Battle of Peralta
Introduction
Text-to-speech Audio
In or near this location, was the final battle of the New Mexico Campaign of 1862, on April 14. After the Mesilla Secession Convention of 1861 lead to the bottom portions of present day New Mexico and Arizona (then one territory) to join the Confederacy, Confederate forces under General Henry Sibley went north and occupied cities such as Santa Fe and Albuquerque. Union forces under General Edward Canby, went to liberate New Mexico. After the Battle of Glorieta Pass led to a major Union victory, Confederate forces fled southward. It is here at Peralta that Union forces, after obtaining another victory here, effectively kicked Confederate forces out of New Mexico into Mexico and Texas, only to occasionally raid into New Mexico until war's end.
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Backstory and Context
Text-to-speech Audio
In the famed Clint Eastwood western, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, a battle scene between Union and Confederate forces takes place. The battle is intended to personify the Battle of Peralta and the New Mexico Campaign in general, though obviously exaggerated.
Sources
Heyman, Max L., Jr.: Prudent Soldier: A Biography of Major General ERS Canby, 1817-1873, Frontier Military Series III, Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1959.
Filson Historical Society Library: MS #118. "Canby, Edward Richard Sprigg, 1819[sic]-1873. Papers, 1837-1873." A\C214 (1 box, 146 items; includes contemporary newspaper accounts regarding General Canby's death and its aftermath).
Frazier, Donald S. Blood & Treasure: Confederate Empire in the Southwest.' Texas A&M University Press; College Station, Texas, 1995.
United States War Department, The Military Secretary's Office, Memorandum relative to the general officers appointed by the President in the armies of the Confederate States--1861-1865 (1908) (Compiled from official records) Caption shows 1905 but printing date is February 11, 1908.
Warner, Ezra J. Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1959.
Barr, Alwyn. "Green, Thomas". Handbook of Texas Online.
United States. War Dept; Robert Nicholson Scott; Henry Martyn Lazelle; George Breckenridge Davis; Leslie J. Perry; Joseph William Kirkley; Fred Crayton Ainsworth; John Sheldon Moodey (1897). The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 875.
Kerby, Robert L., The Confederate Invasion of New Mexico and Arizona, 1861–1862, Westernlore Press, 1958.
Thompson, Jerry D., Civil War in the Southwest: Recollections of the Sibley Brigade, TAMU Press, 2001.
Thompson, Jerry D., Henry Hopkins Sibley: Confederate General of the West, Northwestern State University Press, 1987.
Whitlock, Flint, Distant Bugles, Distant Drums: The Union Response to the Confederate Invasion of New Mexico, University Press of Colorado, 2006.
Posgate, Natalie (August 23, 2008). "Go West, Young Confederacy". The New York Times.
Hall, Martin Hardwick (1960). Sibley's New Mexico Campaign. Alburquerque, NM: UNM Press.
Colton, Ray Charles, "The Civil War in the Western Territories" Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press 1959