The Battle of Glorieta Pass was fought March 26–28, 1862, in the northern New Mexico Territory, by Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War. While not the largest battle of the New Mexico campaign, the Battle of Glorieta Pass ended the Confederacy's efforts to capture the territory and other parts of the western United States.
The battle took place at the eponymous mountain pass in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, in what is now Santa Fe County, New Mexico. Confederate forces sought to break the Union's possession of the West along the base of the Rocky Mountains, with the ultimate aim of controlling strategically valuable mines, railroads, and cities throughout the region. The invasion was the westernmost military operation of the war, and the South's only real attempt to conquer and occupy Union territory.
A skirmish occurred on March 26 between advance elements from each army, with the main battle occurring on March 28. Although the Confederates were able to push Union forces back through the pass, they had to retreat when their supply train was destroyed and most of their horses and mules were killed or driven off. Eventually, the invading force was forced to withdraw entirely from the territory, with the Union retaking full control by June.
As the Confederacy never attempted another invasion of the region, Glorieta Pass represented the climax of the ambitious New Mexico campaign, remaining an important event in New Mexico's Civil War history.
The southern portion of the New Mexico Territory had been largely neglected by both the federal government and the territorial government in Santa Fe. As a result, Confederate sympathy was strong, in hopes of receiving better treatment by the new government. Following secession moves by residents, Confederate forces seized Mesilla and captured the federal troops there, who made a halfhearted attempt to retreat to Santa Fe. In early 1862, the Confederacy established the Confederate Arizona Territory, which included the southern halves of both modern Arizona and New Mexico. The territorial capital was at Mesilla, some 45 miles (72 km) from El Paso and near today's major city of Las Cruces. The strategic goals were to gain access to the gold and silver mines of California and the Colorado Territory and the seaports in Southern California, and thus evade the Union naval blockade.
The commanders of the New Mexico Campaign were Confederate Brig. Gen. Henry Hopkins Sibley and Union Col. Edward Canby. Sibley attempted to capture Fort Craig, completely outmaneuvering Canby at the Battle of Valverde in February and driving him back into his fort, but failed to force Canby's surrender. Sibley then bypassed the fort and advanced north through the Rio Grande Valley, occupying Santa Fe on March 10. Canby remained at Fort Craig, hoping to cut Sibley's logistical support from Texas and awaiting reinforcements before he dared to take the offensive. Sibley made his headquarters at the abandoned Union storehouse at Albuquerque.
The Indian Wars encompass more than three centuries of armed conflict between the United States government, American settlers, and Indigenous nations — from the Powhatan Wars of the 1620s through the final Plains campaigns of the late 19th century. The eastern conflicts — King Philip's War (1675–1676), the Tuscarora War (1711–1715), and the Creek and Seminole Wars — largely ended organized Indigenous resistance east of the Mississippi by the 1840s. On the Great Plains, the Sioux Wars (1854–1890), Red River War (1874–1875), and Nez Perce War (1877) followed the displacement wrought by the transcontinental railroad and the near-extinction of the American bison — an estimated 30 to 60 million animals reduced to fewer than 1,000 by 1890. The Ghost Dance religious movement and the massacre at Wounded Knee (December 29, 1890), in which US cavalry killed approximately 250 Lakota men, women, and children, marked the effective end of armed resistance. The Dawes Act (1887) allotted reservation land to individual families, opening millions of acres to white settlement and reducing Indigenous landholdings by about two-thirds over the following decades.
This page covers Battle of Apache Canyon — New Mexico (March 26, 1862). A full Aubrey report for the area pulls together this battle alongside historic sites, land records, and everything else the record holds within a few miles:
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