Battle of Glorieta Pass | |||||||
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Part of the American Civil War | |||||||
Depiction of the Battle of Glorieta Pass by Roy Anderson |
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Belligerents | |||||||
United States | Confederate States | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
John P. Slough John M. Chivington |
Charles L. Pyron William R. Scurry |
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Strength | |||||||
1,300 | 1,100 | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
Apache Canyon 5 killed 14 wounded 3 missing Glorieta Pass 46 killed 64 wounded 15 captured Total: 51 killed 78 wounded 15 captured 3 missing 147 total |
Apache Canyon 4 killed 20 wounded 75 captured Glorieta Pass 46 killed 60 wounded 17 captured Total: 50 killed 80 wounded 92 captured 222 total |
The Battle of Glorieta Pass, fought from March 26 to 28, 1862 in northern New Mexico Territory, was the decisive battle of the New Mexico Campaign during the American Civil War. Dubbed the "Gettysburg of the West" (a term that "serves the novelist better than the historian") by some authors, it was intended as the killer blow by Confederate forces to break the Union possession of the West along the base of the Rocky Mountains. It was fought at Glorieta Pass in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in what is now New Mexico, and was an important event in the history of the New Mexico Territory in the American Civil War.
There was a skirmish on March 26 between advance forces from each army, with the main battle occurring on March 28. Although the Confederates were able to push the Union force back through the pass, they had to retreat when their supply train was destroyed and most of their horses and mules killed or driven off. Eventually, the Confederates had to withdraw entirely from the territory back into Confederate Arizona and then Texas. Glorieta Pass thus represented the climax of the campaign.
The Confederacy had organized the Confederate Arizona Territory in 1862, a claim that included the southern halves of modern Arizona and New Mexico, after secession moves by residents. The territory had its capital at Mesilla, outside modern Las Cruces. The strategic aim was to capture the gold and silver mines in California and Colorado Territory and the ports in Southern California.