The only way New Mexico would have ended up in Confederate hands would have been it Sibley hadn't been a damn fool and left his supply train unprotected at Glorieta. If he hadn't, the Confederates may have even invaded Colorado.
Good to see someone remembers the New Mexico Campaign!
Sibley was pushing his luck in any event - Canby (sp?) still held Fort Craig along his supply line/return route along the Rio Grande to the south, the Colorado forces were still intact after Glorieta and could fall back on Fort Union, and let's not forget the Californians making their way east toward El Paso, or the Missouri/Kansas forces being assembled to head to New Mexico. Even if they had managed to protect their supply train (holding all of Sibley's booze
), they were in a precarious position. And let's not forget that Canby's forces had already moved north through the Sandia Mountain chain to link up with the Colorado forces - which they accomplished shortly after Glorieta, and which gave them parity or better with Sibley's army.
The Rebs were too ambitious out there - if they had focused on holding the pro-Confederate southern swath of the New Mexico Territory ("Confederate Arizona" split the New Mexico Territory along an east-west line, NOT the north-south boundary of today) and had made it a point to force the surrender of Canby's forces at Fort Craig after the Battle of Valverde instead of moving past them, then maybe they could have held Confederate Arizona.
The Southwest and the Pacific Coast were more ambivalent than dedicated to one side - there was talk of creating a 'Western Republic' out there!
Yep, I know all about this - I did an 84-page research paper on this in college...
