The Civil War Battle With the Weirdest Topography

Not the scene you’re used to thinking about

(By Domenick d’Andrea — National Guard Heritage Painings, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=67143227)

The Civil War was fought on dozens of battlefields, but the vast majority of them were in the Southeastern United States. Most battles were fought under pine trees, or in the marshes along the coast, or in swamps bracketing major southern rivers. Many Civil War battlefields are green and wet, which is why the Battle of Glorieta Pass stands out as one of the weirdest battles in terms of locations and topography. Glorieta Pass was a baked, barren, and dry canyon snaking its way through the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in New Mexico.

In 1862, Brigadier General Henry Hopkins Sibley set out from Texas with a grand vision of conquering New Mexico and establishing the new Confederate state of Arizona. Sibley believed that his boys from Texas far outmatched anything the Union had in the Southwest. Sibley’s goals were ambitious. After seizing New Mexico from Texas, he wanted to push north to Colorado and West to California. While the Union armies in the West were much smaller than the monsters in the East, they were still present, and they weren’t willing to give up Western dirt without a fight.

In the east, the battlefields were scrutinized for being too wet. Disease was common in many sectors. Large thatches of trees and scrub were circled as…