FORTS
Fort Union
Located twenty-seven miles northeast of Las Vegas, Fort Union became the most important and most famous fort in the New Mexico Territory. Established on the Santa Fe Trail in 1851, it served as supply depot for the territory and as a base for troops engaged in the protection of traffic along the Santa Fe Trail and of the settlements in the area from the depredations of the Apaches, Utes, Comanches, and Kiowas. The site can be reached by traveling eight miles of paved road which leaves U.S. Highway 85 one mile north of Watrous.
During its forty-year history, Fort Union occupied three different sites, all within the same general area. The original fort was of log construction which rapidly fell into disrepair. In August 1861, amid rumors of the possible invasion of the territory by Confederate forces, construction was begun on a new fort. This fort was of earthworks, in the form of an eight-pointed star. It was here that the troops waited for the attack which never came. With the passing of the Confederate threat, work was begun in 1863 on the third fort, the remains of which are seen today.
Fort Union soon became the largest fort in the territory. It was constructed in two sections, one for the garrison and one for the supply depot. The garrison area consisted of four infantry and two cavalry barracks facing a row of nine officers’ quarters across the parade ground. A sixty-bed hospital was constructed. The depot area included five warehouses, mechanics corral, transportation corral, and administration buildings. An arsenal was built about one mile from the fort proper.
The buildings were constructed of adobe on stone foundations. The roofs were flat and the walls were capped with brick copings in what has become the territorial style of architecture.
(Photo courtesy of National Park Service)
Ruins of Fort Union
Fort Union was a community within itself and a lively social center. Weary travelers on the Santa Fe Trail eagerly anticipated their arrival. Few complaints were heard when soldiers were transferred to Fort Union, for this was a popular assignment.
With the coming of the railroad and peace at last descending on the frontier in the 1880’s, the need for the fort diminished. But it clung to life for a few more years, mainly because of the fond memories which lived in the hearts of the military leaders who had been stationed there. Finally, the end came and Fort Union was abandoned in February 1891.
New life came to the fort in 1955 when it became a National Monument. The ruins have been excavated and stabilized and a fine visitors’ center and museum has been established. Fort Union has at last assumed its rightful place as a shrine of history. Stand on the parade ground and survey the majesty that was Fort Union, listen for the sounds, the bugle calls, the barklike commands of close-order drill, the creak of wagons, and the thunder of horses’ hooves. These are the sounds of Fort Union. They are still there if one will only pause and listen.
Fort Marcy
Fort Marcy was established in 1846 at Santa Fe and was named for the then Secretary of War, W. L. Marcy. The fort was located on a hill overlooking the city some 1000 yards northeast of the plaza. A deep ditch or moat surrounded the massive adobe walls of the fort and a blockhouse, within musket range, protected the only entrance. At the time of Colonel Manfield’s inspection trip in August 1853, the troops were quartered in public buildings in Santa Fe, there being no quarters provided at the fort; however, it could be occupied on a moment’s notice. The original Fort Marcy was abandoned in 1867 and a new one was constructed a short distance to the west. This new site is now occupied by business and residential properties. The War Department abandoned Fort Marcy in October 1894, the troops and equipment being moved to Fort Sill, Oklahoma. The site was turned over to the city of Santa Fe in 1897.
Fort Marcy played an important role during the military occupation of New Mexico. It served as a base of operations against marauding Indians, was captured and occupied for a short time by Confederate forces in 1862, served as headquarters for the Ninth Military Department (changed to Department of New Mexico in 1853) throughout most of this period, and was a center for the social life of Santa Fe. Only low mounds of earth now mark the site of Fort Marcy.
Fort Wingate
Fort Wingate, at the site known today, was established in 1868. It is located on the site of a pre-existing fort at Ojo del Oso (Bear Springs) about twelve miles east of Gallup and three miles south of U.S. Highway 66.
Fort Fauntleroy was established in August 1860 and was named for the then Department Commander, Col. T. T. Fauntleroy. The name was changed to Fort Lyon in September 1861 after Colonel Fauntleroy resigned his commission and joined the Confederate forces. The fort was abandoned in December 1861 as troops were concentrated at other posts to meet the threat of invasion of the territory by Confederate forces from the south. With the defeat of Confederate troops early in 1862, the military returned to the Indian problem and established a post some sixty miles to the east on the Rio de Gallo near San Rafael. This post was named Fort Wingate in honor of Capt. Benjamin Wingate who died of wounds received during the battle with the Confederate forces at Val Verde. The post proved to be too far from the Navajo country for effective control and, in 1868, was abandoned and a new Fort Wingate established at Ojo del Oso on the site occupied earlier by Fort Fauntleroy.
The physical plant of the new Fort Wingate consisted of barracks, officers’ quarters, hospital, guard house, storehouse, employees’ quarters, corrals, barns, and various repair and storage sheds, all bordering the traditional rectangular parade ground. Some of these buildings are in use today.
In 1914, 4000 Mexican refugees lived in a tent city at Fort Wingate until peace was restored after Pancho Villa’s revolution in Mexico. Following World War I, it became an ordnance storage depot, and new administrative and living quarters were built several miles west of the original fort enclosure. This installation is known today as Fort Wingate Ordnance Depot, and the long rows of concrete ammunition storage bunkers can be seen from U.S. Highway 66. In 1925, the original fort enclosure was transferred to the Department of the Interior for use as an Indian school. Today, the parade ground is a playground and the barracks are dormitories for the children who attend this school. The missile age came to Fort Wingate in 1963 when a portion of the military reservation became the launching site for test rockets which impact at the White Sands Missile Range 200 miles to the south.
Fort Wingate has seen many changes during its long and colorful history. It served well during its first 100 years and continues to serve today.
Fort Craig
Fort Craig was established in the spring of 1854 on the abandonment of Fort Conrad, nine miles north. It was named in honor of Col. L. S. Craig who was killed by an army deserter on June 6, 1852. The remains of Fort Craig are located on the west bank of the Rio Grande about thirty-four miles south of Socorro and five miles, by dirt road, east of U.S. Highway 85. The fort was established to afford protection against the many bands of Apaches that roamed this part of the territory.
Fort Craig was well built and became one of the best-garrisoned military posts in New Mexico. Built on the usual rectangular plan, the parade ground was bordered on the northeast by two double officers’ quarters; on the northwest by the guard house, prison room, and sallyport; on the southwest by three soldiers’ barracks each in the form of a hollow square enclosing a patio; and on the southeast by various workshops, storerooms, stables, and corrals. The commanding officers’ quarters occupied the west corner of the parade ground and the hospital the east corner. Behind the commanding officers’ quarters there were three large bombproof storerooms. The entire installation was enclosed within a high wall, beyond which a ditch encircled the fort. Gun bastions projected from the north and south corners.
Remnants of guard house, Fort Craig (built of basalt blocks)
Fort Craig was one of the most important military posts in New Mexico. Its troops participated in many engagements with the Indian. In the fall of 1861, troops from other posts were concentrated at Fort Craig to meet the threatened invasion of Confederate forces from the south. In February 1862, these troops were defeated by the Confederate invaders in the battle of Val Verde which took place about four miles north of the fort. Upon the withdrawal of Confederate forces from the territory later in 1862, the troops at Fort Craig returned to the Indian problem. In March 1885, the fort was relinquished by the army and the improvements sold. The last soldier left in August 1885 after government property was removed and sent to Forts Bliss and Stanton. The buildings were sold at public auction on April 30, 1894, to the Valverde Land and Irrigation Company for $1070.50.
Fort Craig is now a ruin, but the outlines of most of the buildings can still be seen. Portions of the plastered walls of the commanding officers’ quarters remain, as do portions of the hospital and stone guard house. The wall and ditch surrounding the fort, gun bastions, storehouses, and cemetery are still much in evidence. Coal marks the blacksmith’s shop and broken bottles the sutler’s store. Another frontier fort has passed into history.
Fort Stanton
Fort Stanton was established in May 1855 on the Rio Bonito at a site located approximately four miles east of present-day Capitan and three miles south of U.S. Highway 380. The fort was an attempt to control the Mescalero and White Mountain Apaches and was named for Capt. H. W. Stanton who had been killed by Apache Indians earlier that year. Many a soldier stationed at Fort Stanton gave up his life to an Apache during the Indian wars.
Map of New Mexico showing location of frontier forts
The original fort was little more than a stockade, with few buildings and little equipment. In August 1861, the government stores were burned and the troops moved to Albuquerque in the face of the Confederate invasion. Confederate troops occupied the site one month later but promptly left after a few encounters with the Apache. The site was reoccupied by Union troops October 1862 and, later, substantial buildings were erected, most of which still stand.
With the passing of the frontier, Fort Stanton was abandoned as a military post in August 1896, and in 1899, the installation passed to the U.S. Public Health Service for use as a merchant marine hospital for the treatment of tuberculosis. During World War II, a German prisoner of war camp was established at the fort. In 1953, the hospital was closed by the federal government because of the high cost of running the establishment. Fort Stanton is now a state tuberculosis hospital operated by the New Mexico Department of Public Welfare.
Col. Kit Carson used the fort as a base of operations while rounding up the Mescalero and White Mountain Apaches in late 1862 and early 1863. In 1881, the famous outlaw, Billy the Kid, was confined in the building now used as a dental clinic while on his way to the gallows in Lincoln, which never claimed him. Gen. John J. Pershing, as a young lieutenant, was stationed for a time at Fort Stanton.
Fort Selden
Fort Selden was established in 1865 and named for Capt. Henry R. Selden (later colonel) who distinguished himself at the battle of Val Verde, February 21, 1862. The fort was beside the Rio Grande nine miles north of the settlement of Doña Ana. The site is located along U.S. Highway 85 about seventeen miles north of present-day Las Cruces.
Fort Selden was one of a chain of forts established to control the Apaches. It was on the Butterfield Trail and provided protection for the government rope ferry which crossed the Rio Grande at nearby Leasburg. The summit of Mt. Robledo, across the river to the west, was used as a heliograph station, flashing messages between Fort Selden and Fort Bliss at Franklin (El Paso, Texas).
The buildings of the fort were one-story adobe structures with walls two feet thick. The installation included barracks for enlisted men, two double officers’ quarters, a ten-bed hospital, stone guard house, storehouses, workshop, bake shop, corrals, and a magazine with stone walls three feet thick. The fort was rectangular in ground plan, the buildings enclosing a parade ground.
Fort Selden was abandoned in 1879 when the railroads began to draw travel away from the overland trails. It was reoccupied in 1881 when the Apache Chiefs Victorio, Nana, and later Geronimo were on the warpath. With the passing of the Indian problem, Fort Selden was permanently abandoned in 1892. During World War I, the grounds of the fort were used for cavalry maneuvers by units stationed at Fort Bliss.
A rather famous American once lived at Fort Selden. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, as a child of four, moved with his family to the fort in 1884, following the assignment of his father, then an infantry captain, to that post. The family remained at Fort Selden until late in 1886.
Now only crumbling adobe walls mark the site of Fort Selden, once a welcome sight to travelers in southern New Mexico. The wind, rain, and sun have taken their toll, aided in no small way by man himself. In 1963, through the efforts of the Doña Ana Historical Society, Fort Selden was made a State Monument by the New Mexico legislature. It is to be hoped that the fort will now be protected from further weathering and vandalism so that the remnants of this old outpost will stand for many years to come as a monument to the men who once manned it.
Fort Cummings
Fort Cummings was established in October 1863 in what is now Luna County, New Mexico. It was located at Cooke’s Spring, an important watering stop on the Butterfield Trail, at the eastern edge of Cooke’s Canyon. Prior to the establishment of Fort Cummings, the Apaches made frequent and fatal attacks upon travelers as they passed through the four miles of Cooke’s Canyon or stopped at the spring. Cooke’s Canyon was one of the most dangerous stretches on the Butterfield Trail. The fort was named for Maj. Joseph Cummings who was killed by Navajo Indians in August 1863. Its ruins can be reached by turning off State Highway 26 at Florida, sixteen miles northeast of Deming, and traveling seven miles to the west.
Fort Cummings was the most elaborate and best-walled fort in New Mexico. It covered an area 365 × 320 feet and was completely surrounded by a twelve-foot-high adobe wall. The main entrance was topped by a guard tower. Officers’ quarters occupied the west side of the parade ground, the hospital the north side, and soldiers’ quarters the east side. The various workshops, storerooms, offices, stables, and corrals extended along the south side of the fort.
Abandoned in August 1873, Fort Cummings was reoccupied in 1880, and then again abandoned in October 1886. Later it was used as a cattle corral by the Carpenter-Stanley Cattle Company. The spring was walled and covered, and the water piped to Florida.
Little remains of Fort Cummings today. A few weathered walls here and there among the mesquite and creosote bushes mark the site. The spring still flows, supplying water for the stock which now graze upon this “protector of the trail.”
Fort Bayard
Fort Bayard, established in 1865 to protect the miners and settlers moving into the area following the Civil War, allowed the orderly development of what was to become New Mexico’s most important mineral-producing area. Named for Capt. George D. Bayard who was wounded repeatedly during Indian forays and who died of wounds received in the Battle of Fredricksburg (Va.) during the Civil War, the fort was located about five miles southeast of Pinos Altos and about midway between the mining towns of Pinos Altos and Santa Rita. The site is about nine miles east of present-day Silver City, just north of State Highway 90.
The original fort consisted of log and adobe buildings forming a square around the parade ground. During its thirty-four year history as an army post, many changes and additions were made to the fort, including the building of two-storied officers’ quarters. In 1899, the line troops were removed and the fort was officially designated as a U.S. Army General Hospital to treat tubercular soldiers. In 1920, the hospital was turned over to the Public Health Department; in 1922, to the U.S. Veterans Administration; and again, in 1966, to the State Health Department as a facility for the care of the aged and of tuberculosis cases. It can now accommodate more than 300 patients. The modern buildings are a far cry from the dirt-floored log and adobe buildings of the original fort.