9 March ‘08
Sunday
Well I thought we were going to Mt. Picacho yesterday, but with the garage sale, we had to pass and make it today. Fortunately for us, the re-enactment was still going on. The particular skirmish that we were going to observe was the Confederate victory at Glorieta (the Gettysburg of the West), New Mexico.
The story goes that after the Confederate victory at Valverde, the Texans had arrived at the mouth of Apache Canyon, just east of Santa Fe. They were looking to choke the access of the Santa Fe Trail to the Union. The Confederates had about a thousand men and 3 cannons while the Union
numbered about 850 men and 8 cannons. Well when the fight hit the fan, the Confederates had driven the Union way back and it looked like their back was broken.
It very well could have been but a small group of Union soldiers had slipped by the Confederates. What they found when they got around them was all of the stash the Confederates had left in hiding. Things like huge supplies of ammunition, all of their food (with the exception of that the soldiers were carrying into battle), their wagons and the remainder of their horses.
With a couple of well placed charges the whole stash was up in smoke. This spelled disaster to the Confeds who won the skirmish but lost the war… Well anyway, we arrived with our beach chairs in hand, water, a little snack, camera and lots of suntan lotion and found a location to set-up our “camp”. The re-enactment was held in the sage and cactus at the base of Mt. Picacho so that gave us the opportunity to find a place on the hill side and among the rock and brush to set our chairs. We also visited the encampments and visited with both the Confederates and the Union soldiers, and also found ourselves in line to get a glass of “root”beer and a bag of KETTLECORN??? We spoil ourselves sometimes…