The reports and letters brought to light by John P. Wilson in this remarkable collection offer new perspectives on the Civil War in the West. He documents, for example, the activities of Kit Carson, William Brady, and other well known figures whose roles in the Civil War have been incompletely understood; highlights for the first time the dedicated service of native New Mexican officers; unravels the sophisticated espionage (and the brutal executions of suspected spies) carried out by both sides; demonstrates how this national drama took place against the backdrop of ongoing Indian Wars - with the Apaches, the Navajos, and even the Kiowas - that ensnared both Union and Confederate armies; and elucidates the unprecedented ways in which the conflict militarised the Southwest for decades. The 282 letters, song lyrics, casualty lists, intelligence dispatches, transcripts of witness testimony, newspaper accounts, and official reports of battles that appear here build upon the massive anthology of Civil War documentation first published in War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (128 volumes, 1881-1901). Wilson's book supplements that source by including previously unavailable materials that historians, scholars, students, and Civil War buffs will find invaluable and intriguing.
John P Wilson earned his doctorate at Harvard University. He worked as an archaeologist at the Museum of New Mexico in Santa Fe, and during this time excavated at old Fort Fillmore near Las Cruces, New Mexico, and Fort Sumner in eastern New Mexico.
Prelude: a Confederate assessment of New Mexico in 1861 1 document -- Southern New Mexico, June-July 1861 (Union correspondence) 22 documents -- Headquarters and northern district correspondence, June-July 1861 (Union) 18 documents -- Headquarters and Fort Union correspondence, August 1861 (Union) 53 documents -- The retreat from Arizona, July-August 1861 (Union) 2 documents -- Headquarters and southern district correspondence, August-December 1861 (Union) 38 documents -- Confederate correspondence, July-December 1861 14 documents -- Rio Bonito and Manzano theater, August 1861-January 1862 (Union and Confederate) 19 documents -- Southern Arizona, August 1861-August 1862 (Union and Confederate) 17 documents -- Confederate correspondence, January-April 1862 9 documents -- Headquarters and other correspondence, January-March 1862 (Union) 38 documents -- Baylor's raid on Corralitos, February 1862 (Confederate and Mexican correspondence) 6 documents -- The Battle of Valverde, February 1862 (Union and Confederate) 5 documents -- Apache Pass and Glorieta, March 1862 (Union and Confederate) 5 documents -- Headquarters and southern district correspondence, April-August 1862 (Union) 21 documents -- Confederate correspondence, May-July 1862 14 documents.
"This collection of documents is indispensable for those seriously interested in the Civil War in New Mexico or researching the conflict in the Southwest." "This work will be invaluable to students of the confederacy's ill-fated New Mexico campaign of 1861-1862." The volume is well-illustrated with likenesses of its principals and line-drawn maps that are useful to help the reader visualize the players and their operations. Thoroughly indexed, the book is a good place to find references to important but hard to locate men . . . Wilson conveniently organized his book by area and topical chapters . . . an essential source work for students of its subject. "The volume is well-illustrated with likenesses of its principals and line-drawn maps that are useful to help the reader visualize the players and their operations."
