Blog

Short, sourced pieces on the Civil War era in the West: forts, stage roads, campaigns and the people caught in them.

• The Butterfield Overland Mail and the War That Moved It

  How the 1858 Butterfield stage line crossed the desert Southwest, and why the Civil War shut its southern route in 1861.

• The Dakota War of 1862: The West's Other Front

  Six weeks of war in Minnesota in 1862, the trials that followed, and the largest mass execution in U.S. history.

• The Star Fort at Fort Union, New Mexico

  Why the Army dug an earthen star-shaped fort on the Santa Fe Trail in 1861, and what it guarded.

• Picacho Pass: The Westernmost Fight of the Civil War

  A short cavalry clash in Arizona in April 1862, often called the westernmost battle of the Civil War.

• Bear River, 1863: A Massacre Far From the Front

  How California volunteers posted to Utah attacked a Shoshone winter camp in January 1863.

• Glorieta Pass and the Burned Supply Train

  How a raid on Confederate wagons at Johnson's Ranch decided the New Mexico campaign in March 1862.

• The Cotton Road: Confederate Trade Through Mexico

  How Southern cotton crossed the Rio Grande to Matamoros and reached Europe past the Union blockade, 1861 to 1865.

• The Cherokee Nation's Own Civil War

  How the Civil War split the Cherokee Nation in Indian Territory, from Stand Watie's Confederate regiments to the Union Indian Home Guard.