I just finished reading 'Blood and Thunder' by Hampton Sides, which follows the life of Kit Carson and touches on the Confederate campaign in New Mexico, which was ended at Glorietta Pass. Sides talks about a historical Texan obsession with expanding their borders to the Rio Grande, but in the midst of a huge war in the East, I have trouble understanding why Texas would send thousands of troops away from the action and hundreds of miles into the wilderness. Thanks!
There was an active pro-Southern movement in California. If the Confederacy had troops on its border, there was a chance of sparking Southern California to secede as well.
Santa Fe was an important trading center for herders across the southwest. Controlling it would give the Confederacy not just a strategic source of revenue and food, but also significant control over the Comanche and Apache nations which had effective control over much of western Texas.
I was under the impression the Texans were headed toward Denver to assert some type of influence and Glorieta Pass just happened to be where the two sides encountered each other
I grew up in New Mexico. In my schooling we were told the Texans came over to N.M. mostly to head towards Colorado in order to seize the gold/silver mines there. It was planned to take N.M. & CO, from a larger army and then move to California and take the gold fields and resources there.