Customer Reviews

Glorieta Pass

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you like Civil War novels you'll really enjoy this one. Nagle's first novel follows the characters involved in the under-appreciated battle of Glorieta Pass in New Mexico. Her writing is sharp and clear, the details of the time and place perfectly wrought, and the convolutions of plot and character engaging and thoroughly enjoyable. I'll be first in line for the sequel.

Since I also wrote a novel with a Glorieta battlefield connection, I really appreciate P.G. Nagle's careful research about what happened. Although my concept of the Texans who fought the battle are more brutal, I'm sure there were tea parties and shopping among the officers' wives. A little mild but this novel deserves five stars.

I have to say, books like this one are the main reason I read historical fiction. Most of us know quite a bit about the major battles of the Civil War, fought in the East but few know of just how far west the action stretched. I grew up in New Mexico but never knew much about the state's role in the Civil War. I have driven near Glorieta often but never knew the history of that place. So it was with great anticipation that I began reading this novel.

The novel itself seems to have been well researched. We learn of the basics of the situation: elements of the army in Texas pushing northward through New Mexico along the Rio Grande, leading to a great battle against Colorado volunteers at Glorieta Pass. The goal of the Texans was Pikes Peak gold but they were held off because of this bloody battle.

While the writing was well done, I found the characters to be pretty standard stock issue types. The male characters were mostly governed by their brutish behavior while the females were honorable, intelligent, and courageous to the point of being foolhardy. I don't know if that is because the author is female or that's just the way she wanted certain characters to behave...I make no judgements. Having said that, I did still enjoy seeing the history evolve through their eyes and I am interested to see what happens in the next book. This is what draws me to historical fiction...living the experiences through characters. I like reading text books to get the facts but historical fiction makes it come alive.

I also have to mention a twist at the end of the novel concerning one of the main characters (no spoilers here). I feel like I should have seen it coming but in retrospect it was such a ridiculous twist that I wouldn't have noticed the clues anyway. Readers of this novel will know what I mean. This is Ms Nagle's debut novel so hopefully she won't stoop to such tricks in the future. Her prose is worthy of greater things.

Historians and novelists seem to traditionally fixate on those great battles of the US Civil War fought in the East - Antietam, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg. Occasional attention is paid to the equally great battles in the West - Shiloh, Vicksburg, Chattanooga. It's therefore both refreshing and unusual, in GLORIETA PASS, for a writer to focus on that forgotten backwater of the conflict, the Southwest - specifically New Mexico in this historical novel.

There are five main characters (and a regiment's worth of minor ones I won't mention). Jamie Russell is one of three sons of a Texas family who join the Southern Cause. Jamie marches west, his two brothers east (and out of the plot.) Lacey McIntyre is a lieutenant in the regular US Army stationed in the New Mexico Territory at the outbreak of the rebellion. Lacey's family is from Tennessee, so his loyalty to the Union is tenuous at best. Alastar "Red" O'Brien is an illiterate Irishman working the Colorado mines near Denver. He organizes a group of his fellows into a unit of the Colorado Volunteers, and is awarded a captaincy by the state's governor. Also in Red's unit is Charles Franklin, an Eastern dandy that becomes one of Red's lieutenants. Finally, there is Laura Howland, a young woman recently orphaned, who is invited to New Mexico by her dead father's brother. Suffice it to say that all players come together at GLORIETA PASS, the book's climactic Blue vs. Gray encounter.

The military action proceeds at a relatively sedate pace. But, since the facts of it were passably researched by the author for background material, and I knew relatively little about this theater of the war, the novel held my interest in that respect. With the exception of Jamie, the female author characterizes the principal male players as usually drunk, loutish, treacherous, or otherwise in the grip of base passions. (Men are such brutes!) It's virtuous Laura, the story line's Female in Distress, around whom much of the action coalesces, especially as she attracts the attention of just about all the love-starved male leads at one point or another. Most intriguing is the Charles Franklin character, a very unusual trooper. And, it's a measure of the reader's perception as to how soon he/she can answer the question "What's going on with this guy?"

The book doesn't measure up to THE KILLER ANGELS, or even the prequel and sequel to that classic, GODS AND GENERALS and THE LAST FULL MEASURE, respectively. However, it's still fairly good, especially if you're a Civil War buff. I also suggest that it will appeal to women as much as men, if not more.

The Civil War in the West was not confined to the border states. In 1861 Federal troops were recalled from the West to fight in the East, leaving the way open for Confederates to invade New Mexico and obtain a route to Colorado's gold and San Francisco's unblockadeable sea coast.

A Confederate Army, led by Brigadier General Henry Hopkins Sibley, was assembled in Texas in 1862 and marched into the Union Southwest. After a series of early victories, fortune turned against the Confederates, and the war in the Southwest proved to be short, sharp, and bloody for both sides.

In New Mexico, General Sibley's Texas Confederates were opposed by a Union army under Colonel E. R. S. Canby. Before the war, Sibley and Canby were friends who had been classmates at West Point. Both served in the New Mexico Territory before the Civil War and at Sibley's wedding, Canby was his best man. Now they were torn apart by politics and geography.

The most significant battle in the Far West was for control of Glorieta Pass, in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains near Santa Fe. That engagement, known as the "Gettysburg of the West," pitted Sibley's Texas Brigade against a Union force primarily made up of New Mexican and Coloradan volunteers. In a fierce fight, the Confederates were defeated and their hopes of advancing to the Pacific ended

In Nagle's story, all of the principals are present: Sibley and Canby and their staff and field officers; the Colorado volunteers, or "Pike's Peakers," led by Colonel John Slough and Major John Chivington; Colonel Manuel Chavez and his 2nd New Mexico Volunteers; and Colonel Christopher "Kit" Carson and his 1st New Mexico Volunteers. Their personalities and their actions were carefully researched and ring true.

But the author put the historical figures in the background and developed fictional characters to carry the narrative and advance the plot. The primary protagonists are: (1) Captain Alastar O'Brien, a rough miner turned soldier leading a company of 1st Colorado Volunteers; (2) Laura Howland, a resilient young lady from Boston, recently orphaned and brought to Santa Fe by a rascally uncle and caught up in the conflict and forever changed by what she sees; (3) Lieutenant Jaimie Russell, a store clerk from Texas serving as a quartermaster in Sibley's Brigade; (4) Lieutenant Lacey McIntyre, a West Point-educated officer serving as a member of Canby's staff who impulsively abandons the Union when the Rebels capture him; and (5) Lieutenant Charles Franklin, a bright, genteel Colorado Volunteer with an astonishing secret. In the maelstrom of war, as they struggle with patriotism and survival, their lives converge in a realistically inevitable way.

The chronology of the battles, the actual participants and the fictional characters are woven into a complex plot that requires close attention to follow. But Nagle, who was born and raised fifty miles from Glorieta Pass, through careful research and attention to detail has created a strong sense of place. The underlying theme, as in many Civil War novels, is the anguish of split loyalties suffered when countrymen go to war against countrymen.

The effect of the war on her characters and their reactions and interactions is the thrust of Nagle's novel, but this is a war story, and she doesn't neglect the battle itself.

There is much detail on the logistic tail of the Confederate brigade--the long march, the plodding mules, the ill-tempered teamsters, the shortage of water, rations and supplies, and the constant pressure on a young quartermaster named Jaimie Russell to meet the needs of a force of around 3,500 tired, hungry troops. And eventually, Lieutenant Russell got his first taste of battle.

Glorieta Pass is the first of Nagle's three novels of the New Mexico Campaign. This fine first novel from a talented writer should find a place in the library of any devotee to Civil War or Western fiction.

Sure, Nagle didn't make the Texans sound as ferocious as they really were at valverde, or glorieta pass, nor did she write in much detail about the fighting or the smaller engagements(fort fillmoore,alamosa). But she deserves much praise, how many authors have paid attention to the forgotten war for the far west? Yes, i agree, it was a little too much of a love story, instead of paying attention to the fighing in the pass, it was more centered around her nursing the wounded lieutenant at pigeon's ranch, and being a guy, she did make us sound like fat, drunk, slobs. but remember. it doesnt take place in a well civilized area. most of the men out there probably were a lot like that. Even though most of the people who write reviews on this run this to the ground and make it sound like a terrible story. Dont let this stop you from buying it. it is a pretty good story and it will lead you to the sequel" The Guns of Valverde", which is a much better job and follows the texan retreat from the territory. being only 15 years old, and finding it very hard to find information on this underrated and neglected campaign, i think Nagle deserves better reviews than she's getting.

This book belongs in the Romance Section! She picked a good subject that sells, because little has been written about the CSA in the West. I just wish someone would write an unbiased accurate account. I was so disappointed in this book. I had hoped to learn some real history regarding the original CSA of Arizona & New Mexico. This book is Anti CSA and Yankee driven pc. I know for a fact that there were many Southern Sympathizers in New Mexico, Colorado & Arizona. Arizona is the 13th Star of the Confederacy and New Mexico was a Territory. The author painted Southernors as drunks, ill kept hoodlums with poor military tactiles. She gave little account to actual history and culture of these Southern States.

Furthermore, her admirers are definitely of the Anti Dr. Laura persuasion and pc Anti Southern bigotry.