Today in 1862, we are informed, the Union army turned back the Rebs invasion of New Mexico at Glorieta Pass...
Not being a Civil War historian the likes of Tamaroa I can't rightly say much on his Civil War forum about this...
However, I did live almost 5 years just on the other side of the short mountain from Glorieta Pass (about a fifteen minute sub-alpine walk away), restoring a wonderful rancho there, went through Glorieta Pass not less than 5000 times, and every time I kept thinking about that battle. There was a huge boulder about 50 feet off to the north side of the road next to the blacktop from Pecos to Glorieta, with a bronze plaque commemorating BOTH sides in the fight... I used to go trim away the annual growth of juniper branches from in front of it, so it could be seen better.
Glorieta Pass makes for one helluva battle site... the Pass itself is practically the ONLY way to get a formation from the chaparral east of Sante Fe to over in the direction of Las Vegas (which is where the Union was garrisoned), not a lot of friendly natives among the Hispanic who had been there 300 years and weren't thrilled about gringos shooting up their territory, the climbs around there are 45-60 degrees up and downhill otherwise, 7500' altitude, VERY thin air, in that section only scrub juniper (not suitable for "pine bough" pillows or mattresses) and pinion for shade and cover, nearest year-round water is the Pecos river about 7 hard miles east (the area is too hilly for irrigation acequias to function, even IF there was enough run-off), major inhabitants are rattlers, coyotes, rabbits and ravens (or the occasional foraging black bear and cougar), fleas and ticks would be in their adolescent phase right about now to worry the livestock, ten minutes of rain or snow will turn the caliche clay into absolutely unnavigable slop and then turns hard as cement in about 3 hours, shale hillsides that make walking on sand dunes seem easy, to say nothing of the ever popular and brutal cholla cactus and her prickly pear cousin (I'd rather run straight into a Yankee than to come up against one of those babies in an infantry charge), cold as the devil's heart at night and blazing unfiltered heat by 10 AM...
If they'd have spotted their battle about 5 miles further west they could have gotten away from most of those problems... nice flat land, at least a guy could SEE the cacti and rattlers... one good thing though, NO Chiggers !
