"When All Our Troubles Will Be Forgotten"

For Civil War enthusiasts, the collected writings of a long-neglected figure who was crucial to the pivotal Civil War years in New Mexico. From Jerry Thompson, the preeminent historian of the Civil War in the American Southwest, “When All Our Troubles Will be Forgotten” presents the collected writings of an important and long-neglected Civil War–era figure in New Mexico. As the unofficial historian of the California Column, George Henry Pettis was a firsthand witness to a series of important historic events, including the march of Californians to New Mexico, the Confederate invasion of New Mexico, and the Indian Wars in the region. By the time Pettis arrived on the Rio Grande, the Civil War in the Southwest had evolved into a radically different conflict from what he envisioned when he enlisted in the Union Army in 1861. Over the course of five years and fifteen days in the California and New Mexico infantry, Pettis marched an astonishing 4,245 miles across Arizona, New Mexico, and West Texas while suffering through sweltering summer heat and frigid winter cold—likely a greater distance than any soldier in the entire Union Army. The climax of Pettis’s career came at the Battle of Adobe Walls when he found himself in command of two small artillery pieces in Colonel Christopher “Kit” Carson’s vain, ill-advised, and far-reaching punitive expedition on the Texas plains against the Comanche and Kiowa. Pettis adeptly records the monotony of garrison life at
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