James Henry Carleton produced more primary document material than the other eight protagonists in The Three-Cornered War combined. As commander of the 1st California from 1861-2, and then the Department of New Mexico from 1862-67, Carleton wrote copious letters and reports to his superiors and his subordinates. His words were reprinted and . . .
Read MoreJuanita was not one of the original protagonists of The Three-Cornered War. Initially I planned to write about her husband, Manuelito, a powerful Navajo headman who had a long history of resisting Spanish, Mexican, and American incursions into Diné Bikéyah, the Navajo homeland. I wrote a chapter about him, and had nearly completed . . .
Read MoreWhen John Baylor invaded New Mexico Territory on behalf of the Confederacy in the summer of 1861, the Chiricahua Apache chief Mangas Coloradas had already been at war with the U.S. Army for several months. U.S. soldiers had tried to take his son-in-law Cochise prisoner during a parlay at Apache Pass the . . .
Read MoreWhy do so few historians talk about the American Civil War in the West? And by “the West” I don’t mean the trans-Mississippi. I mean the vast stretches of high desert and the extensive mountain ranges west of the 100th meridian, where elevation and aridity make everything a bit more difficult: breathing, . . .
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