The Battle of Placitas
Date: September 8, 1861
Location: Placitas, Confederate-occupied New Mexico Territory
Back on September 2nd, Confederate Lieutenant John Pulliam had sent a squad from Fort Stanton up into the Gallinas Mountains to survey the surrounding area for any advancing Union forces. Instead, they had been ambushed by a group of Apache warriors and after hours of fighting, only one survivor managed to escape back to the fort.
After hearing what had happened, the Confederates rode to the Gallinas Mountains to search for those that had been killed during the battle and to search for the Apaches. After an unfruitful week of searching, the Confederates rode back to the fort on August 8th, where that evening Pulliam received an urgent dispatch:
A village about ten miles south of the fort, Placitas, was under attack by Apaches, and aid was desperately needed.
Pulliam quickly gathered his forces and rode toward Placitas, an old Spanish settlement occupied mostly by Hispano-American townsfolk. Arriving that night in the middle of a pitched battle, the Confederates and the townsfolk charged the Apaches and pushed them out of the town. The Apaches skirmished with the Confederates and the townsfolk, but eventually fell back and disappeared into the desert night.
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