a Confederate force of 200-300 Texans under the command of Maj. Charles L. Pyron encamped at Johnson’s Ranch, at…
Located 15 miles southeast of Gallup at Ojo del Oso (Bear Springs), near the headwaters of the Rio Puerco Fort Wingate (Historic District) Fort Wingate, McKinley County On July 4, 1903, Gregory Page, a Gallup businessman, wrote an essay protesting a possible closure of Fort Wingate, an aging 1860s…
Fort Stanton; Lincoln County; Fort Stanton, Lincoln County National Register of Historic Places, SRCP #60 Statehood period of significance: c.1855-1912 Associated themes: Military; Federal Government; American Indian; Civil War Remotely situated in a small valley along the swift Rio Bonito in Lincoln County, Fort Stanton was established in…
Cathy Williams or William Cathay? Source: St. Louis Daily Times, January 2, 1876 "My Father was a freeman, but my mother a slave, belonging to William Johnson, a wealthy farmer who lived at the time I was born near Independence, Jackson county, Missouri. While I was a small girl…
By Dwight T. Pitcaithley In 2011, this nation began a four-year-long commemoration of the American Civil War. Few who participate in the activities of that event will pause to consider the importance of New Mexico’s central role in the coming of the war. Few will be aware that the…
