Civil War Battlefield Conservation in New Mexico

Glorieta Pass

In March 1862, while Confederates from Texas battled a combined force of U. S. Regulars and volunteers from Colorado and New Mexico along the Santa Fe Trail near Glorieta Pass, a Union flanking column moved behind the Confederates’ lines and destroyed their wagon train at Cañoncito, forcing them to retreat to Texas.

A grant from The Gilder Foundation enabled us to work with the owners of historic land on the Glorieta Pass battlefield in the Pecos National Historical Park. We used its Southwest Revolving Fund, established by grants from the Hoblitzelle and Summerlee Foundations, and a loan from the National Park Trust to purchase more than 100 acres of hallowed ground. We held the five properties until the National Park Service had the federal funding, supplemented by a grant from The Civil War Preservation Trust, to purchase them from us and add them to the park.

The sites include a Pueblo built by Ancestral Pueblo People, and land at the center of the Glorieta Pass battlefield.