Editing Battle of Glorieta Pass (section: Background)

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== Background ==

Confederate strategy in the Southwest rested on Brigadier General [[Henry Hopkins Sibley]]'s proposal to march a brigade of Texas mounted volunteers up the Rio Grande, take the territorial capital, and continue to the Colorado goldfields and eventually to California. Sibley received authorisation in the summer of 1861 and assembled roughly 2,500 men at San Antonio over the following autumn.

The brigade entered New Mexico in February 1862. At the [[Battle of Valverde]] on 21 February it fought Colonel [[Edward Canby|Edward R. S. Canby]]'s regulars and territorial volunteers to a costly tactical victory, but failed to take [[Fort Craig]], which sat astride Sibley's line of communication and held the supplies his men badly needed. Sibley chose to bypass the fort. His troops occupied [[Albuquerque]] on 2 March and Santa Fe on 13 March, finding both towns largely stripped of the stores they had counted on capturing.<ref>Josephy, pp. 76-79.</ref>

That left Fort Union, roughly ninety miles northeast of Santa Fe on the Santa Fe Trail, as the only depot in the territory worth taking. It also left the Confederate column at the end of a supply line running back to Texas, in a territory that could not feed it.

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