New Mexico was most valuable to both the Union and the Confederacy because ______________ a. it was viewed as fertile farmland.
b. it was seen as economically more advanced than California. c. it provided trade access to the west coast and Mexico. d. New Mexico lived up to its reputation as the 'Land of Enchantment.'
In 1861, inside an effort to control the Southwest U.s country to make it accessible to a Union-holding California, the Confederacy tried to claim to be the south half of the vast New Mexicans Territory and led this same ambitious new Mexico campaign; this was why Texas was the Union but also Confederacy's critical score, given its trade and travel on the west and in Mexico.
