The Impending Crises
Santa Fe Gazette
Jan. 15,1862

(Bill Manley - Researcher)

We are upon the eve of most important events. We have here, at this point of the Confederacy, and almost without the pale of civilization, two hostile armies within a few miles of each other, surrounded by an boundless expanse of mountain, desert and plain, presenting, perhaps, the most remarkable spectacle of the present war - an anomoly in all chronicles of modern warefare - showing, in a most favorable light, the great energy and strength of our new Confederacy. The composition of both armies is peculiar, and all the circumstances which surround them extrordinary, while the end which will be achieved beyond the shadow of a doubt, will redound to the glory of Confederate arms, as much as any campaign that has been or may be instituted.

We shall have to contend against a force superior in numbers; officered by men of military education, and long experience in military affairs, equipped with the most improved arms, and supplied with all the materials of war, and all the convenience and necessities required by the soldier in camp or in field - we shall have to contend against an army acting on the defensive, in a country abounding in natural strong-holds.

Our Army is well officered, but badly clothed, badly fed, badly armed. It is composed entirely of cavalry, and the men and horses are fatiqued with a tedious march of 700 miles, yet one and all undaunted, and as sanguine of success as ever were an army of veterans.

The Federal Army does not in scarecely a single particular, present the stampt of American natiioality. The major part of the army is composed of native New Mexican volunteers, who do not differ, in any essential degree, from which the people of Old Mexico, who neither know nor care anything about the principal involved, and are, with a facility proverbial with the Mexican race, ready to espouse the side of successful. The regular troops are composed of the old U.S. Regular Army, who were of everything but Americans - an incongruous string of nationalities in which the German and Irish predominate. They enlist for their pay and food, and have no warmer or higher sympathy in the present war.

The Confederate "Army of New Mexico" is composed of what is probably the best material for an army that the world affords. That distinct type of mankind, the south-western frontiersman, inured to all hardships, of indominable energy, familliar with the use of fire-arms, at home on horse-back, and fired with the love of country and for the redress of wrongs. There is no conflict which they would undertake, and none can occur on these lines in which they will not be perfectly successful.

The Federal force in New Mexico is about 5,000 men, including four regiments of volunteers, of which Kit Carson is Colonel. The regular force is 30 companies of different regiments - a portion of the 5th, 7th, and 10th infantry, 1st Mtd Rifles, and 2nd and 4th cavalry, under the command of Col. Canby. They are tolerably supplied with light artillery, 6-pound, 12-pound howitzers, there being no heavy artillery in the Territory.

The Federal advance is at Fort Craig, 130 miles from Mesilla, and 180 miles south of Santa Fe, on the Rio Grande. The Confederate advance is at present at Fort Thorn, 40 miles from Mesilla and 90 from Fort Craig. At Fort Craig there are about 700 regulars and 1,500 volunteers, and is all the available force that can be drawn to that point without leaving other important points entirely unprotected. It is optional with the Confederate Commander to circumnavigate it and make no attempt to take it, or deemed necessary, it presents no great obstacle to an easy reduction. Beyond Fort Craig are a series of villages, situated in the Rio Grande valley, but with considerable intervals intervening. The residents in the valley of this stream compose about 5/6ths of the population of New Mexico. The Key of New Mexico is the towns of Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and the Fortress of Fort Union, lying in a equi-lateral tri-angle with sides of 90 miles. Santa Fe, the capital of the Territory, has a population of 7,000. Albuquerque has been for many years the principal depot of supplies for the Posts of the Territory. In and near these two cities is the principal wealth of the Territory of New Mexico. They are the centre of trade for an immense scope of country, and have an immense mercantile capital, while the flocks and heards, especially sheep, are numbered by thousands. Fort Union is the gate-way to the commerce of the plains, and commands the approach of any force via Kansas, Missouri or Iowa. Here the Federal engineers have built a fortress impregnable to the ordinary means of attack - one of the most remarkable ever erected in America, taking into consideration its far-off position and the material at hand for its construction. It cannot probably be taken without the slow and tedious process of siege approaches.

In the vicinity of Santa Fe are excellent mines of copper and gold. The whole Territory abounds in mineral wealth, and much valuable farming land; but the western portion will eventually provide to be the riches in arable land mineral store. In the opinion of many, in that vast and almost unknown scope of country between the Rio Grande and the Sierra Nevada, Lies a wealth not even second to the celebrated Washo district in silver.

From Santa Fe the city of Denver is distant 300 miles. The Great Northern Over Land Mail Route can be reached at several points in from three to five hundred miles. The settled portion of Utah can be reached from Santa Fe and several feasible routes exist by which communication might easily be opened with southern California.

The ends to be acheived and the advantages realised by the occupation of New Mexico, which geographically pertains by every reasonable law, to the south, will be of incalculable benefit present and prospective. The resources of the country, when they begin to be developed, will form a large item in the wealth and commerce of the world, and will at once command all the feasible and practicable channels of communication between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.