Distant Bugles, Distant Drums: The Union Response to the Confederate Invasion of New Mexico

Southwest Book Award Winner from the Border Regional Library Association Distant Bugles, Distant Drums details the battles of 1,000 Coloradans against 3,000 Confederate soldiers in New Mexico and offers vivid portraits of the leaders and soldiers involved--men whose strengths and flaws would shape the fate of the nation. Drawing on previously overlooked diaries, letters, and contemporary newspaper accounts, military historian Flint Whitlock brings the Civil War in the West to life. Aiming to restock the Confederacy's dwindling coffers by capturing gold mines, Texan Confederates won a series of engagements along the Rio Grande. Hastily assembled troops that had marched to meet them from Colorado finally turned them back in an epic conflict at Glorieta Pass. Miners, farmers, and peacetime officers turned themselves overnight into soldiers to keep the Confederacy from capturing the West's mines, shaping the outcome of the Civil War. Distant Bugles, Distant Drums tells their story.