Fort Fillmore, located at 32°13′30″N 106°42′52″W, was a
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
military
fortification
A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere ...
established by Colonel
Edwin Vose Sumner in September 1851 near
Mesilla in what is now
New Mexico
)
, population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano)
, seat = Santa Fe, New Mexico, Santa Fe
, LargestCity = Albuquerque, New Mexico, Albuquerque
, LargestMetro = Albuquerque metropolitan area, Tiguex
, Offi ...
, primarily for the purpose of protecting
settler
A settler is a person who has migrated to an area and established a permanent residence there, often to colonize the area.
A settler who migrates to an area previously uninhabited or sparsely inhabited may be described as a pioneer.
Settle ...
s and
traders traveling to
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
.
Early frontier migrants were under constant threat from
attack by local Native Americans, and a network of forts was eventually created by the U.S. government to protect and encourage westward expansion. Fort Fillmore was intended to protect a corridor plagued by hostile
Apaches, where several
migration routes converged between
El Paso and
Tucson to take advantage of
Apache Pass.
Construction
Fort Fillmore was originally constructed in the
jacal style with upright wood posts plastered over with adobe; later, more substantial adobe walls were erected. Much of the work on the fort was done by the soldiers with the assistance of local Mexican laborers who made the adobe bricks.
The post was built on sand hills above the
Rio Grande
The Rio Grande ( and ), known in Mexico as the Río Bravo del Norte or simply the Río Bravo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the southwestern United States and in northern Mexico.
The length of the Rio G ...
. The Rio Grande would later change its course, making the fort about 1 mile from the river. This forced the army to use water wagons to supply the post with water and made it hard to defend in the event of attack.
Fort Fillmore served as an operating base for units of the
1st Dragoons
The Royal Dragoons (1st Dragoons) was a heavy cavalry regiment of the British Army. The regiment was formed in 1661 as the Tangier Horse. It served for three centuries and was in action during the First and the Second World Wars. It was amalgam ...
, briefly the
2nd Dragoons,
Regiment of Mounted Rifles, and the
3rd
Third or 3rd may refer to:
Numbers
* 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3
* , a fraction of one third
* 1⁄60 of a ''second'', or 1⁄3600 of a ''minute''
Places
* 3rd Street (disambiguation)
* Third Avenue (disambiguation)
* H ...
and briefly the
8th Infantry Regiment
The 8th Infantry Regiment of the United States, also known as the "Fighting Eagles," is an infantry regiment in the United States Army. The 8th Infantry participated in the Mexican War, American Civil War, Philippine Insurrection, Moro R ...
s. It was for a time the headquarters of the 3rd Infantry Regiment. The troops were active in the
Gila Expedition of 1857 and in operations against the Apaches in the
Sacramento Mountains. In one foray, Captain Henry W. Stanton, namesake of
Fort Stanton, New Mexico, was killed near the Rio Penasco. His grave was one of the few to be identified when the abandoned post was inspected in 1869. Most of the soldiers and civilians interred in the fort's cemetery are still buried there on a sand ridge southeast of the remains of the fort. A fence and flagpole are now located on the cemetery's site.
Fort Fillmore was a stop on the
Butterfield Overland Mail.
Possibly the most famous soldier who served at Fort Fillmore was Captain
George Pickett. Pickett is best remembered for leading the
fateful charge on July 3, 1863 at the
Battle of Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg () was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, by Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War. In the battle, Union Major General George Meade's Army of the ...
. In 1855, Union General
Ambrose Burnside used the fort as a supply point when he drilled geothermal wells about fifteen miles west of the post..
Abandonment
Two days after the Union's unsuccessful attack on
Confederate soldiers under the command of Lt. Col.
John Baylor at the
First Battle of Mesilla on July 25, 1861, Fort Fillmore was set afire and abandoned by the Union army. As they retreated back to
Fort Stanton under Major Isaac Lynde, they became desperately thirsty and exhausted. When 300 Confederate soldiers approached the 500 retreating Union soldiers, Lynde surrendered his demoralized troops without firing a shot.
On August 7, 1862, federal troops near Fort Fillmore engaged in a skirmish with Confederate troops retreating from
Santa Fe, defeating them.
The fort was officially closed by the Union in October 1862, but sources continue to mention Fort Fillmore as a waypoint along several major routes throughout the period of westward expansion. The Upper and Lower Emigrant Trails converged in El Paso and, along with the Butterfield, Pacific and Overland Trails, passed through the corridor Fort Fillmore was erected to defend. The remains of the fort were leveled at some later date after a failed attempt by the owner to sell or trade it to the State of New Mexico as a park. A grove of
pecan trees now stands on the approximate location of the fort.
See also
*
References
* Hall, Martin, Sibley's New Mexico Campaign, 1960, UNM Press Albuquerque, NM
External links
Fort Fillmore Lithograph 1854, Lithograph of Fort Fillmore by Carl Schuchard. Schuchard traveled with a crew from the Texas Western Railroad Company that was surveying along the 32nd parallel for a transcontinental railroad route.
{{Butterfield4
Fillmore
History of Doña Ana County, New Mexico
New Mexico in the American Civil War
New Mexico State Register of Cultural Properties
New Mexico Territory
Fillmore
1851 establishments in New Mexico Territory
1862 disestablishments in New Mexico Territory
National Register of Historic Places in Doña Ana County, New Mexico
American Civil War on the National Register of Historic Places