The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 103, July 1999 - April, 2000 Page: 217
554 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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An Indian Superintendent at the Battle of Valverde
Henry Connelly south from Santa Fe to Fort Craig in early February
1862. It was at the Battle of Valverde, some thirty-two miles south of the
village of Socorro, just north of the adobe bastion of Fort Craig and
along the east bank of the Rio Grande, that Collins witnessed the largest
battle of the Civil War in the Rocky Mountain West on February 21,
1862. The turning point at Valverde came when a column of General
Sibley's determined Texans commanded by Col. Tom Green gallantly
charged and seized an artillery battery commanded by a North Carolina
loyalist, Capt. Alexander MacRae. Although a number of battle reports
and journals, both Union and Confederate, recall the vicious hand-to-
hand combat around MacRae's Battery, none were written by individuals
who were as close to the action as Collins. What follows are Collins's let-
ters describing the Civil War in New Mexico Territory.8 Undoubtedly, the
most valuable and dramatic of the letters is the Indian superintendent's
account of the seizure of MacRae's Battery by the shotgun carrying,
Bowie knife weilding Texans, a pivotal event in a small yet important bat-
tle some seventeen hundred miles west of Richmond and Washington.
Indian Office, N. Mex.
Santa Fe January 25th 1862
Sir
The startling intelligence reached us last night that the Texans were
certainly advancing upon Fort Craig with a force of some 2500 to 3000
Press, 1949); Jacqueline Dorgan Meketa (ed.), Legacy of Honor: The Life of Rafael Chac6n, A
Nineteenth-Century New Mexican (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986); Don E.
Alberts (ed.), Rebels on the Rio Grande. The Civil War Journal of A. B. Peticolas (Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press, 1984);Jerry Thompson (ed.), Westward the Texans. The Civl War
Journal of Przvate Wlliham Randolph Howell (El Paso- Texas Western Press, i99o); and Jerry
Thompson (ed.), From Desert to Bayou. The Civil War Journal and Sketches of Morgan Wolfe Merrck (El
Paso: Texas Western Press, 1991). At least eleven other, shorter but nevertheless Important
diaries and memoirs, have been published in various historical journals.
* For Socorro County during this era see Jerry Thompson, "'Gloom Over our Fair Land'-
Socorro County during the Civil War," New Mexico Historical Review, 73 (Apr., 1998), 99-119.
Born at Crab Orchard, Kentucky, February 1, 18oo, Collins first made the trip across the
plains to Santa Fe in 1826, using pack animals, wagons and teams. He traveled down the Camino
Real to Chihuahua in 1828 and remained involved in the mercantile business there until the
Mexican War. In 1852 he acted as an interpreter for Col. John Marshall Washington's 1849
Navajo Expedition and was said to have spoken Navajo and knew more about Indian affairs than
anyone in the territory. Three years later Collins established the Santa Fe Weekly Gazette and in
March 1857, he was appointed Superintendent of Indian Affairs by President James Buchanan.
He was said to have conceived the raid by Maj. John M. Chlvington that destroyed the Texan
supply train in Apache Canyon during the Battle of Glorleta. W. W. Mills, a leading Unionist
from El Paso, went as far as to report that the raid was "under the direction and lead of Colonel
Collins, a brave citizen." After the war Collins was appointed receiver of the land office and cus-
todian of United States funds in the territory. On Sunday, June 6, 1869, he was found dead in
the depository in Santa Fe with a bullet wound to the head and $ioo,ooo missing. The crime was
never solved. William A. Keleher, Turmoil in New Mexico, 1846--868 (Albuquerque, University of
New Mexico Press, 1982), 181, 484; Santa Fe Gazette, June 12, 1869; W. W. Mills, Forty Years at El217
1999
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 103, July 1999 - April, 2000, periodical, 2000; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101220/m1/253/: accessed May 5, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.