|
Henry Hopkins Sibley was born on May 25, 1816, in Natchitoches, Louisiana. He graduated from West Point in 1838, and was stationed in New Mexico Territory. Sibley served in the Seminole War and in the expedition against the Mormons of Utah, as well as the Mexican War. In 1856, he patented the Sibley tent, which could comfortably accommodate 20 soldiers and their personal gear. When the Civil War began, he resigned from the US Army and joined the Confederacy. Confederate President Davis promoted Sibley to brigadier general on June 17, 1861, and sent him to Texas to put together a brigade to clear (what is now) New Mexico and Arizona of Union presence. He believed that his troops would be able to live off the land of New Mexico, and that the Union troops would not resist a Confederate invasion. On both counts, he was mistaken. While he defeated Union forces at Valverde and La Glorieta, he was unable to withstand the Union counterattack. He and his 1,500 remaining troops withdrew to Fort Bliss, Texas, and went to San Antonio to escape the California Column, under Union Brig. Gen. James H. Carleton. After this, Sibley was assigned to minor commands, and struggled with chronic illness and alcoholism. His performance in the Teche River Campaign of 1863 was poor. He was court-martialed and censured, but not convicted, after the Union failures at Irish Bend and Fort Bisland in April of 1863. Four years after the Civil War, he became general of artillery for the khedive of Egypt. After he returned to the US in 1874, he lectured, but died in poverty in Fredericksburg, Virginia , on August 23, 1886.
|
