John Potts Slough: Victor of Glorieta

 

Colonel John P. Slough , of the First Colorado Regiment ( From a war - time photograph loaned by Mr. Samuel C. Dorsey , of Denver . ) John Potts Slough came from a prestigious military and political family. His ancestor, Mattias Slough, was the first colonel appointed by General George Washington during the Revolutionary War and was also a member of the Pennsylvania assembly before he left public life to run a tavern in Lancaster County.  John had big shoes, and expectations, to fill.  John Potts Slough (whose name rhymes with 'plough') was born on February 1, 1829, in Cincinnati, Ohio. He earned a degree in law and was elected as a Democrat to the Ohio General Assembly. Things were looking promising for this young man, but all was not perfect. Potts was noted for having a fierce temper and could pepper his tirades with obscenities. He was expelled from the Legislature after engaging in a fist fight with another assemblyman. He then moved to Kansas where he was narrowly defeated in a race for the Governor's seat. Slough then moved to Denver and became one of its preeminent lawyers. When the Civil War broke out, he entered the service as the Captain of the 1st Colorado "Pike's Peakers" Volunteer Regiment, then convinced the territory's  Governor, William Gilpin, to raise his rank to Colonel. Slough used family money to support the troops. He located a vacant building, the Buffalo House Hotel, and got it donated for use as barracks until Camp Weld was built on the south side of Denver. Despite his organizational acumen, Slough was not popular with the troops, who found him cold and imperious. In 1862, a Confederate army invaded New Mexico Territory, and Slough marched his regiment to Fort Union. Once there, he took assumed control of the fort, arguing that he outranked Colonel Paul, the regular Army officer who had been in control, by reason of an earlier appointment date.  Colonel Edward Canby, who commanded the Department of New Mexico, ordered Slough to stay at the fort, but Slough deliberately misinterpreted the orders and marched to Glorieta Pass, where he engaged in a battle that ultimately turned the tide and sent the Confederate Army back to Texas. The victory was not a sweet one for Slough. Worried that he would be drummed out for disobeying orders and convinced that his own men fired on him during the battle, he resigned his commission and left the state. Slough went to Washington, D.C., where once again things seemed to be going his way. He was appointed Brigadier General of Volunteers and became the military Governor of Alexandria, Virginia. Slough served as pallbearer at Lincoln's funeral and was a member of the court that convicted Henry Wirz, commander of the notorious Andersonville Prisoner of War Camp. In 1866, President Andrew Johnson appointed Slough the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New Mexico.  Slough is buried in Spring Grove Cemetery, Cincinnati, Ohio. Once he returned to the territory, Slough again showed concern for his old troops. His efforts to have proper burials for the soldiers killed at Glorieta resulted in the creation of the National Cemetery in Santa Fe in 1867. In 1895, Confederates who died in the battle were interred there as well.   But once again, Slough's fiery temper and outspoken tirades got him into trouble. President Andrew Johnson wanted  Slough  to break down the corrupt patronage system that had plagued New Mexico for centuries, and Slough began by attacking peonage, which he compared to slavery. This swiftly earned him enemies in the still divided and notoriously violent territory.  On December 17, 1867, Slough was playing billiards in the La Fonda Hotel when he and another former Union officer and New Mexico legislator, William Logan Ryerson, got in an argument. Two days later, Ryerson, who was also a part of the notoriously corrupt Santa Fe Ring, fatally shot an unarmed Slough in the lobby of Santa Fe's Exchange Hotel. Ryerson was tried for murder but the jury acquitted him, saying he had acted in self defense. Slough is one of the historical characters in Jennifer Bohnhoff's Civil War novel The Worst Enemy which will be published in August 2023 by Kinkajou Press, a division of Artemesia Publishing. The Worst Enemy is the second in the trilogy Rebels Along the Rio Grande. and is available for preorder. The first book in the series, Where Duty Calls, was published in 2022 and is available here. Both novels are suitable for middle grade readers and above.