You Texans traveling in New Mexico in the Santa Fe area.  When you get tired of the casinos, the museums, the various jewelry and art ripoffs, if you find yourself with time on your hands and would like to have a look at some unusual and little known Texas history, it will be right down the highway from you.

For that matter, you could begin by visiting the National Cemetary on the north end of town.  There are a number of Texans buried there who were killed at the Battle of Glorietta, just down the road.  The bodies were discovered during the 1980s, fought over by Texans and New Mexicans for some while, and finally given a nice ceremony and burial in the National Cemetary.

Reinactment folks did a Confederate funeral march with the coffins on caissons after a church ceremony.... a large crowd followed, including me, a mile or so to the cemetary.  There, the Texan reinactors were joined by yankee reinactors .... did some field piece salutes over the site and black powder musket salutes over the graves after the coffins were lowered.

Pretty impressive event.  I don't know how those young men would have felt about being buried there, about having modern reinactors who probably ain't half the man any of them  simulating their costumes and whatnot.  It might not have been worthy of them, but it was probably better than the mass grave they'd been lying in since shortly after they fell.

If any of you exhibit any interest in the subject I'll give you a rundown of the battle.  Meanwhile, I'll post a few pictures of the site of the main confrontation, where these men fell.

This is the old Pigeon's Ranch House.  It was the forward Union position before they were routed.  Their artillery positions were located on the high ground behind the building and scattered back and to the left.  The Texan advance came from the left, from Santa Fe where they'd sent the Territorial Government into exile ahead of them.

Although there was a considerable artillery duel, a major part of the battle was fought by mounted riflement and Union infantry.  The wall you see just to the left of the house was one of the infantry positions, as well as artillery.  As late as 1949 you could (I did) dig lead balls out of that wall with a pocket knife.

The rock outcropping above was a nest of Union snipers.  They're probably responsible for hitting the riders who are now buried at the National Cemetary.  The grave was below and to the left.

Here's the ranch house from the sniper position, though they'd have been focused on the far right.  There were two Texan artillery positions, one off the picture about 1 oclock, another about 2 oclock.  But the real action was below them, 3 and 4 oclock.  Things were hot enough in this positon to cause them a hasty retreat when the Texans took the position shown in the picture.

The rock faces are still pockmarked by bullet strikes above where those Texans fell.

If any of you want to know more about any of this, or if you think you might get up that way to nose around, let me know.

Jack