Leslie and David's Wanderings: 30 March 2019 Fort Union National Monument

With a winter storm scheduled to come in tonight, we decided to squeeze one more National Monument in before it hit. We drove the 1.5 hours to Fort Union National Monument in cold but beautiful sunny weather. We arrived at Fort Union to find the wind blowing at 15-20 MPH across wide open plains, which dropped the wind chill down into the 20s. The park allows you to bring dogs on the trails so we brought Etta along for the adventure.

The first Fort Union was built in 1851, following the end of the Mexican American War (1846-1848), to secure the new southwestern territories of the United States. The site was chosen because the two branchs of the Santa Fe Trail (Mountain Trail and Cimmaron Trail) come back together just east of this site and ran just past the fort. Ruts from the thousands of wagons that traveled the Santa Fe Trail through the fort are easily visible. The first fort was built by the soldiers using green trees that had been felled from the surrounding hills. They nestled it up against a tall bluff to shelter the fort from the constantly blowing western winds. The calvery waged several campains against the indians from 1851 to 1861. In addition, the fort was the main supply house for the forts built further west with thousands of wagon loads of essentail gear coming into the fort from the Santa Fe trail before being distributed further west. We arrived around noon and had time to get our 27^thPark Passport Stamp, watch the park movie and puruse the park gift shop before receiving a guided tour by a Park Ranger. He was very informative and did not mind us taking Etta along for the 45 minute foot tour of the fort grounds. We were the only ones on the tour. The cold wind was a bit uncomfortable and we were happy to jump in the truck after the tour to warm up! Even Etta was cold!

Following the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, a good portion of the forts professional army garrison was sent back east to join the Union Army. The fort was garrisoned with Union volunteers from New Mexico and Colorado. The old fort was falling apart due to poor materials and shoddy construction. It was also realized that being at the base of a bluff was a poor defensive postion. With word that the Confederate forces from western Texas were marching on Alburquerque and Santa Fe, a new fort with tall dirt balstrays in a star pattern with cannon positions was built further out on the grassy plains and all the troops were moved in behinds its dirt walls. The fort was never attacked. Following the defeat of Confederate Forces by the fort’s garrison and additional Colorado and New Mexico Volunteers at Apache Canyon just to the west of the fort, in 1862, the Civil War came to an end in the South West. The Confederates retreated back into West Texas. The conditions in the dirt fort were terrible and it was decided to build a new Fort Union. Construction began in late 1862. This time it was built by local construction civilians out of brick, stone and Adobe, the remains of which we see today. Fort Union remained a major supply depot until the coming of the railroad in the late 1870s. Additional campaigns were waged from the fort against the plains Indians through the early 1880s. The Fort was final abandoned in 1891. The Fort’s hospital was the only hospital for over 500 miles and served the Fort garrison and the local civilian population (although civilians had to pay 50 cents a day to stay there) and people traveling on the Santa Fe Trail. It had 126 beds, two Army Doctors, a couple of Nurses and assistants which would serve around 400 patients a month. At its hayday, the forts population was over 1500 soldiers and civilians including Kit Carson.

On the drive home we drove through snow showers of the leading edge of the incoming storm.