CHAP. XI.] CORRESPONDENCE, ETC.-UNION.
and movements of the enemy. The write is reliable, and his information no doubt correct, so far as he had the means of acquiring it.
I also inclose a proclamation from the commander of the Confederate forces to the people of New Mexico. This paper is well calculated to exercise at this time a pernicious influence upon the least intelligent of the people. It was no doubt prepared by a former secretary of the Territory, and is part of a plan arranged before he left the country. Several of the packages intercepted are addressed to persons of influence in the Territory, who at the time Mr. Jackson left undoubtedly sympathized with this movement, but do not now.
What influence it will have it is impossible to determine yet; but I have put myself in communication with the most influential persons in the Territory, for the purpose of counteracting its effect.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
ED. R. S. CANBY, Colonel Nineteenth Infantry, Commanding Department.
[Inclosures.]
General Sibley and staff arrived in El Paso about a month ago; staff officers A. M. Jackson, I Ochiltree, Captain Dwyer, and Judge Crosby, assistant quartermaster and receiver of property to be confiscated in New Mexico. The first and second regiments are now between Robledo and Santa Barbara, and are not fortifying themselves. They have taken only four additional pieces of artillery besides those belonging to Colonel Baylor's command (two 32-pounders). General Sibley and staff were to leave Mesilla for Fort Thorn on yesterday, the 16th instant.
The second regiment is expected next week. The troops are badly provisioned and armed; have had about 200 horses stolen since they passed here. Their only hope is to march into New Mexico in quick time, or engage in a war with Mexico (El Paso) to procure provisions. They have no money, and their paper is only taken by the merchants, not by the Mexicans. The Mexican population (El Paso, Mexico) are much opposed to them, also at Mesilla and Dona Ana. Irisana and Ambugo goods at Mesilla have been confiscated, and that is the order of the day. S. Hart has done more to aid and assist them than the balance of the capitalists have, and has gone so far as to give a list of the principal capitalists in New Mexico, to confiscate their property, and that is their aim.
January 17, 1862.
Proclamation of Brigadier General H. H. Sibley, Army of the Confederate States, to the people of New Mexico.
An army under my command enters New Mexico, to take possession of it in the name and for the benefit of the Confederate States. By geographical position, by similarity of institutions, by commercial interests, and by future destinies New Mexico pertains to the Confederacy.
Upon the peaceful people of New Mexico the Confederate States wage no war. To them we come as friends, to re-establish a governmental connection agreeable and advantageous both to them and to us; to liberate them from the yoke of a military despotism erected by usurpers upon the ruins of the former free institutions of the United States; to relieve them from the iniquitous taxes and exactions imposed upon them by that usurpation; to insure and to revere their religion, and to restore their civil and political liberties.
