On New Year’s Eve 1861, William Lott Davidson (Bill to his friends) was huddled around a campfire outside the adobe walls of Fort Bliss, a Confederate installation north of the Rio Grande in far western Texas. He and his fellow soldiers in Company A of the 5th Texas were recovering from their march . . .
Why 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, . . .
