Blood and Sand: Valverde

(NYTimes) By the late afternoon on Feb. 21, 1862, the furious Battle of Valverde raged in the sandy, cottonwood flood plain of the Rio Grande in the New Mexico Territory. Just six miles north of the Union post at Fort Craig, hundreds of dead men, horses and mules littered the battlefield as a furious artillery duel and infantry charges stretched on into the late afternoon. At 4 p.m., the Union commander, Col. Edward Canby, decided to make his move and finish the rebel forces, led by Confederate Brig. Gen. Henry Hopkins Sibley. Continued

Photo: Colonel (later General), Thomas Green, CSA.