Horace Greeley, The American Conflict: A History of the Great Rebellion in the United States of America, 1860-65: its Causes, Incidents, and Results: Intended to exhibit especially its moral and political phases with the drift and progress of American opinion respecting human slavery from 1776 to the close of the War for the Union. Volume II.

[21] replaced by appointees of President Lincoln. Her Delegate in Congress, Miguel A. Otero, had issued¹ and circulated an address to her people, intended to disaffect them toward the Union, and incite them to favor the Rebellion; but her Democratic Governor, Abraham Rencher, though a North Carolinian, upon receiving news of Lynde's surrender, issued a proclamation calling out the entire militia force of the Territory, to act as a home guard; which call, though it added inconsiderably to the effective force of her defenders, was calculated to exert a wholesome influence upon public opinion, and keep restless spirits out of mischief Col. E. R. S. Canby, who had succeeded to the command of the Department, was a loyal and capable soldier, and was surrounded, for the most part, by good and true men. When the new Governor, Henry Connolly, met² the Territorial Legislature, a very wholesome and earnest loyalty was found well-nigh universal, so that the Governor's cautious recommendation that the act for the protection of slave property be modified, as needlessly severe and rigorous, was promptly responded to by an almost unanimous repeal of the entire act, leaving the statute-book of New Mexico clean of all complicity with the chattelizing of man.

Meantime, Col. Canby was quietly proceeding with the organization of his militia and other forces for the inevitable contest, crippled throughout by the want of money, munitions, and supplies of all kinds. Even directions and orders, so plentifully bestowed on most subordinates, were not vouchsafed him from Washington, where the absorption of all energies in the more immediate and momentous struggle on the Potomac and the Missouri, denied him even an answer to his frequent and importunate requisitions and representations. An urgent appeal, however, to the Governor of the adjacent Territory of Colorado, had procured him thence a regiment of volunteers, who, though falling far enough short of the efficiency of trained soldiers, were worth five to ten times their number of his New Mexican levies. Making the best use possible of his scanty or indifferent materials, he was probably about half ready to take the field when apprised that the Texans were upon him.

Gen. H. F. Sibley had encountered similar difficulties, save in the qualities of his men, in organizing and arming, in north-western Texas, the “Sibley brigade,” designed for the conquest of New Mexico. His funds were scanty, and the credit of his Government quite as low as that depended on by Canby; but the settled, productive districts of Texas were not very remote nor inaccessible, while Canby's soldiers were for weeks on short allowance, simply because provisions for their comfortable subsistence were not to be had in New Mexico, nor nearer than Missouri, then a revolutionary volcano, where production had nearly ceased. Two insignificant collisions had taken place near Fort Craig.³ In the earlier, a company of New Mexican volunteers, Capt. Mink, were routed and pursued by a party of Texans, who, in their turn, were beaten and chased away, with considerable loss, by about 100 regulars from the fort.