“Gettysburg of the West” – Co-Writing “Desert Empire”

“Gettysburg of the West” intrigued me. Fought a year and a half, approximately, before the engagement in Pennsylvania, named for the town where a battle was fought. I found out that this term was coined by a future historian of the Southwest during the American Civil War and one of the first to promote the significance of Confederate aspirations in this theater.

Secondly, after a co-worker in the National Park Service gave me a very used copy of Generals at Rest, a tome in which all 425 Confederate generals were buried, I came across the grave of Brigadier General Henry Hopkins Sibley. In Fredericksburg, Virginia. How did a man from Louisiana, who served the Confederate cause primarily in the Trans-Mississippi and ventured to Egypt after the conflict, end up in central Virginia?

The short answer, he died at his daughter’s residence, still seeking compensation for patents of military accoutrements that he had invented before the Civil War, in which his involvement for the rebel cause had canceled.

The long answer. The book Desert Empire is co-authored by Pat Fischer-Kelly.

Having a chance to venture to New Mexico and walk the battlefield of Glorietta Pass and the fringes of Valverde was a unique Civil War experience. Driving from Las Cruces/Mesilla to Albuquerque and Santa Fe allowed me to appreciate what Sibley and his Confederates and Canby and his Federals persevered through. Understanding the motives, famous personas, and the larger ramifications of a successful Confederate invasion of New Mexico would have allowed me to understand a different side of the war.

That being said, a Confederate empire from “sea to shining sea.” Potentially recognition by Mexico, possibly a port on the Pacific Ocean, or even unleashing a larger Native American conflict in the west. All possibilities. All stopped along a stretch of the Santa Fe Trail where neither army commanders weren’t present.

Digging into the secondary sources—a few great books, especially by Megan Kate Nelson—and great military studies that have stood the test of time, like Martin Hall, Sibley’s New Mexico Campaign, really opened the breadth, intensity, layers, and people that intersected in the southwest. Add that to the primary source material, from Confederate artilleryman Trevanion Theodore Teel to soldiers in “Pike Peakers,” the moniker of the 1^st Colorado Regiment. Add in characters like “Dirty Shirt” Scurry or Major John Chivington, along with Tom Green and Kit Carson, and there are some major personas that marched, rode, fought, and bled in New Mexico.

With some of the sites preserved, the amazing vistas and views of the now state of New Mexico and the possibilities—the “what ifs” that history enthusiasts like to banter about—and one can see clearly why the culminating battle of Glorietta Pass was referred to as the “Gettysburg of the West.” (which comparison is attributed to historian and author Don Alberts)

It was a lot of fun exploring, creating unique pictures for an ECWS volume, and working with a great co-writer and historian. What you get is Desert Empire. Add in exploding mules, buried artillery tubes, the last lancer charge in American military history, and brown liquor (drank by one of the commanders, not by this co-author when researching/writing, promise), and you have a story that people with an interest in the Civil War need to know more about. The fringes of the Civil War, from Maryland to Florida to New Mexico, have always intrigued me, so this fell right in line with that interest.

Also, to conclude, to the men, on both sides, that perished, some just recently identified, their sacrifice for the cause they believed in and the ultimate sacrifice made, is no less important than their brethren in arms that fell on hallowed ground east of the Mississippi River.