Fort Clark was a frontier fort located just off
U.S. Route 90 near
Brackettville, in
Kinney County, Texas, United States. It later became the headquarters for the
2nd Cavalry Division. The Fort Clark Historic District was added to the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
on December 6, 1979. The Commanding Officer's Quarters at Fort Clark were designated a
Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1988. The Fort Clark Guardhouse became a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1962. The Fort Clark Officers' Row Quarters were designated a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1991.
The area is now known as the
Fort Clark Springs census-designated place
A census-designated place (CDP) is a Place (United States Census Bureau), concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only.
CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counte ...
, with a population of 1,228 at the
2010 census.
Old Fort Clark Guardhouse Museum
The Old Fort Clark Guardhouse Museum is operated by the Fort Clark Historical Society. Located in the historic guardhouse, the museum features exhibits about the fort's history, including uniforms, weapons, photographs, and memorabilia, with a special focus on artifacts from several African-American military units, including the
Black Seminole Scouts and the
Buffalo Soldiers of the 24th and 25th U.S. Infantries.
Founding
The land that became Fort Clark was owned by
Samuel A. Maverick when its potential for military development was recognized by
William H.C. Whiting and
William F. Smith in 1849. Whiting and Smith were actually engaged in surveying the path of the
San Antonio–El Paso Road when they came upon the
Las Moras Springs ("Mulberry Springs") at the headwaters of
Las Moras Creek.
["Fort Clark", Fort Tours.] They told their superiors that they believed the high ground above the springs would be an appropriate place for a fort.
The fort was strategically located as anchor to the cordon of army posts that had been established along the southwest Texas border after the Mexican War. The fort's purpose was to guard the Mexican border, to protect the military road to El Paso, and to defend against Indian depredations arising from either side of the Rio Grande.
On June 20, 1852, the military made use of it, placing Companies C and E of the
1st US Infantry Regiment under the command of Maj. Joseph H. LaMotte, and a detachment of riflemen of the
U.S. Mounted Rifles on the post they called Fort Riley, after retired
General Bennett C. Riley. Riley himself requested that the fort be named instead for Major John B. Clark, an officer of the 1st Infantry, who died during the
Mexican–American War
The Mexican–American War (Spanish language, Spanish: ''guerra de Estados Unidos-México, guerra mexicano-estadounidense''), also known in the United States as the Mexican War, and in Mexico as the United States intervention in Mexico, ...
on August 23, 1847. It was accordingly renamed on July 15 of that year, and on July 30, 1852, the United States officially leased the land from Maverick, through signatory Lieutenant Colonel D.C. Tompkins, to permit development of a fort.
After soldiers and officers quarters were constructed in 1853 and 1854, the fort was expanded with a hospital and a two-story storehouse in 1855.
Stone quarters for the commanding officer, recorded as near completion in the summer of 1857, were converted to the post headquarters in 1873.
Brackettville
The nearby village of Las Moras was founded in 1852 by local dry-goods merchant Oscar B. Brackett. In the summer of 1854, Gen. Persifor F. Smith, the department commander, made a requisition to Governor Elisha M. Pease for six companies of
Texas Rangers to conduct a campaign against the raiders. Two companies of these Texas military volunteers, under captains Charles E. Travis and William Henry, were sent to Fort Clark, where they assisted the regulars in patrolling the road. The town was renamed Brackett in his honor in 1856 and renamed Brackettville in 1873 upon receiving a government post office. It became a stop on the San Antonio-El Paso Road stagecoach.
In 1876, a visitor to the town described it as "the liveliest burg in West Texas, where the night life could only be compared to the saloons and gambling places that existed in the early days of the gold excitement of California and the Klondike. Its flow of travellers later dried up when the railroad bypassed it by 10 miles.
Civil War
On March 19, 1861, Captain Trevanion T. Teel, leader of 18 Confederate troops, accepted the surrender of the fort from then-Captain
George Sykes, who was garrisoned there with four companies. The surrender took place without military engagement, but not without tension. The Union soldiers garrisoned at the base cut the
halliard of the flag-pole after the Federal flag was removed to prevent the Confederate flag being raised. They then set fire to the barracks as they were withdrawing. Sykes took quick action to aid in extinguishing the fire to preserve the barracks and nearby buildings. In June 1861, after the outbreak of the Civil War, Fort Clark was garrisoned by companies C and H, Second Regiment of Texas Mounted Rifles, with Capt. H. A. Hamner as post commander. In August 1862, all Confederate troops were withdrawn from Fort Clark.
On December 12, 1866, U.S. troops from Company C of the Fourth Cavalry once again reoccupied the fort under the command of Capt. John E. Wilcox.
[Pirtle, C., and Cusack, M.F., 1985, The Lonely Sentinel, Austin: Eakin Press, ] Stone barracks, officer's quarters, and headquarters, plus a 200-ft-long wooden stable were added in 1868 after Companies C and F, 41st Infantry, and Companies G and M, 9th Cavalry were stationed at the fort.
[
]
Indian Wars
Other forts in the frontier fort system were Forts Griffin
The griffin, griffon, or gryphon (; Classical Latin: ''gryps'' or ''grypus''; Late and Medieval Latin: ''gryphes'', ''grypho'' etc.; Old French: ''griffon'') is a -4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk ...
, Concho, Belknap, Chadbourne, Stockton, Davis, Bliss
BLISS is a system programming language developed at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) by W. A. Wulf, D. B. Russell, and A. N. Habermann around 1970. It was perhaps the best known system language until C debuted a few years later. Since then, C ...
, McKavett, Richardson, McIntosh, Inge, and Phantom Hill in Texas, and Sill in Oklahoma
Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw language, Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northea ...
.[Carter, R.G., On the Border with Mackenzie, 1935, Washington D.C.: Enyon Printing Co.] The system also had "subposts or intermediate stations", including Bothwick's Station on Salt Creek between Fort Richardson and Fort Belknap, Camp Wichita near Buffalo Springs between Fort Richardson and Red River Station, and Mountain Pass between Fort Concho and Fort Griffin.[
The Seminole-Negro Indian Scouts were headquartered at Fort Clark from 1870 to 1914. The ]Black Seminoles
The Black Seminoles, or Afro-Seminoles, are an ethnic group of mixed Native Americans in the United States, Native American and African American, African origin associated with the Seminole people in Florida and Oklahoma. They are mostly blood de ...
had spent 20 years protecting the northern Mexican frontier state of Coahuila
Coahuila, formally Coahuila de Zaragoza, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Coahuila de Zaragoza, is one of the 31 states of Mexico. The largest city and State Capital is the city of Saltillo; the second largest is Torreón and the thi ...
before being recruited by the United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...
to serve as scouts. Under Lt. John Lapham Bullis, who commanded them from 1873 to 1881, the scouts played a decisive role in the Indian campaigns. Among the roster of scouts are four who were awarded the Medal of Honor
The Medal of Honor (MOH) is the United States Armed Forces' highest Awards and decorations of the United States Armed Forces, military decoration and is awarded to recognize American United States Army, soldiers, United States Navy, sailors, Un ...
. A Seminole community settled near the fort in 1872, and its descendants are still to be found in Brackettville and the surrounding areas.
Colonel Ranald Mackenzie and the 4th US Cavalry were based here in 1873-1876 and 1878-1879.
On April 11, 1873, United States Secretary of War
The secretary of war was a member of the President of the United States, U.S. president's United States Cabinet, Cabinet, beginning with George Washington's Presidency of George Washington, administration. A similar position, called either "Sec ...
William W. Belknap and General Philip Sheridan ordered Mackenzie and his 4th Cavalry to relieve General Wesley Merritt and his 9th Cavalry, with Sheridan stating, "... I want something done to stop these conditions of banditry, killing... by these people across the river... you are to go ahead on your own plan of action, and your authority and backing shall be General Grant and myself...."[ This led, on 18 May, to Mackenzie's raid into Mexico with six companies and 20 Seminole-Negro scouts (nearly 400 men) to avenge the Indian raid up the ]Nueces River
The Nueces River ( ; , ) is a river in the U.S. state of Texas, about long. It drains a region in central and southern Texas southeastward into the Gulf of Mexico. It is the southernmost major river in Texas northeast of the Rio Grande. ''Nu ...
Valley and the massacre at Howard's Wells, attacking the Kickapoo, Lipan, Pottawottami, and Mescalero
Mescalero or Mescalero Apache () is an Apache tribe of Southern Athabaskan–speaking Native Americans. The tribe is federally recognized as the Mescalero Apache Tribe of the Mescalero Apache Reservation, located in south-central New Mexico.
In ...
Apache
The Apache ( ) are several Southern Athabaskan language-speaking peoples of the Southwestern United States, Southwest, the Southern Plains and Northern Mexico. They are linguistically related to the Navajo. They migrated from the Athabascan ho ...
lodges at Rey Molina.[ The lodges were burned, at least 19 warriors were killed, 40-50 prisoners were taken, including the Lipan Chief Costalites, and nearly 200 horses were captured.][
Despite Mexico's protests that the United States was violating its sovereignty, other sorties by Mackenzie soon followed. As a result, Indian forays from Mexico into Texas declined dramatically. Mackenzie was succeeded by Lt. Col. ]William Rufus Shafter
William Rufus Shafter (October 16, 1835 – November 12, 1906) was a Union Army officer during the American Civil War who received America's highest military decoration, the Medal of Honor, for his actions at the Battle of Fair Oaks. Shafte ...
in 1876. Shafter followed Mackenzie as one of the most successful of Fort Clark's Indian-fighting commanding officers. Under Shafter, Fort Clark became the garrison for the 10th U.S. Cavalry and the 24th and 25th U.S. Infantry regiments. These were mounted regiments of black
Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...
men, called "buffalo soldiers" by the Indians. The Buffalo Soldiers, for a long time mostly unacclaimed, left a distinguished record of service in ridding southwest Texas of Indians.
Mackenzie's raid in 1873 had stopped Indian activity for almost three years, but as the lesson of Rey Molina dimmed, violence once more came to the Rio Grande
The Rio Grande ( or ) in the United States or the Río Bravo (del Norte) in Mexico (), also known as Tó Ba'áadi in Navajo language, Navajo, is one of the principal rivers (along with the Colorado River) in the Southwestern United States a ...
border area. In the fall of 1875, department commander Gen. Edward O. C. Ord established the District of the Nueces, with Fort Clark as headquarters and with Shafter in control. When, in April and May 1876, Lipan warriors killed 12 Texans in an unusually bloody raid, Ord authorized Shafter to go after the offenders in their Mexican villages. Shafter took five companies of cavalry
Historically, cavalry (from the French word ''cavalerie'', itself derived from ''cheval'' meaning "horse") are groups of soldiers or warriors who Horses in warfare, fight mounted on horseback. Until the 20th century, cavalry were the most mob ...
, along with Bullis's scouts, and established a base camp near the mouth of the Pecos River
The Pecos River ( ; ) originates in north-central New Mexico and flows into Texas, emptying into the Rio Grande. Its headwaters are on the eastern slope of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range in Mora County north of Pecos, New Mexico, at an elev ...
.
In the first of a long succession of border violations, Shafter's cavalrymen splashed across the Rio Grande and drove deep into the mountains of northern Coahuila
Coahuila, formally Coahuila de Zaragoza, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Coahuila de Zaragoza, is one of the 31 states of Mexico. The largest city and State Capital is the city of Saltillo; the second largest is Torreón and the thi ...
. For two years, Shafter's determined thrusts into Mexico in pursuit of the marauding Indians and their chief, Washa Lobo, aroused Mexican animosity and caused tensions between the U.S. and Mexican governments. Shafter's extensive campaign on the Texas borderlands frontier earned him the sobriquet "Pecos Bill", and he boldly implemented the Army's aggressive policy toward hostile Indians, which was one of removal or extermination. By the end of the decade, the Indian problem along the border had finally been brought under control.
In 1878, Mary Maverick doubled the rent for the 3,866 acres from $600 a year to $1200.[ In 1884, she sold the entire property to the U.S. for $80,000.][
]
World War II
In 1941, the 112th Cavalry Regiment (Horse) Texas National Guard under the command of Col. Julian Cunningham, was assigned to Fort Clark, where it trained until it was deployed for combat in the Pacific. Just before the 112th Cavalry left, the black 9th United States Cavalry arrived at Fort Clark from Fort Riley. Elements of the regiment had first served at Fort Clark in 1875, when the fort was a frontier outpost. In 1942, Col. William C. Chase and the 113th Cavalry Regiment spent a short stay guarding the Southern Pacific Railroad. On February 25, 1943, the 2nd Cavalry Division, the army's last horse-mounted unit, was activated under command of Maj. Gen. Harry H. Johnson. Units of the 2nd Cavalry Division stationed at Fort Clark included the 5th Cavalry Brigade (made up of the 9th and 27th US Cavalry Regiments). More than 12,000 troops were stationed there until their deployment in February 1944 to the European Theater of Operations. The war added another feature to the history of Fort Clark, that of having a German prisoner-of-war subcamp on the 4,000-acre reservation. Finally, in June 1944, nearly three years after the beginning of World War II, and after full mechanization of the cavalry, the government ordered the closure of Fort Clark, one of the last horse-cavalry posts in the country. The fort was officially inactivated in early 1946, and later that year it was sold to the Texas Railway Equipment Company of Houston, a subsidiary of Brown and Root Company, for salvage and later use as a "guest ranch".
Closure
Cavalry training at the fort ceased in January, 1944. That year, the US Army deactivated the cavalry branch and merged it with the armor branch. The base was deactivated in 1946.
Gallery
File:Fort Clark 3.png, Historical marker
File:Fort Clark 4.png, Officers' quarters historical marker
See also
* National Register of Historic Places listings in Kinney County, Texas
* Recorded Texas Historic Landmarks in Kinney County
* Forts of Texas
References and bibliography
*
External links
*
*
Old Guardhouse Museum
- official site at Fort Clark Springs
{{DEFAULTSORT:Clark Fort
Former installations of the United States Army
Military facilities in Texas
Buildings and structures in Kinney County, Texas
Forts on the National Register of Historic Places in Texas
Recorded Texas Historic Landmarks
San Antonio–San Diego Mail Line
San Antonio–El Paso Road
Museums in Kinney County, Texas
Military and war museums in Texas
1852 establishments in Texas
1946 disestablishments in Texas
Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Texas
National Register of Historic Places in Kinney County, Texas
American Civil War on the National Register of Historic Places
Stagecoach stops in the United States
Military installations established in 1852
Military installations closed in 1946