FORT CRAIG

NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE

Photos

April 2000 (Off NM Hwy 1, Mile Marker 28, this dirt road leads 4.6 miles east to Ft Craig)

Directions: From US Interstate 25, Exit 100, travel north on NM Hwy 1 twenty miles to around Mile Marker 28 and turn east onto a dirt road (there is a sign indicating the turn).  From US Interstate 25, Exit 124, travel east on a very bumpy dirt road one mile to NM Hwy 1 and turn right to travel 6 miles south to a dirt road.  Once on the dirt road, travel east 4.6 miles and turn left onto another dirt road which leads to the Ft Craig parking area, 2/10 miles north.

View from Parking Area

Fort Craig is on alluvial gravelly sands, derived from mountains in the west, sloping toward the Rio Grande to the east.

Marion Cox Grinstead Historical Trail:  This trail is named in honor of Marion Cox Grinstead, whose determined efforts to preserve Fort Craig and untiring historical research have ensured that this place and the sacrifices of the soldiers who served here will never be forgotten.

Surrounding area around Fort Craig

Surrounding area around Fort Craig

One of the reasons for selecting this location for Fort Craig was the good grazing on the surrounding plain.  Hay was cut and stored in the stable area for the many draft and cavalry animals required by the Fort.  Horse and mule herds were often herded along the river when not corralled here.  As can be seen in the above photo, wagons were repaired here and derelicts were stored for parts.  Enlisted men's cavalry horses were kept in the larger corrals and stables, while officers' horses often had private stalls and grooms.  Several diaries of enlisted men describe with pride the quality of their commanders' horses and the expert horsemanship of the officers.

Photo of Parade Grounds and Enlisted Quarters About 1867

This photograph was taken by an unknown photographer a few years after the Civil War.  The two adobe enlisted men's quarters are seen to the right and left.   Fort Craig was built as a two-company post, with matching company and officers' quarters, but it was reinforced during the Civil War, and an additional wooden barracks was built between the adobe buildings.  The vertical log, palisade construction can be seen in the center of the photograph.  Note the covered gun at the right, near the foot of the flagpole, for ceremonial firings.  Small cottonwood trees were planted, but did not fare well.  Gravel paths were built and post orders occasionally reminded soldiers to use them.

Approximate location where above photograph of Parade Grounds was taken

The ground plan of Fort Craig remained basically the same throughout its history, although the use of various buildings change periodically.  The flagpole can be used as a guide to view the layout of the buildings.

Guard House and Sally Port

Guard House and Sally Port:  The Sally Port was the main entrance of the Fort and was a gate wide enough for wagons and mounted troops to pass through in column formation.  For a time, this guard house served as the Territorial Prison.   No photographs or drawings of this structure are known, but the 1874 Surgeon General's report on military posts describes these buildings as one guard house, with the sally port passing through it.  The rooms of the guard house are described in some detail in the same report: "On one side of the sally-port is the guard-room...and in the rear of this a room...used for colored prisoners.  On the opposite side of the sally-port is a room...used for the confinement of white prisoners... The guard-room and the room occupied by white prisoners are warmed by open fireplaces; but there is neither fireplace nor stove [for the] colored prisoners.  The prison-rooms had, during a period of three years, an average sixteen men confined in them -- the greatest number reached was thirty-two...  In one corner of the guard room is a trap door opening upon a stairway which leads down to the cells where prisoners are kept in solitary confinement...  Each cell is 5 feet 7 inches long, 2 feet 10 inches wide, and 4 feet 10 inches high...  Eight augur holes and the chinks around the doors are the only means of admitting air and light from the passage-way into the cells...  The men, with seldom more than a single blanket, sleep upon the earthen floor, which, from being frequently sprinkled to lay the dust, contains much moisture.  Colds and rheumatism are frequent among the inmates..."

Same Guard House and Sally Port from another angle

Commanding Officer's Quarters: The first commanding officer's quarters, in 1854, were located across the parade ground, but by 1869, the official ground plan shows that the post commander resided here.  This may be the location in February 1862, where Colonel Edward R. S. Canby was able to stand on his porch to watch Confederate troop movements along the escarpment to the east in preparation of Valverde.  The rank of Colonel was not often required to command the post, and Majors, Captains (often with temporary Brevet ranks), and sometimes Lieutenants found themselves in charge.   While many of the commanders went on to superior service for their country, few would be widely recognized by name today.  For a brief period following the Battle of Valverde, while Canby marched north in pursuit of the Rebels, Colonel Kit Carson and his New Mexico Volunteers held Fort Craig, and Colonel Carson occupied these quarters.  By the 1880s, one post commander complained of the quarters, "...nothing can be seen in any direction excepting the parade and interior of the garrison in front, and... the storehouses and enlisted men's sinks (latrines) in the rear."  The building, however, included a kitchen and servants' quarters added in 1867, so life was not without some advantage.

Store Houses: Fort Craig was never designated an official supply depot but it often served as a central location for disbursement of supplies to other posts.   The supplies at the post, as well as its strategic location, were of utmost importance to the Confederate plan to "live off the land" during their march north in the New Mexico campaign.  Their inability to take the Fort and its stores, even with superior performance on the field of battle, spelled the beginning of the end of their hopes of securing New Mexico, the Colorado gold fields, and the gold fields and ports of California.  The two, large, "bomb proof" store houses were built prior to the civil war, while the smaller one was completed in 1866.  The floors were excavated approximately six feet below present ground level, which presumably added some measure of cool storage.  Small tracked trucks were used to stock and remove stores.   The outside, above-ground, adobe brick walls were buttressed with dirt removed from the interior.  Both the outside roofs and interior walls were covered with jaspe, a locally made plaster.  The quantity of supplies that could be stored here was massive.  In 1865 the Quartermaster reports show 400,000 rations on post and, in 1868, 100,000 pounds of rice from these stores were sold at auction.

Defensive Bastions: These defensive earth bastions were constructed early in the Civil War (probably in the winter of 1861-62) while Confederate troops massed in El Paso and Mesilla near Las Cruces for the campaign to the north.  By the time Sibley's march began, the Confederates had already taken, either by force or abandonment, the Union posts at El Paso, Fort Stanton, and Fort Fillmore.  Some reports say that the bastions were constructed within two weeks while Sibley marched north, but additional building continued through 1864.  Enough had been completed by Sibley's arrival, however, to deter any plans of a direct assault upon the Fort.  "Quaker Guns," made of wood to appear as real canon from a distance, were placed in several of the bastion corners to reinforce the formidable appearance.  The bastions were arranged in a classical geometric shape so that a frontal attack on virtually any point would open the attackers to a crossfire from other bastions.  The bastions represent an enormous volume of gravel, moved by man- and mule-power.  The ditch outside was formed as a by-product of construction, but acts as a dry moat, increasing the difficulty of a direct attack.  During its 31 year history in the early and late Indian Wars and the Civil War, no foe ever attempted to test these fortifications.

This photograph was taken in 1867, looking east toward the lava bluffs across the river.  The powder magazine in the left center was compled in 1863, with a floor three feet below ground surface, heavy vertical post walls, and a thick cap of earth, plastered with locally made jaspe.  The building deteriorated and was torn down only five years later.  The adobe building in the background contained, from left to right, a series of offices and issue rooms, the blacksmith's shop, additional offices, and occasional chapel, and on the extreme right, the original Sutler's Store.

The blacksmith's shop burned in 1873 and was moved outside the row to the east.  In 1881 the Sutler, who provided personal items and trade goods to the soldiers, was ordered off the Post, and set up shop in buildings north of the Fort walls.

This row of buildings housed the original hospital, at the extreme left, and at various times the Quartermaster and Commissary offices, the materials issue rooms, individual officers' quarters, and laundresses' quarters.  An 1867 photo shows these buildings in good conditions, while this image shows the Fort as it often was: in drastic need of repair.  The large trees, not present in the 1867 photo, date this to at least the late 1870s or early 1880s.  Note the figure on the left, apparently a hospital patient in his white "Long-handles," who has stepped into the doorway for the photograph.  The last ground plan made while the Fort was active shows this entire row as "Laundresses," who were often wives of enlisted men living on the post with their husbands.

Hospital Row

"New" Hospital: Work was begun on the "New" Hospital in 1869, but it was not finished until 1874 or later.  After the Civil War, "Buffalo Soldiers" (a 1997 partially fictious movie about these soldiers, "Buffalo Soldiers", starred Danny Glover) were stationed here, and "colored" and "white" wards and barracks were designated.  The design of this building, shown by the original plans of 1868, was an advancement, both architecturally and socially.  Unlike the guard house, colored patients here had identical space and access to heating and cooling ("ventilation boxes" were at ceiling level to circulate air during the heat of the summer).  The number of annual incidents of illness and injury was often very high in proportion to the number of soldiers.   Fevers, venereal diseases, dysentery, hernias, and accidental injuries were the most common complaints.

These buildings housed officers with their families and servants, including the original Post Commander, before special quarters were built across the parade ground.  The 1873 Surgeon General's report describes them as "well finished, being plastered within and without... All the quarters of the officers are heated with open fireplaces, and well lighted by windows."

Captain Jack Crawford, known as "The Poet-Scout," was Post Sutler (trader) through most of the 1880's, and lived in one of these quarters with his family as custodian of the Fort for some years after it was decommissioned.  The above photo is probably Crawford's family and friends, about 1890, after a tin roof has been added to the building.

Area of Officers' Quarters

For additional Civil War photos, check the photos on the Glorieta Battle and Valverde Battle, as well as the GeoCities web site.

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