Henry Hopkins Sibley Henry Hopkins Sibley ( May 25 , 1816 – August 23 , 1886 ) was a brigadier general from Louisiana during the American Civil War , leading the Confederate States Army in the New Mexico Territory . His attempt to gain control of trails to California was defeated at the Battle of Glorieta Pass . A West Point graduate , he had served with the United States Army from 1838 until 1861 and the start of the Civil War , when he resigned to join the Southern Cause . Family and early life . Dr . John Sibley served as a medic in Massachusetts in the American Revolutionary War . His wife was Elizabeth Hopkins , whose family name was given as a middle name to their son Samuel and grandson Henry . After her death in 1803 , Dr . Sibley was part of an expedition to the Red River country of western Louisiana for the US government after the Louisiana Purchase and chose to settle in Natchitoches . In 1811 his son Samuel Hopkins Sibley and his wife followed to Natchitoches . Samuel Sibley served as a parish clerk from 1815 until his death in 1823 . Henry Hopkins Sibley was born in Natchitoches in 1816 . After his father ' s death when Henry was seven years old , the boy was sent to Missouri to live with his paternal uncle George Champlin Sibley and his wife Mary Easton , the foundeers of Lindenwood College in St . Charles , Missouri . Union general and first Governor of Minnesota , Henry Hastings Sibley ( 1811 – 1891 ) , was a distant cousin . His family had migrated west in the Northern Tier , which historians have called Greater New England . U . S . Army service . At the age of 17 , Henry was admitted to the United States Military Academy at West Point , New York . He graduated in 1838 and was commissioned as second lieutenant in the 2nd U . S . Dragoons . He fought Seminole Indians in Florida , 1840 – 1841 ; participated in the Military Occupation of Texas , 1845 – 1846 ; and fought in the Mexican - American War , 1847 – 1848 . Sibley was on frontier duty in Texas from 1850 – 1855 . Sibley was a creative military man . In the 1850s , he invented the " Sibley tent " , which was widely used by the Union Army during the American Civil War and for a short while afterward . The United Kingdom also adopted the design of the Sibley tent . He also invented the " Sibley stove " ( also known as the Sibley tent stove ) , to heat the tent . The Army used tent stoves of this design into the early years of World War II . From 1855 – 1857 , Sibley was part of the forces trying to control conflict in Bleeding Kansas , where hundreds of new settlers arrived to vote on the question of slavery , provoked by the 1854 Kansas – Nebraska Act . He took part in the Utah War , 1857 – 1860 , and was in active service in New Mexico 1860 – 1861 . After the outbreak of the American Civil War , Sibley resigned on May 13 , 1861 , the day of his promotion to Major in the 1st Dragoons . Native to Louisiana , he had southern sympathies and joined the Confederate States Army ( CSA ) . Civil War . Sibley resigned from the US Army as he sided with the Confederacy . Placed in command of a brigade of volunteer cavalry in West Texas , Sibley dubbed his small force the Army of New Mexico and began planning a New Mexico Campaign to capture the cities of Albuquerque and Santa Fe and Fort Union on the Santa Fe Trail in order to establish a forward base of supply . He then intended to continue north to Colorado to capture the numerous gold and silver mines in the area as a means of replenishing the badly depleted Confederate treasury . From there Sibley planned to join forces with Confederate Lieut . John R . Baylor , already in control of much of Southern New Mexico and Arizona territories and headquartered in Tucson , AZ . Their ultimate strategy was to gain access to the warm water ports of California and establish a badly needed supply line to the South , as the Union Navy had implemented a naval blockade from Virginia to Texas . Throughout the 1862 New Mexico Campaign , his opponent was Colonel Edward Canby , formerly a comrade in arms in the U . S . Army . Some historians have said he was Sibley ' s brother in law , but this relation has been disputed . Sibley was initially successful at the Battle of Valverde on 20 – 21 February and pressed on to capture Albuquerque and Santa Fe in the first weeks of March . Although the subsequent Battle of Glorieta Pass on March 28 ended in an apparent Confederate victory on the field , Sibley had to retreat because his supply train was destroyed and most of the horses and mules killed or driven off during the fight . At the same time , Union forces were approaching New Mexico from the west , the California Column . Glorieta Pass has been called the " Gettysburg of the West " by some authors ; Sibley ' s retreat to the campaign ' s starting point at Fort Bliss in April ended the hopes of the Confederate nation to stretch to the Pacific Ocean and use the mineral wealth of California and possibly Colorado . After the failure of the New Mexico Campaign , Sibley was given minor commands under General Richard Taylor about Bayou Teche in south Louisiana , commanding the " Arizona Brigade " at the battles of Irish Bend and Fort Bisland . The historian John D . Winters reports that he blundered on several occasions , not striking when instructed . Struggling with alcoholism , he was court martial ed in Louisiana in 1863 . Although not convicted of cowardice , he was censured . Postbellum career and death . After the war , Thaddeus P . Mott recruited former Union and Confederate soldiers for service in the Egyptian Army . Sibley was one of the first people to arrive in Egypt and served from 1870 to 1873 as a military adviser ( with the rank of brigadier general of artillery ) to the Isma ' il Pasha , Khedive of Egypt , overseeing the construction of coastal fortifications . However , he fell back into problems with alcohol , and he was dismissed due to illness and disability . Back in the U . S . Sibley lived from 1874 with his daughter in Fredericksburg , Virginia . He wrote articles and worked on military inventions . He fought a legal battle with the U . S . government to outstanding payments on its patents . He died in poverty . He is buried in the Fredericksburg Confederate Cemetery .