With that selfdetermination and that fight for control. Some of those are fairly well known just like a navajo weaver we get to know their stories were lost to history and tell now and then to show the importance of individual actions even in the midst of a larger military conflict. And it is history that keeps the reader turning the pages. A writer and historian living in lincoln and writing for several publications the Washington Times and Smithsonian Magazine earning her ba in history and literature and phd from american studies from the university of iowa. Teaching at texas tech, cal state fullerton, harvard and brown also the author of true indignation and troubling earth. She will talk about the three cornered war and how it came to be or share some anecdotes during the process and read a passage or two that open to questions to thehe audience. Please help give a warm welcome to magan kate nelson. [applause] thank you for coming out on this drizzly cold night. Before we begin, would like to acknowledge we are here on the traditional lands of the people. So the three cornered war tells a story of a civil war on the far left taking place is new mexico that becomes arizona during the war as well as texas and california and colorado. So this point you may ask yourself, i have never heard of this theater or about gettysburg or basically virginia. So i thought the same thing myself when i first started teaching and researching Civil War History 15 years ago. I grew up in colorado. And never heard that there were civil war battles in new mexico or colorado soldiers were important to Union Victory in that theater. I had no idea Indigenous People were involved at all. In colorado we have silver mining history maybe the wars that were later and the denver broncos. I wanted to find out more about this theater and why i had never heard of this conflict before. So some things i found out between 1861 and 68 we talk about 61 through 65 but in Civil War History when you expand geography you expand it becomes longer from this point so between 1861 and 68 the native people struggled to control this region. The union and the confederacy p wanted it for its gold imports they each saw it as an important vision for their future so to envision this empire of free labor one labor coasttocoast the rest was pivotal to the project and then to see their cells as an empire of slavery they thought they could secure the left and then jump off from there and move south. And then to go to mexico to create this hemispheric empire with the caribbean and latin america. The navajos who were living in the southwest for hundreds of years saw the white mans war as the invasion of their territory both the union and the confederacy saw the indigenous groups with the attempt to control their west as an obstacle. So i also learned that after the unionn successfully defended from confederate invasion spring 1862 they turn to these other enemies to initiate a hardware campaign against them. So this meant at the same time the union was fighting the war to emancipatema enslavement , they were fighting a war to exterminate or remove people from the west. I figured all of those out and thought it was an interesting aspect of the war nobody had thought about. Then i figured out things why i had never heard about this before. The field of Civil War History focuses on virginia and the battlefield and the homefrontt and politics and extraordinarily important so what that means rarely do we move outside that area. Also made tradition in Civil War History referring to the trans mississippi west with the battle of shiloh and all this area around the Mississippi River that historians call the west. So there is a problem with the words that we use like it seems impossible and also if you have any kind of Civil War History and you see a map it usually ends right around the 1h meridian and if you have the book you can slip one go to where it does not end at the 100th meridian that is right in the middle of the two page map in the book and if you ended there you are actively erasing 40 percent of the nations land mass. Literally erasing it from the story of the civil war so it was important to me t i when i s talking to Simon Schuster about the book production i want to have this map the first thing the entire continent you see with all of the territories and the states to organize at the beginning of the war but then you also see the navajo and Apache Homelands on the map with those three layers. But it is a continental map from the atlantic to the pacific. Also where it is interesting when i went on my Research Trips that, even though the sites of the civil war are really well preserved everywhere because if you go to virginiag to find these nimportant areas they are usually under a parking lot at a strip mall and there is not that kind of intensive suburbanization or urbanization in large areas of the southwest. So a lot of these places you read about in the three cornered war are there. Is just that they are very far apart, run by all different kinds of federal agencies, and most tourists go to the southwest for the southwestern culture the indigenous culture, the architectur architecture, enchiladas, they are not going for Civil War History. There is a great example of this if youve ever been to santa fe, right in the middle is the obelisk and it is a memorial to those who fought in the war. Of the confederate and the savages. And then there is protection around the monument and then when i went for research do you know what it is . Know. So i will just walk in the path in the shops that are all around because they have no realo idea nothing calls your attention to that Civil War History and then one of the protagonist of the book john clark is in the fundraising in 1866 and then it is actually created with the civil war site because it was built by the soldiers when the officers said we need to put them to work or they will start carousingrt around. So you would never know that. It is not loaded. So for various reasons and through various mechanisms the history of the war has sometimes been forgotten are not even mentioned so during this research i discover how complicated the civil war west was have a different people were involved and how it took place over hundreds or thousands of miles. The enormous region and all the armies in groups of people had to march 400 miles at a time, the longest stretch was 800 miles. My challenge was, how do i tell the story cracks i didnt llally want to tell it in a traditionally academic wa way, argument driven, so i thought about all the different ways i could tell the story. At thenk time i was reading a lot of novels and one of those was game of thrones. [laughter] this is very surprising. That i would be reading this novel because im not usually down with a misogynist and excessively violent novels, but it was making me turn the pages and i was devouring thehe book i tried to figure out why so i looked at it and i mapped it out after taking notes. What he was using is actually a form that is quite common in literature which is multi perspective narrative. s if you go into the book and just look at the table of contents, you will see that each of these chapters is named after a person. Only three that are not in those are the names of battles in which multiple people comech together. In each chapter you will follow that person through space and time and leave that man go to somebody else and then come back anybody has between two and three chapters some are only a short time some stay the entire time, one of them dies, i will not tell you who. O. [laughter] so you can save that for later. I decided to try this approach to bring the leader into the civil war west and nine different people. I will not introduce them all to you because that will be overwhelming and take too long but i will talk about three of them in particular to give you a sense of the books range. If you do have the book with yo you, there is an insert in the middle he would like to lookok at it. The second image is on the left page this is John Robert Baylor who i affectionately started to refer to as crazy eyes. [laughter] i think his eyes are very light blue and the photography word washout his eyes and he looks crazed. Is actually holding a sword but it looks like a knife or something. When i started to think about the project i knew i wanted to start with baylor because i wanted to start with a confederate invasion of the new mexico territory and he was at the head of1 that invasion. Born in kentucky so that is an interesting connection and then in the 18 forties he and his family members were promised with the right to own slaves and actually is of the family is uncle goes to baylor so a long history he got married and started a family over the next 15 years he worked as a farmer and rancher and enslaved men and women inan both ventures. He read the law and was admitted to the bar and then to the state legislature. He became the editor of a paper called the white man. This is what i appreciate about mid 19th century racist they are very open about it. [laughter] we will start a paper called the white man. So he became the editor of this newspaper. Al [laughter] they printed a lot of lurid pieces aboutut comanche attacks on anglos in texas to use this to at the furor about comanches and he was like a texashe ranger and round up the people before the war and in fact when he rode into new mexico, he was wearing a belt buckle that was made out of silver he melted down from what he had taken from a comanche warrior. Spring 1861, you can get the flavor to join the Confederate Army in texas come in defense of slavery and secession in whiteas men to plan a way for native people. He is extremely charismati charismatic, capable commander, 6foot 3 inches for someone very tall in this. But so all those actions from 1861. Only in chapter one and he is quite a character so to bring you into this context of the civil war west, the next person she is the last image, wanita mentioned in the introduction she was just a teenager when she married ben who is a powerful headman with a very long history with specs on spanish after their wedding is civil war weekend and want data as she is the dough on and melito try to invade and then of course the intended starvation to surrender to the u. S. Army fall 1866. Es the story of the incarceration of the union army reservation is a place we can think of only as a prison camp but also of persistence and survival. Of all the protagonist she is the heart of the book from the beginning to thek end. Her story reveals the extent to which theal war in the west was a three cornered war. But i just want tost tell you about john clark whose picture is here in the middle. You will not have heard but he was a surveyor, lawyer, landowner in illinois when the war began, too old in his early forties, so president lincolnid appointed him surveyor general of the mexico territory in the summer of 1861. And with a such a large family and illinois to take up the post which he held through 1868 he also was in new mexico pretty consistently for the entirety of the book he took a couple of furloughs and went home and at one point he fled santa fe and went to dc where the confederates were marching upon the city and months ago to lincoln so yeah that is the vacation the most intense part of the mexico conflict. But a republican to parties landscape cleared of secessionist and native people. But also looking at 1863 when gold was l discovered where prescott is now north of phoenix, he wentx. Out there to confirm the gold had been discovered and this mining that was going on and came back andba reported to the santa fe citizens into the union army there was gold out there and more than 1000 and minors in the mountain and they nsheneeded protection and also o clear out the navajo from the area because the road from albuquerque to the gold mine went through never territory but also to help the weekend a solution the clerk was my Biggest Surprise for her i found his diary. But what the archivist put together a surveyor general and was in santa fe for a period of time and when i called the diary and when you do these Research Ships you get. Know what you will sometimes a pocket diary with the tinsel grid or it rained i got this enormous box of 27 volumes of diaries in it. Page long entries every day talking about the weather , what he did every day, his feelings at night amazing content for the entirety of the war at dinner parties and then i went to the National Archives all the letters that he wrote to the General Land Office also and with the very hugehe rocks some of his original maps with a flat map of santa fe. I truly believe i was maybe the second person to open those letters ever. They are in pristine condition with all the folds no straight on stains are marks of wear and tear and often with the wax seal that he had. So he was an amazing person who again an unusual suspect you dont think the surveyor general would be an important person and yet he is. So you would be interested to get to know him. So looking at the civil war from this unexpected place in the far west shows a couple of important things the civil war was a three corneredd war but the concept took place in the north and the south and thehe west between the union and the confederacy and native people in these conflicts involved. But i think that complicates our notion . Or as the Continental Congress a truly national war involving all people sometimes across the border. I will stop there so we have more time for questions should you have any about the topic or the research or writingy process. [applause] are you inclined to doing more with him . Has anybody done a whole thing . No. The question is about john clark if i pursue him a little bit more or write a biography. I know more about him and where he went he went to mexico and then the soldier general very briefly in utah and was in salt lake when the transcontinentals and the gold spike was hammered in. I dont think he was actually at the ceremony but i wouldnt be surprised if he was but then he ended up working for a Kansas Railroad company andpr ultimatelyd where they died of cancer and had to have a long and fulfilling career. So to help you get to know him and those full scale biographies are a little bit hard you want the person and he obviously does so when he leaves with thatat spoiler alert in 1868 and then to intent on attend the impeachment trial. [laughter] that will be interesting. So the whole different book about him but there is more to learn and other writers and historians can do it with that government functionary and for those rules to play. E how did you select . So i am curious to know how owyou made that. So thats the question. Some i knew from the beginning and singlehandedly the mexico territory without orders. And to successfully occupy and then to sit down and create so in the space of three or four days that once i started and with the university of texas i knew i had to write about them because they were complicated and loved his wife so much and which unfortunately i did not find. I really wish i had into check their addicts to see if it still exists like very valentines day. And more interesting to write i knew that i needed at those really important moments. Start to read the accounts of the war that in every single moment. From san antonio to el paso. And then to mention northward after the soldier. And in albuquerque. And then both the apache canyon. And then went to set is on santa fe he was just another one. And then with that fascinating viewpoint and an army wife so that was an interesting thing like almost every Single Person for 20 years. And to give the back story what the army was like before the war what life was like in california in 1850 as a state and one of Brigham Youngs wives to publish it in the desert retinues into the wives of how dare you. So the challenge is only one letter in her ownn voice. And one of the ways that you choose to write about you dont necessarily need to have everything that you need to have something. Because she was married to a pretty senior officer in the u. S. Army i knew where she was and other soldiers talked about her and i could find her and the documents because she lead this effort they called her the angel of santa fe. Then the newspaper printed of peace and it was a little dicey. But she seemed to nice to be true tohe figure out that would give a little more texture so that was one way was very interested what that gave her some good context so who could i think about in that context that gives mee enough services that who could also allow me to talk about the Larger Community and their role. Great stuff. And then to hear more. So one of the reasons the theater of the war is interesting is that it had the first multiracial fighting force in the field. And with that emancipation tiproclamation. And with the trans mississippi but and then those volunteers and officers and of the militia some of them from gold miners have been recruited and then those professional soldiers elected for the state of the union and not for the confederate union. So in comparison and that fighting force any given day very much like the fighting they never had any experience and then to defend their homeland and with those invading force and they were quite willing to fight for the union not necessarily and only was american citizens for 12 or 13 years and with that federal government but more than anyone the hated texans. In 1841 they believe that santa fe was part of texas. So they decided to march into new mexico to take santake fe so they were taken prisoner that mexicans remember that moment and very resentful and this is the one that they said that we made with a much larger force and that we just assume they would be on their side. And he was wrong on both accounts spirit that is just a disaster because counting on them to provide food for the army. So to participate also the apache and the navajo. And then to put in the first california those apaches in the south and with that armies study and some more work needs to be done there to say he is the commander in charge of that. Those first few chapters and then with the dehydration and the landscape and how much it becomes another ch