Reviews for The three-cornered war : the Union, the Confederacy, and Native peoples in the fight for the West
Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
The fight between North and South comes West.Nelson's (Ruin Nation: Destruction and the American Civil War, 2012, etc.) cast of characters reads like a John Ford film cast, featuring Mangas Coloradas, Kit Carson, and, in a cameo appearance, Geronimo. Added to it are lesser known figures such as John Baylor, a Texas rancher who became a Confederate, and James Henry Carleton, an agile foe on the Union side. The setting is New Mexico Territory, with a breakaway Arizona in favor of slavery and a nearby California founded as a free state. At the beginning of the Civil War, Baylor, writes the author, "became the first Confederate to lead a successful invasion of Union territory in the Civil War." He captured a Union fort and threatened others before being relieved of command, in part because he had issued a no-quarter call against "renegade" Apaches. The Union Army eventually gained supremacy in the field with the arrival of columns from California and Colorado and victories in fights with Confederate forces, but federal forces then continued the war against the Apaches and Navajos to make the "three-cornered war" of which Nelson writes. That war took savage turns with the murder of Apache leader Mangas Coloradas, whose head was removed by a Union surgeon and boiled in a large kettle until "nothing but the skull was left." It was a gruesome souvenir but not the only atrocity of the campaign. The war in New Mexico did not last long, with a "multiracial army of Union soldiers" composed of Hispanic New Mexicans and newcomer Anglos placing the territory firmly under Northern control by 1862. Nelson is a touch florid at times ("their stories reveal how the imagined future of the West shaped the Civil War, and how the Civil War became a defining moment in the West"), and most elements of her story are well known to students of the history of the American West. She does a good job of setting them in a coherent, if never particularly rousing narrative.A useful survey for readers interested in the Civil War in its short-lived southwestern theater. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
The outcome of the Civil War in the West had profound implications for the Native population, the region, and the nation at large. Historian Nelson (Ruin Nation) argues that the war in the New Mexico territory was the pivotal theatre of the Civil War. Nelson adroitly weaves the lives and experiences of nine people, including a Union army wife, a Navajo woman, an Apache chief, a rancher, and a young lawyer, to show how their lives were affected by the War. As the southern states seceded, Confederate leaders hoped that a pro-Confederate government in the region would significantly add to Confederate territory and open a possible invasion route into California. After an unsuccessful campaign by a Texas unit, the territory was free from Confederate incursion. This allowed Federal troops to continue to force Native tribes onto reservations, disrupting their lives, cultures, and traditions, thereby shaping the region for generations. Based on extensive archival research, Nelson's work expands our understanding of how the Civil War affected Indigenous peoples and helped to shape the nation. VERDICT Readers interested in the Civil War and Western history will enjoy this nuanced portrait of the era.—Chad E. Statler, Westlake Porter P.L., Westlake, OH
Publishers Weekly
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Historian Nelson (Ruin Nation) documents the Civil War as it unfolded in the American West in this brisk and well-sourced narrative. Contending that the federal government’s war aims included both the emancipation of slaves and the elimination of indigenous tribes, Nelson weaves a large cast of supporting characters into the stories of nine individuals representing the Union, the Confederacy, and Native Americans in the fight for control of New Mexico Territory. The book’s main players include U.S. Army Col. James Henry Carleton; Louisa Canby, whose husband commanded Union forces in Santa Fe; Confederate officer John Robert Baylor; and Chiricahua Apache chief Mangas Coloradas. Beginning in July 1861, when Baylor’s regiment occupied Mesilla, N.Mex., and declared it the capital of the slave-holding territory of Arizona, Nelson details the skirmishes and full-scale battles that pitted her characters against each other. From Canby tending to wounded soldiers in Confederate-occupied Sante Fe to the July 1862 capture of Tucson by Carleton’s California Column and escalating clashes between Apache warriors and Union troops, Nelson effectively blends military history with a fresh look at a region typically obscured in accounts of the Civil War. American history buffs will relish this entertaining and eye-opening portrait. (Feb.)
Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.
When discussing the Civil War, Western theater refers to the area between the Appalachians and the Mississippi. But as writer and historian Nelson reminds us, the war was fought much further west than that. Confederates claimed the southern half of New Mexico Territory (roughly today's New Mexico and Arizona), invaded Union New Mexico, and contemplated invading California before they were defeated and withdrew to defend Texas in 1862. And the war didn't end there. In a narrative both engaging and unsparing, Nelson extends its reach to 1868, tracing how the battle against the Confederacy morphed into American attacks on the region's Apache and Diné (Navajo) peoples designed to end their independence. She balances the stories of individuals from all four groups with deft discussion of the big-picture issues: the scorched-earth tactics used against Native Americans and their internment on distant reservations, on one side, and on the other, the economic incentives that turned covetous American eyes toward this sweeping territory. The result is a gripping history that integrates the Southwest into broader histories of American expansion.--Sara Jorgensen Copyright 2020 Booklist
