Glorieta Pass and the Burned Supply Train
The battle of Glorieta Pass was fought east of Santa Fe from March 26 to 28, 1862, and at first it looked like a Confederate win. Texans under Colonel William Scurry drove Union troops back along the Santa Fe Trail and held the field on the 28th.
The raid at Johnson's Ranch
The decisive fight happened behind their lines. Major John M. Chivington took nearly 500 men over the mesa and dropped down on the Confederate supply camp at Johnson's Ranch. They burned some 80 wagons of food, ammunition and baggage, and killed or scattered the animals. Without supplies, the Confederates could neither hold Santa Fe nor march on Fort Union. In the weeks that followed, Brig. Gen. Henry Hopkins Sibley's army retreated down the Rio Grande and back to Texas.
That was the end of the Confederacy's serious attempt to take New Mexico and reach for Colorado's gold and the Pacific. Chivington was praised for the raid. Two years later he led the attack at Sand Creek, and West of the War follows him there.
The battlefield is now a unit of Pecos National Historical Park, and a trail runs through the site.
Sources: National Park Service, Pecos National Historical Park, "Battle of Glorieta Pass"; Texas State Historical Association, Handbook of Texas, "Glorieta, Battle of"; Don E. Alberts, The Battle of Glorieta: Union Victory in the West (1998); Thomas S. Edrington and John Taylor, The Battle of Glorieta Pass (1998).
Illustration: AI-generated, artistic interpretation.