HEADING WEST
In Gary W. Gallagher’s article, “How the West Wasn’t Won” [Vol. 9, No. 1], he argues that Henry H. Sibley’s campaign to take the Far West for the Confederacy was not an imperial move, and that in the end, Sibley’s actions had no impact on the Civil War in the trans-Mississippi or the eastern theater.
Regarding the first argument, Gallagher critiques historians’ overreliance on the account of Trevanion Teel, who testified long after the war about Sibley’s aims in the region. This point is well taken, but Gallagher ignores many participants’ accounts of the campaign. Confederate lieutenant colonel John R. Baylor’s letters and reports of his initial invasion of New Mexico Territory and his campaigns in Arizona and Mexico, and Colonel James Reily’s letters and dispatches from his diplomatic missions to northern Mexico, provide evidence of Confederate officers’ convictions that they were in the Southwest as part of a campaign of conquest. In addition, the congressional act creating the Territory of Arizona (not Jefferson Davis’ proclamation, which is the only text Gallagher cites) ensured that slavery would be legal in that territory, and that the declaration of Arizona’s legitimacy would not prevent the Confederate states from taking the rest of the New Mexico, or any other territories north of the 34th parallel. When the Confederate Congress passed this legislation in January 1862, it had every expectation that the foothold they had gained with Baylor’s occupation of southern New Mexico would be a base for their invasion of California, and expansion to the Pacific.
I have already published a response to Gallagher’s second argument, which he has made before in other publications and lectures. Given the limited space of the Monitor‘s letters to the editor section, I will not elaborate on my arguments about the significance of the Civil War West here. Interested subscribers can read that piece (megankatenelson.com/why-the-civil-war-west-mattered-and-still-does), my own article on John Baylor’s invasion of New Mexico in the Monitor‘s Spring 2012 issue [“Dying in the Desert,” Vol. 2, No. 1], or my forthcoming book on the Civil War West, which will be published by Scribner in February 2020.
Megan Kate Nelson
Lincoln, Massachusetts
Ed. We asked Gary Gallagher if he would like to respond. He writes: “Megan Kate Nelson’s letter underscores the degree to which historians can reach different conclusions about an array of topics. I invite readers to explore the readily available evidence, in print and online, to assess for themselves how Sibley’s campaign and the trans-100th-meridian West more expansively figured in U.S. and Confederate planning and allocation of resources.”
COUNCIL OF WAR REDUX
I have to weigh in on the skirmish between Allen Guelzo and Stephen Sears in the Spring 2019 issue [“Dispatches,” Vol. 9, No. 1] regarding George G. Meade’s willingness to stand and fight at Gettysburg.
The fact that Guelzo relies on Joseph Hooker friend and apologist Dan Butterfield’s flawed testimony to the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War to support the assertion that Meade did not wish to fight at Gettysburg dooms his argument, in my opinion.
Did Meade choose the ground on which the Army of the Potomac fought at Gettysburg? No. He had communicated his chosen ground to his generals and staff in the Pipe Creek Circular. But after the battle began on July 1, and Meade was informed of General John Reynolds’ death early in the fight, he gave General Winfield Hancock command of all corps then assembled at Gettysburg and asked Hancock to advise him if Gettysburg was a suitable place to fight a battle. When Hancock reported that it was, Meade immediately directed the Army of the Potomac to converge on Gettysburg. The die was cast.
The major difference between Meade and Robert E. Lee at Gettysburg was that Meade consulted with and listened to his generals. By taking Hancock’s word, he put his army in a position to win. I give credit to Meade for what he did, and dismiss spurious testimony from those with reason to diminish him, or those who impugn him because they claim to know what Meade was really thinking.
Jim Williams
Via email
A DEATH AT SATTERLEE
I read with interest the piece in the Spring 2019 issue on Satterlee Hospital [“Figures: Satterlee General Hospital,” Vol. 9, No. 1]. My great-great-uncle, Private Henry W. Brown, Battery K, 1st U.S. Artillery, was a patient there from May 19 to June 19, 1864. He was suffering from either malaria or dysentery. Henry’s father, Benjamin—who had received a note from one of his son’s comrades that read in part “i should think it would be quite proper to see him as soon as possible, as he is very ill indeed”—arrived at Satterlee on June 10. Benjamin in turn wrote his wife, “He is very weak. He can’t help himself at all. He is nothing but skin and bones. He has the best of care; everything he can have for his comfort.” Benjamin returned home after a weeklong visit; soon after, Henry succumbed to his illness and was buried at Mount Moriah County Cemetery in Philadelphia on June 21.
One of Henry’s comrades penned a poem the day the young solider died and sent it to Benjamin Brown at the family home in Connecticut. It reads:
Did you see our noble soldier?/Did you bid him a goodbye?/Sad sad to the beholder/For he did not go forth to die.
Not by whistling Rebel bullets/Nor by dreaming shot or shell/It was by the feeble hand of sickness/That your noble soldier fell.
And we never again shall greet him/For with earth he has got through/No we never more shall see him/For he has passed from mortal view.
In his company they shall miss him/There will be one vacant place/In the ranks he filled while with them/But they will never see his face.
He has gone on a long furlough/Ever on the other shore/Gone to see his much loved comrades/Who have sunk to rest before.
And where peace and love abideth/Where a rebellion cannot come/There in peace our soldier restate/In his bright and happy home.
John Henry Proctor
Ivoryton, Connecticut
