Bloody Valverde a Civil War battle on the Rio Grande, February 21, 1862

Taylor, John McLellan 1947- (Author).

Summary: When Jefferson Davis commissioned Henry H. Sibley a brigadier general in the Confederate army in the summer of 1861, he gave him a daring mission: to capture the gold fields of Colorado and California for the South. Their grand scheme, premised on crushing the Union forces in New Mexico and then moving unimpeded north and west, began to unravel along the sandy banks of the Rio Grande late in the winter of 1862. At Valverde ford, in a day-long battle between about 2,600 Texan Confederates and some 3,800 Union troops stationed at Fort Craig, the Confederates barely prevailed. However, the cost exacted in men and materiel doomed them as they moved into northern New Mexico. Carefully reconstructed in this book is the first full account of what happened on both sides of the line before, during, and after the battle. On the Confederate side, a drunken Sibley turned over command to Colonel Tom Green early in the afternoon. Battlefield maneuvers included a disastrous lancer charge by cavalry - the only one during the entire Civil War. The Union army, under the cautious Colonel Edward R.S. Canby, fielded a superior number of troops, the majority of whom were Hispanic New Mexican volunteers.

Record details

ISBN: 9780826316325
ISBN: 0826316328
ISBN: 0826321488
ISBN: 9780585283791 (electronic bk.)
ISBN: 0585283796 (electronic bk.)
Physical Description: 1 online resource (xii, 185 pages) : illustrations, maps
remote
electronic resource
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: Albuquerque : University of New Mexico Press, ©1995.

Content descriptions

General Note:	CatMonthString:jan.13 Multi-User. "Published in cooperation with the Historical Society of New Mexico." CatBulkString:jan.03.13
Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
Formatted Contents Note:	Origins -- Prelude to a fight -- Opening gambits -- The battle is joined -- Apparent victory -- Change of command -- The tide turns -- The field is lost -- Pyrrhic victory -- Retrospective.
Restrictions on Access Note:	Restrictions unspecified
Reproduction Note:	Electronic reproduction. [S.l.] : HathiTrust Digital Library, 2010.
System Details Note:	Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212
Terms Governing Use and Reproduction Note:	Access requires VIU IP addresses and is restricted to VIU students, faculty and staff. Access restricted by subscription.
Action Note:	digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve
Source of Description Note:	Description based on print version record.