Fort Union National Monument

Defender of the Southwest After US Mexican War

"Many ladies greatly dislike Fort Union. It has always been noted for severe duststorms. Situated on a barren plain, the nearest mountains…three miles distant, it has the most exposed position of any military fort in New Mexico.…The hope of having any trees, or even a grassy parade-ground, had been abandoned long before our residence there….Every eye is said to form its own beauty. Mine was disposed to see much in Fort Union, for I had a home there." Mrs. Orsemus B. Boyd, 1894, recalling her residence at Fort Union in 1872

When New Mexico became United States territory after the US Mexican War, the army established garrisons of dragoons in towns scattered along the Rio Grande to protect the area’s inhabitants and travel routes against Cheyenne, Navajo and Apache Indians. This arrangement proved unsatisfactory for a number of reasons, and in April 1851, Lt. Col. Edwin V. Sumner, commanding Military Department No. 9 (which included New Mexico Territory), was ordered "to revise the whole system of defense" for the entire territory. Among his first acts was to break up the scattered garrisons and relocated them in posts closer to the Indians. He also moved his headquarters and supply depot from Santa Fe, "that sink of vice and extravagance," to a site near the Mountain and Cimarron branches of the Santa Fe Trail, where he established Fort Union.

The first of the three forts built in this valley was begun in August 1851. For a decade it served as a base for military operations in the area and a key station on the Santa Fe Trail, affording travelers a place to rest nearby and refit at the post sutler’s store before continuing their journey. It also became the principal quartermaster depot of the Southwest.

Dragoons vs. Apache Indians

During the 1850s, dragoons and mounted riflemen from the fort campaigned against the Cheyenne, Navajo and Apache Indians living in or around the southern Rocky Mountains that were disrupting traffic on the Santa Fe Trail. One of the earliest campaigns was directed against the Jacarilly Apaches who, in the spring of 1854, surprised and nearly wiped out a company of dragoons. The Apaches were driven into the mountains west of the Rio Grande and routed. Military operations were also conducted against Utes of southern Colorado in 1855 and against Kiowas and Comanches raiding the plains east of the fort in 1860-61.

Civil War

When the Civil War began in April 1861, most of the regular troops (except those officers who joined the South) were withdrawn from Fort Union and other frontier posts and replaced by volunteer regiments. Anticipating a Confederate invasion of New Mexico, Col. Edward R. S. Canby, charged with the territory’s defense, concentrated troops at Fort Craig on the Rio Grande and sent soldiers from Fort Union to patrol the Santa Fe Trail, now the main artery of supply for Federal forces. He also ordered construction of the second Fort Union, a star-shaped earthen fortification, to strengthen defenses.

The second fort never saw the action during the Civil War. The Confederate invasion was halted and turned back in March 1862 by a force of Colorado and New Mexico volunteers and U.S. Regulars from Fort Union at the Battle of Glorieta Pass, about 20 miles southeast of Santa Fe. The Confederates withdrew to Texas, effectively ending Civil War activity in the Southwest, and the second Fort Union was soon thereafter abandoned.

In 1863, with New Mexico securely in Federal hands, the new departmental commander, Brig. Gen. James H. Carleton, began construction of the third (and final) Fort Union, whose ruins you see here today. This sprawling installation, which took six years to complete, was the most extensive in the territory. It included not only a military post, with all its attendant structures, but a separate quartermaster depot with warehouses, corrals, shops, offices, and quarters. The supply function overshadowed that of the military and employed far more men, mostly civilians. An ordnance depot, erected on the site of the first fort at the western edge of the valley, rounded out the complex.

Indian Wars: Apache, Navajo, Cheyenne and more

Throughout the 1860s and the 1870s troops from Fort Union continued to participate in operations against Indians. Several relentless campaigns against the Apaches, Navajos, Cheyennes, Arapahos, Kiowas, Utes, and Comanches finally brought peace to the southern Plains in the spring of 1875 ending the Indian wars, albeit on the white man’s terms. Though Fort Union’s involvement in the Indian wars had come to an end, its garrison occasionally helped to track down outlaws, quell mob violence, and mediate feuds. The supply depot continued to flourish until 1879, when the Santa Fe Railroad replaced the Santa Fe Trail as the principal avenue of commerce. By 1891 the fort had outlived its usefulness and was abandoned.