Valverde

Fighting broke out over two days, February 20 and 21, 1862, at a crossing point of the Rio Grande near the town of Val Verde, in territory then belonging to the Union in New Mexico and now part of the state bearing that name. Some know this engagement by the alternate name of Valverde Ford. Historians generally count it among the notable Confederate victories achieved during the New Mexico Campaign of the Civil War, even though the Southern troops who had pushed into the region ultimately withdrew rather than hold their position. On one side stood Confederate horsemen from Texas, joined by a handful of Arizona militia companies, while opposing them were regular soldiers of the U.S. Army alongside Union volunteer units drawn from the northern part of New Mexico Territory and from Colorado Territory.

Background

Brigadier general Henry Hopkins Sibley, serving the Confederacy, dreamed of a campaign that would sweep through New Mexico, crush the Union defenders there, seize Santa Fe as the territorial capital, and ultimately push on toward California to bring it under Confederate control. To set this plan in motion, he intended to muster his forces at El Paso, Texas, then march them northward through Confederate Arizona toward Fort Thorn. His route would then follow the Rio Grande rather than cut across the punishing Jornada del Muerto, with the goal of taking Fort Craig, along with its stores, and breaking the Federal army led by Colonel Edward Canby.

Sibley set out from El Paso on January 3, 1862, at the head of three mounted Texas regiments and a fourth partial one, totaling 2,510 officers and enlisted men. Standing between him and his objective was Fort Craig, situated some 140 miles (225 km) to the north. Canby had positioned 3,800 men there to meet the threat, though infantry made up the bulk of this force. Of these troops, only 1,200 could be considered experienced fighters. The rest of Canby's command was made up of 2,000 volunteers from New Mexico, 100 volunteers from Colorado, and 500 militiamen. Command of the First Regiment of New Mexican volunteers fell to Kit Carson.

Prelude

By the evening of February 13, Sibley had brought his brigade to a point fifteen miles south of Fort Craig. He concluded that storming the fort outright was too risky, so over the following three days he positioned his men in a line outside its walls, hoping the Federals would venture out and fight in open ground. Canby, wary of relying on his volunteers, kept his troops back and declined the engagement.

With supplies dwindling to only a handful of days' worth, the Confederates lacked the luxury of patience. At a council of war held on the 18th, Sibley decided his army would cross the Rio Grande and march northward along its eastern bank toward the ford at Valverde, located six miles above Fort Craig. His aim was to sever the link between the fort and Union headquarters in Santa Fe.

Two days later, on the 20th, the Confederate force had made its way opposite Fort Craig, using the intervening hills to mask its approach from the river. Colonel Thomas Green tried to position artillery on the high ground overlooking both the river and the fort, but Canby had foreseen this maneuver and blocked it, leaving the Texans to spend that night in a dry camp, one without any nearby water source.

Near midnight, Union Captain James Graydon devised a plan to destroy several Confederate picket posts by sending mules carrying barrels of fused gunpowder toward their lines. The old army mules, however, turned back toward the Union camp before the charges went off, and the resulting blasts claimed no lives apart from the two animals themselves. The explosions did have one unintended effect: they startled a group of Confederate cattle and horses into stampeding toward the Union side, costing Green's men horses and provisions they badly needed.

Aftermath

The Confederates held the field when the fighting ended, and though victory was theirs, the cost proved steep: 36 dead, 150 wounded, and a single man unaccounted for among the 2,590 troops engaged. The fort's walls proved too formidable, and Sibley chose to give up any plan of assaulting it, effectively handing the ground back to Union hands. Instead he pressed on toward Albuquerque and Santa Fe, aiming to seize supplies his army badly needed. His progress was slowed considerably, though, by the horses and mules lost in the fighting, a shortage severe enough that the 4th Texas had to fight on foot and some wagons and provisions had to be burned.

On the Union side, Canby counted 3 officers and 65 enlisted men dead, 3 officers and 157 men wounded, and 1 officer with 35 men unaccounted for, 264 casualties altogether. Beyond this, further men vanished, most through desertion rather than combat, pushing his overall loss rate to 16 percent, or 432 of the 2,800 soldiers who took part. Believing himself outnumbered, Canby declined to chase after Sibley's army. He instead dispatched mounted units of New Mexico volunteers to harass the Confederate rear and sent word to Albuquerque and Santa Fe demanding that every supply depot and resource useful to the invaders be destroyed. He himself stayed with the bulk of his force at Fort Craig, positioned to sever the enemy's supply route and intercept any reinforcements headed toward Sibley, with an eye toward eventually trapping the Confederate army between his own troops and Union forces arriving from Fort Union.

Military historians have judged both commanders harshly for their conduct that day. Sibley, drunk and unwell, spent much of the battle inside an ambulance rather than in the field. Actual command fell to Colonel Green, wh