Fort Marcy was a

military reservation A military base is a facility directly owned and operated by or for the military or one of its branches that shelters military equipment and personnel, and facilitates training and Military operation, operations. A military base always provides ...

Santa Fe, New Mexico Santa Fe ( ; , Spanish for 'Holy Faith'; tew, Oghá P'o'oge, Tewa for 'white shell water place'; tiw, Hulp'ó'ona, label=Tiwa language, Northern Tiwa; nv, Yootó, Navajo for 'bead + water place') is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. ...

used during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

and

Mexican–American War The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the (''United States intervention in Mexico''), was an armed conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. It followed the 1 ...

. It was decommissioned in the 1890s.

History

Construction

Hired workers and troops assembled the fort, building 9-foot high and 5-foot thick

adobe Adobe ( ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for ''mudbrick''. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of e ...

walls to construct the irregular

tridecagon In geometry, a tridecagon or triskaidecagon or 13-gon is a thirteen-sided polygon. Regular tridecagon A '' regular tridecagon'' is represented by Schläfli symbol . The measure of each internal angle of a regular tridecagon is approximately 1 ...

structure. Outside of the defense, an adobe

blockhouse A blockhouse is a small fortification, usually consisting of one or more rooms with loopholes, allowing its defenders to fire in various directions. It is usually an isolated fort in the form of a single building, serving as a defensive stro ...

and powder magazine were established to store

artillery Artillery is a class of heavy military ranged weapons that launch munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry firearms. Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach defensive walls and fortifications during siege ...

and weapons. Fort Marcy was "ample enough to hold 1000 soldiers." No garrisons were inside the actual fort. Limited quarters were located and constructed on the outside mesa. The fort was never required to defend Santa Fe, resulting in the men being headquartered and horses stabled near the old Spanish military establishment, 600 yards from the governor's palace. Kearney named the newly established fort after

William L. Marcy William Learned Marcy (December 12, 1786July 4, 1857) was an American lawyer, politician, and judge who served as U.S. Senator, Governor of New York, U.S. Secretary of War and U.S. Secretary of State. In the latter office, he negotiated the Gad ...

, the secretary of war and his boss at the time. Fort Marcy engaged in little action during the

and became abandoned upon an

executive order In the United States, an executive order is a directive by the president of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. The legal or constitutional basis for executive orders has multiple sources. Article Two of th ...

from

President Andrew Johnson Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808July 31, 1875) was the 17th president of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. He assumed the presidency as he was vice president at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson was a Dem ...

on August 28, 1868. Wood for the construction of the fort was milled at a sawmill built in 1847, later known as the

Randall Davey House The Randall Davey House, on Upper Canyon Rd. in Santa Fe, New Mexico, was built in 1847. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970. The listing included two contributing buildings. It was a home of artist Randall Davey, ...

. With

Mexican–American War

In May 1846, the United States declared war on the Republic of Mexico after a dispute arose over the location of the southern border of the newly annexed State of Texas. Led by General Stephen W. Kearney, his Army of the West, with approximately 1,700 troops, marched into the city of Santa Fe to claim the city and the entire

New Mexico Territory The Territory of New Mexico was an organized incorporated territory of the United States from September 9, 1850, until January 6, 1912. It was created from the U.S. provisional government of New Mexico, as a result of ''Santa Fe de Nuevo México ...

on August 18, 1846. On the next day, Kearney ordered two of his chief engineers,

William Emory William Hemsley Emory (September 7, 1811 – December 1, 1887) was a prominent American surveying, surveyor and civil engineer in the 19th century. As an officer in the United States Army Corps of Topographical Engineers, U.S. Army Corps of Topog ...

and

Jeremy Gilmer Jeremy Francis Gilmer (February 23, 1818 – December 1, 1883) was an American soldier, mapmaker, and civil engineer most noted for his service as the Chief Engineer of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. As a major general, ...

, who later served as a major general and chief engineer for the

Confederate States Army The Confederate States Army, also called the Confederate Army or the Southern Army, was the military land force of the Confederate States of America (commonly referred to as the Confederacy) during the American Civil War (1861–1865), fighting ...

during the

, to stake out a good site for a defensive fort. This was crucial in order to prevent an upheaval by the already conquered population. Lt. Emory found the perfect spot in what he called "the only point which commands the entire town." At the location was a summit positioned on a flat-topped hill, 650 yards northeast of Santa Fe's plaza.

Demise

In 1887, a Silver City citizen, Tassie Wilson, went to the territorial capital for a visit. During her stay, she and her friends discovered Spanish coins hidden beneath the walls of old Fort Marcy. This incident, first reported by the ''Silver City Enterprise'' on September 30, claimed her find to be more than $2,300 worth of coins, the oldest of which dated back to 1740 and 1726 and were donated to the Historical Society of New Mexico. The paper went on to state: "After the discovery was made, large numbers of Santa Fe citizens turned out and dug the whole country up in the vicinity of the fort, but without finding anything new." The hunt was ultimately the destructive force that ended the remaining standing walls. The government sold the Fort Marcy location at auction in 1891. The city of Santa Fe acquired the site on the hill in 1961, landscaped it and establishing a scenic overlook of the city.MEMORIES OF OLD FORT MARCY by Marc Simmons The Fort Marcy Officer's Residence, built in the early 1870s, also known as the "Edgar Lee Hewett House", survives and is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

Notes

References

mcc.sws.uiuc.edu/FORTS/histories/NM Fort Marcy (pdf)books.google.com: Fort Marcy, New Mexico
— ''search results''.
waymarking.com: Waymarks #WM288B—''Fort Marcy''

External links

{{coord, 35.6894307, -105.9321901, format=dms, type:landmark, display=title Marcy Buildings and structures in Santa Fe, New Mexico History of Santa Fe County, New Mexico Parks in Santa Fe County, New Mexico New Mexico in the American Civil War 1864 establishments in New Mexico Territory 1868 disestablishments in New Mexico Territory