ates could furnish. John P. Slough, a
war Democrat and a lawyer, was its colonel. He afterwards became chief
justice of New Mexico, and was brutally murdered in that Territory.

John M. Chivington, a strict Methodist and a presiding elder of that
church, was offered the chaplaincy, but firmly declined, and, like many
others who wore the clerical garb, he quickly doffed it and put on the
attire of a soldier; so he was made major, and his record as a fighter
was equal to the best.

The commanding general knew well the plans of the rebels as to their
intended occupation of New Mexico, and, notwithstanding the weakness
of his force, determined to frustrate them if within the limits of
possibility. To that end he concentrated his little army, comprising a
thousand regular soldiers, the two regiments of New Mexico volunteers,
two companies of Colorado troops, and a portion of the territorial
militia, at Fort Craig, on the Rio Grande, to await the approach of the
Confederate troops, under the command of General H. H. Sibley, an old
regular army officer, a native of Louisiana, and the inventor of the
comfortable tent named after him.

Sibley's brigade comprised some three thousand men, the majority of them
Texans, and he expected that many more would flock to his standard as
he moved northward. On the 19th of February, 1862, he crossed the Rio
Grande below Fort Craig, not daring to attack Canby in his intrenched
position. The Union commander, in order to keep the Texas troops from
gaining the high points overlooking the fort, placed portions of the
Fifth, Seventh, and Tenth Regulars, together with Carson's and Pino's
volunteers, on the other side of the river. No collision occurred that
day, but the next afternoon Major Duncan, with his cavalry and Captain
M'Rae's light battery, having been sent across to reinforce the
infantry, a heavy artillery fire was immediately opened upon them by the
Texans. The men under Carson behaved splendidly, but the other volunteer
regiments became a little demoralized, and the general was compelled to
call back the force into the fort. Sibley's force, both men and animals,
suffered much from thirst, the latter stampeding, and many, wandering
into our lines, were caught by the scouts of the Union forces. The next
morning early Colonel Roberts was ordered to proceed about seven miles
up the river to keep the Texans away from the water at a point where
it was alone accessible, on account of the st