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Battle of Peralta | |||||||
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Part of the Trans-Mississippi Theater of the American Civil War | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
United States | Confederate States | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Edward Canby | Thomas Green | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
2nd New Mexico Infantry 1st Colorado Infantry | 4th Texas Cavalry 7th Texas Cavalry | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
1 killed 3 wounded [1] | 4–6 killed 3 wounded/captured 22 captured [1] |
The Battle of Peralta was a minor engagement near the end of Confederate General Henry Hopkins Sibley's 1862 New Mexico Campaign.
Retreating after the Battle of Glorieta Pass, Confederate troops of the 5th Texas Mounted Volunteers under Colonel Thomas Green camped in the town of Peralta, New Mexico Territory and planned to cross a series of irrigation canals the next day. The rest of the Confederate army was encamped on the other side of the Rio Grande in the town of Los Lunas.
On April 14, the pursuing Union Army forces under Colonel Edward Canby caught up with Green. At dawn, Union cavalry attacked and captured the Confederate wagon train, killing and capturing the guard. The Confederates used the low adobe houses in the town as natural fortifications. Canby captured a Confederate supply train which was then approaching Peralta, and then sent John Chivington and Gabriel R. Paul to surround the Confederates to prevent any forces from reaching Green. The adobe walls and irrigation ditches surrounding the town were stronger than Canby was willing to risk an assault on. Learning of the fighting, Sibley led the 4th and 7th Texas Mounted Rifles across the river. The rival armies battered each other in an artillery duel, until a dust storm blew in and allowed the Confederates to withdraw to the west bank of the Rio Grande, leaving behind a town which had been reduced to rubble.
The Confederates reached Los Lunas at 4 a.m., where they rested for a few hours before continuing their retreat. Canby followed with the Union army, harassing the Confederate column with cavalry.
Edward Richard Sprigg Canby was a career United States Army officer and a Union general in the American Civil War. He served as a military governor after the war.
The Arizona Territory, colloquially referred to as Confederate Arizona, was an organized incorporated territory of the Confederate States of America that existed from August 1, 1861, to May 26, 1865, when the Confederate States Army Trans-Mississippi Department, commanded by General Edmund Kirby Smith, surrendered at Shreveport, Louisiana. However, after the Battle of Glorieta Pass, the Confederates had to retreat from the territory, and by July 1862, effective Confederate control of the territory had ended. Delegates to the secession convention had voted in March 1861 to secede from the New Mexico Territory and the Union, and seek to join the Confederacy. It consisted of the portion of the New Mexico Territory south of the 34th parallel, including parts of the modern states of New Mexico and Arizona. The capital was Mesilla, along the southern border. The breakaway region overlapped Arizona Territory, established by the Union government in February 1863.
The Battle of Glorieta Pass was fought March 26–28, 1862 in the northern New Mexico Territory, by Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War. While not the largest battle of the New Mexico campaign, the Battle of Glorieta Pass ended the Confederacy's efforts to capture the territory and other parts of the western United States.
Henry Hopkins Sibley was a career officer in the United States Army, who commanded a Confederate cavalry brigade in the Civil War.
The New Mexico campaign was a military operation of the trans-Mississippi theater of the American Civil War from February to April 1862 in which Confederate Brigadier General Henry Hopkins Sibley invaded the northern New Mexico Territory in an attempt to gain control of the Southwest, including the gold fields of Colorado and the ports of California. Historians regard this campaign as the most ambitious Confederate attempt to establish control of the American West and to open an additional theater in the war. It was an important campaign in the war's Trans-Mississippi Theater, and one of the major events in the history of the New Mexico Territory in the American Civil War.
The Battle of Valverde, also known as the Battle of Valverde Ford, was fought from February 20 to 21, 1862, near the town of Val Verde at a ford of the Rio Grande in Union-held New Mexico Territory, in what is today the state of New Mexico. It is considered a major Confederate success in the New Mexico Campaign of the American Civil War, despite the invading force abandoning the field. The belligerents were Confederate cavalry from Texas and several companies of Arizona militia versus U.S. Army regulars and Union volunteers from northern New Mexico Territory and the Colorado Territory.
The First Battle of Mesilla was fought on July 25, 1861, at Mesilla in New Mexico Territory, in present-day Doña Ana County, New Mexico.
The Army of New Mexico, also known as the Sibley Brigade, was a small Confederate field army in the American Civil War. It operated in Confederate Arizona and New Mexico Territory during the New Mexico Campaign in late 1861 and early 1862, before it was transferred to Louisiana. At first the force was tasked with securing Confederate Arizona's forts, most of which were still in Union hands. John R. Baylor had already established the Confederate Territory of Arizona after the First Battle of Mesilla in 1861. Now the goal was to capture the remaining U.S. held forts in Confederate Arizona and to invade New Mexico Territory. The army also hoped to capture the mines of Colorado and California, to secure gold and silver supplies to finance the Confederate war effort. Ultimately, the Confederate plans were thwarted at the Battle of Glorieta Pass.
Louisa Hawkins Canby, also known as the "Angel of Santa Fe", was a nurse during the American Civil War, and wife of Union soldier Brigadier General Edward Richard Sprigg Canby. Canby was a nurse for Confederate soldiers in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Before General Edward Canby ordered his troops to retreat from Santa Fe, he instructed them to destroy or hide all essential supplies such as food, equipment, and blankets to hinder the Confederate soldiers. She subsequently assisted Confederate Col. William Read Scurry in locating the hidden supplies left behind by the retreating Union forces.
The California Column was a force of Union volunteers sent to Arizona and New Mexico during the American Civil War. The command marched over 900 miles (1,400 km) from California through Arizona and New Mexico Territory to the Rio Grande and as far east as El Paso, Texas, between April and August 1862.
Thomas "Tom" Green was an American soldier and lawyer, who took part in the Texan Revolution of 1835–36, serving under Sam Houston, who rewarded him with a land grant. Green was clerk of the Texas Supreme Court until the outbreak of the Civil War, when he became a Confederate cavalry leader. After winning several victories, including the Battle of Valverde and the recapture of Galveston, he was promoted brigadier and assigned command of the cavalry division of the Trans-Mississippi Department. In the Red River Campaign, he was mortally wounded while charging a fleet of Federal gunboats. The Union naval commander David Dixon Porter paid tribute to Green as a serious loss to the Confederacy.
Arthur Pendleton Bagby Jr. was an American lawyer, editor, and Confederate States Army colonel during the American Civil War. Confederate General E. Kirby Smith, commander of the Trans-Mississippi Department assigned Bagby to duty as a brigadier general on April 13, 1864, to date from March 17, 1864, and as a major general on May 16, 1865. These extra-legal appointments were not made official by appointments of Bagby to general officer grade by Confederate President Jefferson Davis or by confirmation by the Confederate Senate.
Prior to the adoption of its name for a U.S. state, Arizona was traditionally defined as the region south of the Gila River to the present-day Mexican border, and between the Colorado River and the Rio Grande. It encompasses present-day Southern Arizona and the New Mexico Bootheel plus adjacent parts of Southwestern New Mexico. This area was transferred from Mexico to the United States in the Gadsden Purchase of 1853. Mining and ranching were the primary occupations of traditional Arizona's inhabitants, though growing citrus fruits had long been occurring in Tucson.
The Battle of Albuquerque was a small engagement of the American Civil War in April 1862 between Confederate Brigadier General Henry Hopkins Sibley's Army of New Mexico and a Union force of the Department of New Mexico under Colonel Edward R. S. Canby.
The Battle of Canada Alamosa as it was known to the Union Army, or Alamosa as it was known to the Confederates, was a skirmish of the American Civil War on the late evening of September 24 and the morning of September 25, 1861. It was one of several small battles that occurred in Confederate Arizona near the border with Union held New Mexico Territory, this one being the largest.
The Company A, Arizona Rangers was a cavalry formation of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War.
The Department of New Mexico was a department of the United States Army during the mid-19th century. It was created as the 9th Department, a geographical department, in 1848 following the successful conclusion of the Mexican–American War, and renamed Department of New Mexico in 1853. It had to contend with an invading Confederate force during the New Mexico Campaign of the American Civil War from mid-1861 to early 1862, then with Apache tribes during the remainder of the conflict. It was merged into the Department of California after the end of the war as the District of New Mexico.
Bethel Coopwood (1827–1907) was a notable frontier figure of the American Southwest. He was born in Alabama, moved to Texas, was soldier in the Mexican–American War, and an officer in the Confederate Army in the American Civil War. He also was a lawyer, judge, and later a historian.
James Henry Carleton was an officer in the US Army and a Union general during the American Civil War. Carleton is best known as an Indian fighter in the Southwestern United States.
Sherod Hunter was the commander of the Confederate unit operating against Union Army forces in present-day Arizona during the American Civil War. He later commanded various Confederate cavalry units elsewhere in the Trans-Mississippi Theater.