26 March in military history: Battle of Glorieta Pass, 1862

26 March 1862 · 164 years ago

A Confederate dream in the West

In 1862 a Confederate army from Texas invaded New Mexico Territory. The plan, the National Park Service writes, was to go on to the gold fields of Colorado and the ports of California, and for that the Confederates needed Fort Union, the Federal supply center for the territory and beyond. Under Brigadier General Henry H. Sibley the Texans won at Valverde on 21 February 1862 and occupied Albuquerque and Santa Fe.¹

Against them came Colonel John P. Slough with the 1st Colorado Volunteers and regulars from Fort Union, about 1,300 men in all. Slough marched from Fort Union on 22 March.²

26 March: Apache Canyon

Slough sent Major John M. Chivington ahead with about 400 men; Chivington's report counts 418. In Apache Canyon, at an elevation of more than 7,000 feet, they met the Confederate advance guard of about the same size under Major Charles L. Pyron.³

The Texans fell back to a second, stronger position; Chivington sent his infantry up the mountainsides and the mounted Company F charged down the road. The Texans broke, and at sundown Chivington fell back to Pigeon's Ranch with some 70 prisoners: 71 by his report and by Alberts, 75 by Hollister's count. He lost 5 killed and some 14 wounded.⁴

Overnight Lieutenant Colonel William R. Scurry brought up the main Confederate column. No fighting took place on 27 March, while both sides gathered their forces.⁵

28 March: Pigeon's Ranch

On the 28th Slough advanced with his main body and sent Chivington with several hundred picked men over Glorieta Mesa to fall on the Confederate rear at Johnson's Ranch. Chivington's report gives about 430, Hollister 450 and the Park Service about 500. Scurry, meanwhile, had decided to attack.⁶

The two forces met near Pigeon's Ranch and fought among the cedars from late morning until near dark. The Texans pushed the Federals back down the trail and held the field.⁷

Fire at Johnson's Ranch

Meanwhile Chivington's column found the Confederate wagon train at Johnson's Ranch. His men climbed down the steep side of the mesa, drove off the guard, burned the wagons with their ammunition, clothing and food, and ran off or killed the horses and mules. Chivington and Alberts count 80 wagons, Hollister seventy and Slough about 60.⁸

“The loss of my supplies so crippled me that after burying my dead I was unable to follow up the victory,” Scurry reported from Santa Fe on 30 March. Hollister, who marched with the Colorado regiment, called the raid the blow that compelled the Texans to leave the territory.⁹

The end of the invasion

Over the three days the two sides lost about 370 men killed, wounded and captured: the National Park Service counts about 375, the American Battlefield Trust 369. The Confederates fell back to Santa Fe and then withdrew from New Mexico, and the Union kept the Southwest for the rest of the war.¹⁰

The Park Service judges the Federals victorious because they destroyed the Confederate supplies, and says some call Glorieta the Gettysburg of the West. Alberts calls it the high-water mark of the Confederate invasion of the Far West. The battlefield is part of Pecos National Historical Park. For the war's larger clashes, see our guide to the greatest battles of the Civil War.¹¹

Also on 26 March: First Gaza, 1917

On 26 March 1917 British infantry and Anzac and British mounted troops attacked the Turkish defenses of Gaza. Morning fog delayed the attack, and by evening the mounted troops were fighting in and around the town. At about six in the evening, with Turkish reinforcements closing in, the mounted troops were ordered to break off and withdraw. The Australian official historian H. S. Gullett records that General Chauvel protested on the telephone: “But we have Gaza!”.¹²

The British lost some 3,500 to 4,000 men, nearly all of them infantry. A second attack on Gaza in April also failed.¹³