Extract from:
Fort Union National Monument
by Utley, Robert M.
National Park Service
Handbook 35
1962


     As the 1850's drew to a close, the great debate waged by statesmen of
North and South echoed at Fort Union and other military installations on the
southwestern frontier. Part of the Regiment of Mounted Riflemen garrisoned Fort
Union. Most of the officers of this unit were Southerners, and they planned to
go with the South if war broke out. On February 11, 1861, Lt. John Van Deusen
Du Bois wrote in his diary, "Nothing but secession talked of at the post. Of
all the officers here only Lt. McCrae of North Carolina, Capt. Shoemaker,
M.S.K. [Military Store Keeper], and myself are thoroughly loyal." And a month
later "I became involved in several very bitter political discussions &
threatened, if an effort was made to seduce my regiment from its allegiance I
would assume command myself and fight it out." Efforts were in fact made to
seduce the enlisted men from their allegiance, but virtually all of them
remained loyal to the Union.

     War came in April 1861. When news of the firing on Fort Sumter reached New
Mexico, many of the top-ranking officers resigned from the U.S. Army and
hastened south to join the armies of the Confederacy. Among them were Col.
William W. Loring, Col. Thomas T. Fauntleroy, Lt. Col. George B. Crittenden,
Maj. James Longstreet, Capt. Richard S. Ewell, and Maj. Henry H. Sibley, last
prewar commander of Fort Union. After a short period of command chaos, Col.
Edward R. S. Canby took charge of United States forces in New Mexico.

     Major Sibley hurried to Richmond and persuaded President Jefferson Davis
to sanction the opening of a theater of war in the West. Sibley left Richmond
with a commission of brigadier general and authority to raise a brigade of
Texas Mounted Rifles. Although his immediate objective was the invasion of New
Mexico and capture of the stores of Federal arms, ammunition, and provisions at
Albuquerque and Fort Union, he had much larger plans. He confided to one of his
officers his determination to drive on to Colorado and California, thus
bringing enormous mineral resources to the Confederate treasury and affording
the Confederacy an outlet on the Pacific Ocean.

     Meanwhile, Lt. Col. John R. Baylor and 300 mounted Texans occupied Fort
Bliss, at El Paso, Tex., and pushed north into southern New Mexico. In July
1861 he seized Mesilla and nearby Fort Fillmore. At San Augustine Pass, he
received the surrender of 500 Federal soldiers who had abandoned Fort Fillmore
and were trying to escape to Fort Stanton. On August 1 Baylor established the
Confederate Territory of Arizona, consisting of all the present states of New
Mexico and Arizona south of the 34th parallel, and proclaimed himself governor.
While Baylor held this salient, Sibley organized 3 regiments, about 2,500 men,
at San Antonio. By December 1861, he had assembled the brigade at Fort Bliss.

     Colonel Canby concentrated available Federal troops at Fort Craig, on the
Rio Grande 140 miles north of Fort Bliss, to meet the Confederate threat. In
his rear, Fort Union hummed with activity. Officers struggled to build a
citizen army around the nucleus of regulars remaining in New Mexico. Recruits
poured in on the fort, and ultimately four regiments of New Mexico volunteers
were formed. Most of the companies were sent south as soon as organized to
reinforce Canby. Others remained to guard the Santa Fe Trail, now the vital
artery of supply for Federal forces. Determined that nothing cut his lifeline,
Canby kept troops from Fort Union constantly on patrol and sent a spy
detachment southeast into Texas to give timely warning if the Confederates
struck from that direction. Freight trains from Fort Leavenworth pulled into
Fort Union and unloaded great piles of military supplies.

The Star Fort
     Other troops busied themselves constructing a massive earthen field work
designed to block the Santa Fe Trail to Confederate advance from the south.
Located in the valley east of the log fort, it began to take shape in July
1861, shortly after the fall of Fort Fillmore.

     Earth parapets formed a square with angles shaped like arrowheads jutting
out 200 feet from each corner. In these angles were storehouses, company
barracks, and officers' quarters. Other quarters and a magazine occupied the
quadrangle. The parapets supported firing platforms and artillery emplacements.
Four more earthen angles projected from the sides of the square as curtains
against enemy fire. In geometric design the fortification resembled an eight
pointed star, and thus became known as the star fort.

     A newly arrived officer pronounced the star fort "as fine a work of its
kind as I ever saw" and vowed that "all Texas can't take it." Later, another
officer reached a different conclusion. Firing cannon at the fort from the top
of the mesa to the west, he demonstrated that "The work has a dip toward these
hills which causes its whole interior to be revealed." Not only could enemy
artillery rake the interior, but guns mounted on the parapet could not reach
the brow of the mesa, where attackers would logically place their cannon.

     The star fort afforded no improvement in living conditions. Like the old
fort, the quarters and storehouses of the new were built of unbarked pine logs
that quickly rotted and housed nesting places of insects. Built partly
underground, the rooms were damp, unventilated, and consequently unhealthy. In
heavy rains, water seeped through the roofs and ran in the doors, turning the
dirt floors to mud. The unsodded parapet began to erode, filling the
surrounding ditch with soil. Rather than live in such hovels, most of the
troops camped in tents outside the fortification.

     Work continued intermittently on the star fort until June 1862. By then
the issue in New Mexico had been decided. There was no further need for a
fortification.

The Confederate Invasion of New Mexico
     Sibley's brigade marched north from Fort Bliss in January 1862, aiming for
Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Fort Union, and ultimately Denver. At Fort Craig, Canby
now had about 3,800 men, largely untested volunteers. The Texans tried to slip
around the fort, but Canby sent his men to the east side of the Rio Grande to
bar the way. On February 21, 1862, the two armies fought the Battle of
Valverde. Although badly outnumbered, the Texans drove the Federals back across
the river and into the fortifications of Fort Craig, then pushed north. The
quartermaster detachment at Albuquerque burned the military stores and
withdrew. On March 5 the garrison at Santa Fe evacuated the capital and fell
back on Fort Union. Sibley occupied the two towns. Only Fort Union stood
between him and Denver.


Fort Craig and the Valverde Crossing
     Coloradoans had not failed to appreciate their danger. A regiment of
volunteers had already been recruited, and late in February marched out of
Denver in response to Canby's pleas for help. On March 5, the day Santa Fe was
evacuated, components of the regiment rendezvoused on the Arkansas River and
struck south on the Santa Fe Trail. Impelled by news of Sibley's victory at
Valverde, they embarked on a dramatic forced march to save Fort Union. Covering
an average of 40 miles a day, the Coloradoans surmounted snow-choked Raton
Pass. On the other side they learned that Albuquerque and Santa Fe had fallen
and that Fort Union stood in daily peril. Responding to a plea from their
officers, the "Pike's Peakers" pushed on until, after a march of 92 miles in 36
hours, exhaustion finally compelled them to stop for rest. Two more days of
marching, in the face of a furious blizzard and dust storm, brought the
brigade, at dusk on March 11, to Fort Union.

     The commander of the Colorado regiment, Col. John P. Slough, went into
conference with the commander of the regulars at Fort Union, Col. Gabriel R.
Paul. Slough wished to take the initiative. Paul pointed out that Canby's
orders were to hold Fort Union and harass the Confederate advance. Slough
argued that only by moving against the enemy could they be harassed. Comparison
of the dates on their commissions revealed that Slough ranked Paul. The
Coloradoan promptly claimed command of all units at Fort Union and laid plans
for advancing to meet the enemy. On March 22 he moved out on the road to Santa
Fe with 1,342 men - his own regiment, a battalion of regular infantry, 1 of
regular calvary, and 2 batteries of artillery. Three days later he was at the
eastern end of Glorieta Pass.

     At this time the Confederate brigade was divided. Part of the 5th Texas
occupied Albuquerque. The rest had passed through Santa Fe and, under Maj.
Charles L. Pyron, were marching toward Glorieta Pass on the road to Fort Union.
At Apache Canyon, west of the pass, Pyron expected to unite with Lt. Col. W. F.
Scurry, then camped at Galisteo with the 7th Texas and part of the 4th, all
dismounted. General Sibley was in Albuquerque.

     Between the Federals and the Confederates lay Glorieta Pass, a rugged
defile through the Sangre de Cristo Mountains by which the Santa Fe Trail swung
south to avoid the main range of mountains and gain access to the capital city.
Here the two armies fought the decisive battle of the Civil War in the Far
West.

The Battle of Glorieta Pass
     On March 25 Colonel Slough ordered Maj. John M. Chivington and 400 men,
part infantry and part cavalry, to conduct a reconnaissance in force toward
Santa Fe. Next morning, as Chivington descended the western slope of Glorieta
Pass into Apache Canyon, he ran into Major Pyron's Confederates, four
dismounted companies of the 5th Texas, entering the western end of the canyon.
Pyron planted his two mountain howitzers on the Santa Fe Trail and opened fire.
By sending flanking detachments to the slopes on either side of the canyon,
Chivington twice forced the enemy artillery to pull back. As the guns were
unlimbering the second time, he sent his cavalry charging down the road. The
bridge across Apache Creek had been destroyed, but the horsemen jumped the
ditch and piled into the disorganized Texans. The charge broke Confederate
resistance and scattered the Texans to the rear. As night was approaching,
Chivington assembled his command and returned to Pigeon's Ranch, just east of
the summit of Glorieta Pass.



The Battle of Glorieta Pass
     Major Pyron set up camp at Johnson's Ranch, outside the canyon, and sent a
messenger to Colonel Scurry at Galisteo asking for help. Scurry's men made a
forced march and reached Johnson's Ranch at about 3 a.m. on March, 27. They
parked the 80 supply wagons and, expecting a Federal attack, organized a
defense perimeter. Scurry waited all day, then on the morning of the 28th
decided to take the offensive. Leaving a guard with his supply wagons at the
ranch, he entered Apache Canyon with about 700 men.

     Slough had also decided to take the offensive, and with 900 men and the
artillery he advanced toward the summit of the pass. The other 400 he had sent
with Major Chivington to slip around the Confederates and strike them in the
rear. Slough and Scurry collided at Pigeon's Ranch at 10:30 a.m. The Federals
set up a defensive line. Scurry mounted repeated assaults, first on one flank,
then on the other, next on the center, and finally on all fronts at once. Twice
the Federal line fell back to new positions. By late afternoon both sides were
exhausted.

     Meanwhile, Major Chivington had left the road and led his men into the
timbered mountains south of the pass. At 1:30 p.m. he emerged on the brow of a
steep bluff. Below was Johnson's Ranch and the Confederate wagon park. His
troops poured down the bluffs and quickly took possession of the supply depot.
A cannon opened fire, but sharpshooters silenced it by picking off the gunners.
The Federals burned the 80 wagons, containing ammunition, food, clothing, and
forage; slaughtered 30 horses and mules found in a corral; spiked the field
piece; and withdrew with 17 prisoners.

     Scurry had all but won the battle at Pigeon's Ranch when a courier
galloped up with word of the disaster that had befallen his supply base. He
sent a flag of truce to Slough asking for a cease-fire, which was gladly
granted. The Union troops retired to Kozlowski's Ranch, while the Confederates
remained on the field through the following day.

     Confederate casualties were 36 killed, about 60 wounded, and 25 taken
prisoners. Colonel Slough reported losses of 29 killed, 64 wounded, and 13
prisoners, although other Union participants gave higher figures. Considering
the total number involved in the battle, it had been a bloody affair.

     Loss of the supply train dashed Sibley's hopes and in the end destroyed
his grand design for the Confederacy in the West. Sibley withdrew to
Albuquerque and, harassed by Canby, began a desperate retreat through rugged,
waterless mountains to his base at Fort Bliss. Baylor's Territory of Arizona
also collapsed. Ultimately even Fort Bliss was abandoned. As one of the Texans
wrote to his wife, "If it had not been for those devils from Pike's Peak, this
country would have been ours."

A New Fort
     Sibley's departure coincided with the arrival of fresh troops. California
had responded to Canby's appeal for help in the defense of New Mexico by
rushing a brigade of volunteers across the deserts of southern Arizona. The
"California Column," Brig. Gen. James H. Carleton commanding, reached Mesilla
in July 1862, too late to help drive the Confederates out of the territory. The
Colorado Volunteers went home to fight Indians, and the California Volunteers
stayed in New Mexico to fight Indians. On September 17, 1862, Canby turned over
command of the Department of New Mexico to General Carleton and left for a new
assignment in the East.

     Carleton had served as a dragoon captain under Colonel Sumner at Fort
Union in 1851 and 1852. Now he turned his attention once more to his old
station. For years it had been regarded as an undesirable assignment.
Inspecting officers had recommended that it be entirely rebuilt, or moved to
the vicinity of Alexander Barclay's trading post at the junction of the Mora
and Sapello Rivers, or abandoned altogether. In November 1862 Carleton gave
orders to begin work on a new fort at the old location.

     The sprawling installation that took shape was the largest in New Mexico
and required 6 years, 1863 to 1869, to complete. Actually, it was three
installations in one - the Post of Fort Union, the Fort Union Quartermaster
Depot, and the Fort Union Ordnance Depot. The post and quartermaster depot were
built next to each other on the valley floor northeast of the star fort. The
ordnance depot rose on the site of the old log fort at the western edge of the
valley.

     The new buildings stood in sharp contrast to the old. Designed in the
boxlike "territorial" style of architecture that came to be distinctive of New
Mexico, they were constructed of native building materials. The walls were of
adobe brick, moulded from soil dug from the valley north of the fort. They
stood on stone foundations and as protection against moisture were coated with
plaster fired in limekilns south of the fort and surmounted by copings of
bricks manufactured in Las Vegas. At first, dressed lumber for the woodwork
came from Ceran St. Vrain's sawmill at the town of Mora and from two mills on
the Sapello River. Later the Army acquired its own planing mill, and logs cut
from the Fort Union timber reserve in the Turkey Mountains were dressed at the
fort. Such items as tools, nails, window glass, fire bricks, and roofing tin
had to be hauled over the Santa Fe Trail from Fort Leavenworth.

     The Post of Fort Union was laid out to accommodate four companies -
cavalry, infantry, or a combination of both. The nine houses that made up
officers' row lined a spacious parade ground on the west. In the center of the
line stood the commanding officer's home. Flanking it on either side were four
houses, each divided by a wide hall into apartments for two families. Across
the parade ground to the east were four sets of barracks for enlisted men.
Behind the barracks were quarters for laundresses and married soldiers,
administrative offices, bakery, prison, guardhouse, chapel, storehouses, and
corrals with wooden stables for 200 horses. Just south of this complex of
buildings stood the 36-bed hospital, which served all the personnel at Fort
Union.

     The parade ground extended north into the Fort Union Quartermaster Depot,
which supplied all the New Mexico forts. In line with the post officers'
quarters were the depot officers' quarters and administrative offices. Across
the parade ground, in line with the post barracks, were four large storehouses
and the mechanics' corral, which consisted of shops and quarters for
blacksmiths, carpenters, and wheelwrights. Behind this group of buildings was
the transportation corral, with sheds for freight wagons, storage houses for
grain, and quarters for the teamsters. As the Army supply center for all New
Mexico, the Fort Union depot boasted a much larger physical plant than the post
of Fort Union, and it employed considerably more men, mostly civilians.

     By comparison, the Fort Union Arsenal, which served the ordnance needs of
the department, was a modest establishment. It consisted of an officer's house,
a barracks building, storehouses, shops, and magazine, all surrounded by a wall
4,000 feet square. Capt. William R. Shoemaker, who had been at Fort Union since
Colonel Sumner's time, presided over this part of the fort.

     Water for all three units of the fort came from wells and storage cisterns
spotted among the buildings. All the buildings were heated by fireplaces and
lighted by spacious windows by day and candles or oil lamps by night.

     Fine as the elaborate new Fort Union appeared, it too had been hastily
constructed. The main trouble lay in faulty roofing, which admitted water to
the adobe walls and started an eroding action that made repairs constantly
necessary. There were those, too, who questioned its utility for any purpose.
Among them was Lt. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, a very important person indeed, who
wrote in 1869 that Fort Union "has grown into proportions which never at any
time were warranted by the wants of the public service. Quartermasters and
Commanding Officers have gone on increasing and building up an unnecessary
post, until it has become, by the unnecessary waste of public money, an eye
sore. I do not accord with the opinion of any one as to its military bearings
for protection of field operations, nor do I see any necessity for it as a
Depot." Necessary or not, Fort Union continued to grow for another 20 years and
to serve as a tactical base and supply depot on the New Mexico frontier.

Carleton's Operations, 1862-66
     To meet the Confederate threat to New Mexico, Colonel Canby stripped the
frontier forts and concentrated his forces on the Rio Grande. In the white
man's family quarrel, the Indians of the Southwest saw a chance to pillage
ranches and settlements without much danger from pursuing soldiers. By the time
General Carleton and the California Volunteers reached New Mexico in 1862,
Apaches and Navajos were raiding unchecked through the territory, and Kiowas
and Comanches were striking viciously at the Santa Fe Trail and the eastern
fringes of New Mexican settlement. Although they had enlisted to save the
Union, the Californians joined with the New Mexico volunteers in an attempt to
crush the hostiles. For the rest of the war, 1862-65, they campaigned
ceaselessly.

     General Carleton was a tough, aggressive officer with plenty of frontier
experience. He believed in relentless pursuit and harsh punishment. In orders
to a subordinate, he summed up his doctrine of Indian fighting: "All Indian men
. . . are to be killed whenever and wherever you can find them. The women and
children will not be harmed, but you will take them prisoners."

     Carleton's principal field commander was himself no novice at Indian
fighting. Kit Carson, now colonel of the 1st New Mexico Cavalry, was the mailed
fist with which the general struck at the hostiles.

     Carleton garrisoned the abandoned forts and built new ones. In the winter
of 1862-63 he sent Kit Carson to Fort Stanton, in south-central New Mexico, to
war on the Mescalero Apaches. By March 1863 Carson had subjugated the tribe and
moved 400 warriors with their families to a new reservation on the Pecos River,
in eastern New Mexico. Here Carleton built Fort Sumner to stand guard. Carson
moved to Fort Union to await further orders.

     In June 1863 Carleton turned his attention to the Navajos, for 250 years
the scourge of New Mexico. Colonel Sumner tried to conquer them in 1851 and
1852, and failed. Colonel Canby tried again in 1860, also with disappointing
results. Now Carleton ordered Kit Carson to march west with the three companies
of cavalry at Fort Union and rendezvous with the rest of the 1st New Mexico
Regiment for a campaign in the Navajo homeland.

     Throughout the summer and autumn of 1863, Carson marched and
countermarched in the Navajo country. Not once did he fight, but he captured
stock, destroyed crops, and gave the quarry no rest. In January 1864 he invaded
the awesome depths of Canon de Chelly, bulwark of the Navajo homeland. It was a
shattering psychological blow to the Navajos. Nowhere, they now realized, could
they be safe from Kit Carson. Tired, discouraged, and destitute, the bands one
by one drifted south to surrender at Forts Canby, Defiance, and Wingate. By the
summer of 1864, 8,000 had given up. Carleton had them marched east to Fort
Sumner and colonized with the Mescalero Apaches.

     The Fort Sumner experiment did not work well. The land would not support
so many Indians, who were not especially interested in farming anyway.
Moreover, the Apaches and Navajos disliked one another. The Apaches finally
broke loose and were not finally subjugated until the late 1870's. For the
Navajos, the confinement at Fort Sumner, far from their beloved homeland, was a
terrible ordeal. It utterly broke their aggressive spirit. They went home in
1868, resolved never again, no matter what the provocation, to challenge the
white man.

     On the east the Kiowas and Comanches had grown increasingly troublesome.
By 1864 the plains were in the throes of a disastrous war, and caravans on the
Santa Fe Trail traveled in constant peril. Carleton took steps to guard his
supply line. During the travel seasons of 1864 and 1865, detachments of cavalry
rode out of Fort Union to establish camps at strategic points on both the
Mountain and Cimarron Branches of the trail. For a time, too, Carleton offered
escort service. Trains collected at Fort Union and once a week moved out with
cavalry guards. The escort went as far as the Arkansas River, then waited for a
west-bound train to accompany back to Fort Union. This service, however,
required more troops than could be spared and soon had to be abandoned.

     Never one to stay long on the defensive, Carleton decided to strike at the
home country of the Indians who were raiding the Santa Fe Trail. In November
1864 he sent Kit Carson and his regiment into the Texas Panhandle, heart of the
Kiowa-Comanche country. On November 26 the troops attacked a large camp of
Kiowas on the Canadian River near the ruins of a trading post once operated by
William Bent. Joined by Comanches, the Kiowas counterattacked and besieged
Carson in the ruins. The Battle of Adobe Walls raged all day, but mountain
howitzers kept the Indians at bay. At dusk the troops burned the Kiowa village
and withdrew.

     In the East the long Civil War finally ended at Appomattox Court House in
April 1865, and the victorious Union armies dissolved. On the western frontier,
the volunteer regiments that had struggled against Indians instead of
Confederates one by one went home to be mustered out. Once more the regulars
came west to garrison the forts and fight Indians. By autumn of 1866 the
California and New Mexico volunteer regiments had been released, and General
Carleton had relinquished his command.

PREV <==    NEXT ==>

Ben Franklin Ferris - Introduction
Ben Franklin Ferris - 1838-1846
Ben Franklin Ferris - 1846-1857
Ben Franklin Ferris - The Early Years
Ben Franklin Ferris - Civil War
Ben Franklin Ferris - After the War
Ben Franklin Ferris - Mexican Civil War
Ben Franklin Ferris - On to Montana
Ben Franklin Ferris - Last Words
Ben Franklin Ferris - Epilogue
Battle of Apache Canyon and Pigeon's Ranch
Fort Union National Monument
Bibliography


Preface to These Documents. (Brief)
Family History
Ben Franklin Ferris - Memoir
Edna Clair Ferris - Diary.
Mallory Home Page