New Mexico and the Central Great Plains in the Civil War

Abstract

This chapter investigates campaigns of the American Civil War in New Mexico Territory and the Great Plains. It contends that the U.S. federal government fought a multifront war during the 1860s that spanned the Confederate South and the American states and territories of the Far West. The war in the Far West aimed to establish U.S. territorial sovereignty and political authority over the nation’s vast North American empire. Across the 1860s, federal officials sought to defend the West against Confederate invaders, compel Native Americans to submit to U.S. rule, force Spanish Mexican citizens to give up systems of Indian slavery and peonage, and rein in rogue White Americans living in federal territories. Federal officials, however, often lacked the political clout or military force to achieve these goals. The Civil War in the Far West reveals the unevenness and weakness of the American state in the mid-nineteenth century.