Texas Expeditionary Cavalry in the West
Part II of a five-part series. Continued from Part I.
The sparsely populated territories to the west of Texas emerged as a tempting, and ultimately futile, expeditionary theater for conventional Texan mounted arms in the Civil War. Like the eastern campaigns that unfolded from Louisiana to Georgia, the projection of Lone Star combat power to New Mexico Territory required deployment across vast distances with unique cavalry mobility. Also like the Eastern Theater, the Confederacy accomplished the invasion of New Mexico with doctrinally structured and numbered regiments. Though this desert offensive reflected the audacity and strategic impact that only flying horse columns could achieve, the campaign for a western Confederate empire would end in utter disaster.
The Rebel invasion of the West began in July of 1861 when the 2nd Texas Mounted Rifles audaciously seized Fort Bliss and defeated its Union garrison. A larger brigade under Henry H. Sibley, a West Point graduate and former officer in the U.S. Army garrison of antebellum Texas, followed in October and November of 1861. The corps included the 4th, 5th, and 7th Texas Volunteer Cavalry regiments. The extreme mobility of this brigade offered immense potential for a rapid conquest of isolated Federal positions in the continental southwest. The plan also emulated the mounted warfare strategy pioneered by in centuries past by the Comanche, when they had conducted large-scale raids against Spanish and Texian towns by maximizing exceptional operational reach across vast landscapes.
The Texan expedition first aimed to defeat the Union garrison of 3,800 regulars and volunteers at Fort Craig, on the Rio Grande in lower New Mexico Territory. Sibley hoped that the surprise facilitated by the maneuver speed of a pure cavalry brigade, supported by fifteen mobile artillery pieces, would enable a swift capture. Yet on February 15, when the Texans arrived at the fort, they found it prepared and impregnable to assault. The Southern general then conducted a demonstration in front of the station in order to entice general engagement, but the opposing commander, Edward Canby, pragmatically refused to be drawn out.
Sibley next elected to envelop Fort Craig from the north in order to isolate the Federal position from outside support. The first and largest battle of the New Mexico Campaign resulted when a combined arms Union force emerged from the fort and intercepted the Confederates at a key crossing site over the Rio Grande. Called the Battle of Valverde for the fording location, the engagement escalated as Texans and Unionists continued to reinforce their respective battle lines with fresh companies throughout the day. Albert Peticolas, a volunteer in the 4th Texas Cavalry, described his regiment’s arrival to the scene: “In high spirits and singing songs, we crossed the valley at the same rapid pace and dismounted among the cotton woods and advanced rapidly (after having hitched our horses) to a slight embankment on our line of defense."
In the late afternoon, as the battle culminated, the opposing commanders each attempted to turn the extremities of each other’s lines with flank attacks. This included an ill-advised charge by a company of the 2nd Texas Cavalry while armed with lances, in which they “lost so many men,” as recorded by Peticolas, that they retreated in disorder. The young sergeant also recalled how the Texan left wing had “charged upon horseback and had been repulsed with loss by the heavy lines of infantry, who reserved their fire till hour men had gotten about 120 yards of them.”
Despite the setbacks, the Texan brigade eventually achieved tactical superiority with an aggressive charge on the Union center. Peticolas, advancing there with his regiment, again wrote how “nothing would stand before our victorious forces … their own cannon were rapidly drawn down towards the left, where we were driving them back, and fired upon them with telling effect.” Tom Green, the commander of the 5th Texas Cavalry, boasted of the assault that “never were double barreled shot-guns and rifles used to better effect.”
Sibley concurred and praised the efforts of his versatile cavalry in his official report. The Texan commander, who would display exceptionally poor leadership throughout the campaign, wrote with dramatic flair: “For the first time … batteries were charged and taken at the muzzle of double barrel shotguns, thus illustrating the spirit, valor, and invincible determination of Texas Troops.” Once again, as in past confrontations at San Jacinto and Salado in Texas, and Monterey in Mexico, Lone Star soldiers’ predilection for marksmanship and mounted aggression had paid tactical dividends.
The Union forces soon retreated toward the fort, but the Texans proved unable to exploit their momentum. One officer lamented that their “men and horses were completely worn out,” doubtlessly the result of the long desert march and immediate attack. Sibley recalled the attrition afflicted on the mounts of the 4th Texas Cavalry, in particular, reporting that “many of their horses were killed, thus leaving them half foot and half mounted.” In the end, under a “flag of truce,” the Federals collected their dead and wounded, and retired to the safety of Fort Craig. The Confederates suffered 230 casualties, almost 10 percent of the brigade, while the Unionists sustained 111 killed and 160 wounded, approximately 17 percent of their improvised army.
Understanding the logistical precariousness of his isolated position in the desolate New Mexico desert, Sibley made the questionable decision to bypass Fort Craig, leave a viable Union garrison in his rear, and continue up the Rio Grande Valley toward Fort Union. The Confederate expedition then seized the main political centers of Albuquerque on March 2 and Santa Fe on March 13, but failed to capture critically needed Union Army supply depots. On March 28, at the Battle of Glorieta Pass, the Army of New Mexico again engaged Union defenders in the battle that decided the ultimate outcome of the campaign. The contest unfolded as an infantry and artillery affair, with the cavalrymen fighting dismounted due to the rough terrain.
