Fort Duncan

About this property

Fort Duncan was a United States Army base, set up to protect the first U.S. settlement on the Rio Grande near the current town of Eagle Pass, Texas. A line of seven army posts was established in 1848–49 after the Mexican War to protect the settlers of West Texas and included Fort Worth, Fort Graham, Fort Gates, Fort Croghan, Fort Martin Scott, Fort Lincoln and Fort Duncan. Fort Duncan was established on March 27, 1849, when Captain Sidney Burbank occupied the site with companies A, B, and F of the First United States Infantry. On November 14, 1849, the post was named Fort Duncan, after Col. James Duncan, a hero of the Mexican–American War. The post consisted of a storehouse, two magazines, four officers' quarters, and a stone hospital, in addition to quarters for enlisted men. Construction was done half by the troops and half by hired workers. There was ample stone but no timber for building, and the men suffered from exposure. Company C, 1st Regiment of Artillery, asked permission to construct quarters at its own expense. During the 1850s, Fort Duncan provided merchants and traders protection from border frontier outlaws and Native Americans. The fort also served as a post for scouting Native Americans. In 1854, Lt.s Philip Sheridan, Zenas Bliss, Richard W. Johnson and Assistant Surgeon Albert J. Myer were stationed here, the Lieutenants after graduating from West Point. Fort Duncan became involved in an invasion of Mexico on 2 October 1855, when Texas Ranger Captain James H. Callahan led an effort to capture "runaway slaves", but confronted by Mexican regular troops, Seminoles and the ex-slaves, Callahan retreated to Piedras Negras, which caught fire, threatening his force with annihilation until Capt. Burbank covered Callahan's retreat across the Rio Grande with Fort Duncan artillery. Secretary of War John B. Floyd ordered the post abandoned in May 1859, but Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee ordered the fort reoccupied in March 1860 during the Cortina Troubles. The fort at this time consisted of "25 buildings ... nearly all are stone and adobe with thatched roofs." General David E. Twiggs ordered the fort evacuated on 21 February 1861, just before the outbreak of the American Civil War. However, Major William H. French was able to evacuate three companies of artillery at Fort Duncan and two at Fort Brown to Fort Jefferson and Fort Zachary Taylor in Florida. The CSA garrisoned the fort with volunteers and Texas Rangers, renaming it Rio Grande Station, which became an important port for the export of cotton into Mexico. Federal troops reoccupied Fort Duncan on 23 March 1868 by the 41st Infantry under the command of Lt. Col. William R. Shafter, and Lt. Henry Ware Lawton as quartermaster. An additional unit of Buffalo soldiers stationed at the fort, besides the 41st, was the 9th Cavalry. This included George B. Jackson, later a businessman in San Angelo called "the wealthiest black man in Texas" during the second half of the 19th century. The 25th Infantry arrived under the command of Major Bliss in 1870, and the Black Seminole Scouts were organized at the fort, initially under the command of 2nd Lt. Henry Field Leggett, but later commanded by 2nd Lt. John L. Bullis.

Location

Categories

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.

More in Maverick County

Historic places, battles, and census history across Maverick County.

More historic places in Texas

Browse all historic places in Texas.

Conflict records

Explore 19,000+ military engagements across American history.

Texas history

Colonial settlement, territorial period, and statehood narrative.