“You’ll take dinner in Hell”
Following a friendly dinner despite scorching heat in New York City at Villa Mosconi, last night we were treated to a very lively and informative presentation by Hamish Lutris, an Associate Professor at Manchester Community. Professor Lutris has been generous giving a number of presentations to the Forum, and yesterday’s talk was a good example of how entertaining he can be as a speaker.
Forum President Jay Termine kicked off the meeting with some general news, and introduced Ed Hochman who gave us an update on new speakers giving presentations to the Forum over the next six months. Very impressive work by Ed!
Then Professor Lutris took the stage. Hamish engaged the audience with a colorful discussion on what to me is a little-known aspect of the Civil War: the “wild west”, with scattered fighting from California to New Mexico and Texas. What was unusual about this theater of war was that the conflict between North and South coincided with a second war, the growing aggressiveness of three tribes (Apache, Comanches and Navajo) who were impinging on territories held by other tribes in the region such as the Utes, the Hopis and Arapajos. “The native tribes were fighting their own wars.” The armies on both sides of the Civil War could play ‘divide and conquer’ between the tribes, with the tribes and individuals aligning themselves with either North or South. The Cherokee chief John Ross fought for the Union while another Cherokee, Mr. Stand Watie, was on the other side (he eventually became the last Confederate general to surrender in the war). Meanwhile both North and South had plenty of soldiers working to “kill the Indians”, with a number of bloody massacres.
The new States on the West Coast (California and Oregon) had only a minor role in the war, with a Union contingent coming out of Los Angeles to guard the southwestern leg of the transcontinental telegram network. Meanwhile in secessionist Texas, generals from the South dreamed of invading the Western territories establishing a link to California through the south linking New Mexico and Arizona in an effort to access gold and silver and ideally access to the Pacific (breaking the Union’s blockade). The real action took place in the Rocky Mountains region, in the Sibley campaign. The story came to a climax in 1862 with the move by Confederate general Sibley tried to help the cause by moving up the Rio Grande from El Paso up to New Mexico and eventually Colorado. Western explorers and adventurers such as Kit Carson and Wild Bill Hickock joined the fighting. The Confederate army recorded technical ‘victory’ (with mixed results) at the battle of Valverde in New Mexico, which opened up Albuquerque and Santa Fe, but led to the ultimate collapse of the South’s foray into the west after the Battle of Glorieta Pass outside Santa Fe.
