Book Description

“Hollister was a private in the First Regiment of Colorado Volunteers which fought the New Mexican campaign against the invading Texan troops in March, 1862. This book might have been a dry recital of facts. Fortunately Hollister was not only an educated man but natural writer who brought to his task imagination, a deep human interest, and a careful reporter’s news sense. Here is no grandfather’s tale but a narrative so live that it might have taken place yesterday. Here is history that echoes with thrilling adventure. Hollister, hardened, realistic soldier-author, seemed to know, as he made daily entries in his diary, that his on-the-spot reportage of the rawhide passions and broadrange loyalties, the hearty campfire humor and the grim punishment of forced winter marches, the ignoble details of life as he saw it in a fighting man’s era, must be set down for all of us who were to come after his rugged breed. The true importance of the campaign between the Coloradans and the Texans goes far beyond a local effect. It was one of the decisive struggles of the Civil War. If Sibley’s seasoned Texas Brigade had won, they surely would have dominated the West and its resources. They would have seized the defenseless gold mines which were the potential treasure cache of the armies of the North. The war might have been prolonged indefinitely.”-William MacLeod Raine