Fort Craig

About this property

Fort Craig was a U.S. Army fort located along El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, near Elephant Butte Lake State Park and the Rio Grande in Socorro County, New Mexico. The Fort Craig site was approximately 1,050 feet east–west by 600 feet north–south (320 by 180 m) and covered 40 acres (16 hectares). The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo called for the construction of a series of forts along the new boundaries between Mexico and the United States. Apaches and other Native American groups were reportedly harassing settlers and travelers on both sides of the border. The attacks by the tribes from U.S. territory into Mexico was a problem the U.S. government was obligated to address under the treaty. In 1849, an initial garrison was established at Socorro, New Mexico, whose name can be translated as "safety." A fort called Fort Conrad was then established in 1851 on the west bank of the Rio Grande near Valverde Creek. This was near the north end of the Jornada del Muerto, which was an especially dangerous segment of the major route known as the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro. Although it was an ideal location from which to launch military campaigns against the Apache and Navajo, Fort Conrad was beset by construction problems and was under constant threat of flash floods, so it operated for only a short while until a replacement was built several miles away. In 1853, the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment began constructing a new fort on a bluff nine miles downriver from Fort Conrad. The new fort was named in honor of Captain Louis S. Craig, an officer in the Mexican–American War who had been murdered by deserters in California in 1852. The new fort was garrisoned in 1854 with troops transferred from Fort Conrad. Life at remote Fort Craig was uncomfortable and lonely at best and deadly at worst. The buildings were a constant source of misery to the soldiers, and records reveal litanies of complaints about leaky roofs, crumbling walls and chimneys, crowded conditions and filth from crumbling dirt roofs and muddy floors. By July 1861, Fort Craig had become the largest fort in the Southwest, with over 2,000 soldiers. That same year, several regiments of New Mexico Volunteers were established to handle the new threat posed by the Confederate Army of New Mexico. In February 1862, all five regiments of New Mexico Volunteers were sent south from Fort Union to reinforce Fort Craig and to wait for the Confederate advance up the Rio Grande. After capturing several military installations in the newly established Confederate Territory of Arizona, Brigadier General Sibley led his enthusiastic but poorly equipped brigade of about 2,500 Confederate Army of New Mexico men. On February 7, 1862, the Army of New Mexico left Fort Fillmore and headed north towards Fort Craig, but marched well around the fort after the Union Army refused to do battle on the plain in front of the fort.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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