One of the largest forts constructed in the West, Fort Craig was built in 1853. It was garrisoned a year later. The fort was strategically situated to protect travelers on the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro. The Camino, or Royal Road to the Interior, had been the primary road between New Mexico and Mexico for centuries. Fort Craig was built on the northern end of the Camino’s most dangerous segment, the section called the Jornada del Muerto, or Journey of Death. The Fort guarded travelers from Navajo and Apache attack and helped those who needed support in this barren and arid segment of trail.
The fort was named in honor of Captain Louis S. Craig, who had been murdered by deserters in California in 1852 during the Mexican–American War.
The fort was named in honor of Captain Louis S. Craig, who had been murdered by deserters in California in 1852 during the Mexican–American War.
Crawford family at Officers Quarters, Fort Craig, New Mexico Date: 1890 Negative Number 014511
Kit Carson & Civil War Government Expediter, Edwin Perrin in New Mexico Territory. (c. 1862). Life at Fort Craig was uncomfortable. The fort was remote and isolated. Soldiers complained that the adobe walls were crumbling, the roofs leaked, and the floors were nothing but mud. It became even more unbearable during the summer and fall of 1861, when Colonel Edward Canby, the Union Commander of the Department of New Mexico determined that Fort Craig was the best place to head off the invading Confederate Army. Canby packed the fort with more than 2,000 soldiers, including all five regiments of the New Mexico Volunteers. One of those regiments, the First New Mexico Volunteer Infantry Regiment, was led by the famed Indian scout Christopher “Kit” Carson. The Governor of New Mexico, Henry Connelly, was also there.
Even with so many men jammed into the fort, Canby did not feel he held a comfortable advantage over the Confederates. He directed "Quaker guns," fake cannons made from painting logs black, along Fort Craig's massive ramparts, and placed empty soldiers' caps alongside the fake guns to convince the Rebels that the fort was even more heavily fortified than it was. The trick worked, and Confederate Brigadier General Henry Hopkins Sibley marched his Army of New Mexico around the fort instead of trying to take it.
Even with so many men jammed into the fort, Canby did not feel he held a comfortable advantage over the Confederates. He directed "Quaker guns," fake cannons made from painting logs black, along Fort Craig's massive ramparts, and placed empty soldiers' caps alongside the fake guns to convince the Rebels that the fort was even more heavily fortified than it was. The trick worked, and Confederate Brigadier General Henry Hopkins Sibley marched his Army of New Mexico around the fort instead of trying to take it.
The guardhouse, the only building at the fort built with brick, is the tallest remaining structure. Even after the Confederate threat was over, Fort Craig continued to be important. It was headquarters for U.S. Army campaigns against the Gila and Mimbres Apaches between 1863 and 1865. By 1885, when the Indians were no longer a threat along this portion of the trail, Fort Craig was permanently abandoned.
Today, Fort Craig is in ruins. The mighty ramparts are nothing but long, low mounds. The adobe walls have melted back into the desert soils from which they had been formed. The last time I visited, the Visitor’s Center was closed. A call to the National Park Service let me know that they were having trouble hiring someone to man the office because it is so remote and isolated. The grounds, however, were open so that I could walk the among the ruined walls and read the interpretive plaques. I was completely alone. The only sounds were the whistling of the wind over the broken stones, the chirp of crickets, and the crunch of gravel beneath my feet. It was hard to believe that the site had once bustled with life.
Today, Fort Craig is in ruins. The mighty ramparts are nothing but long, low mounds. The adobe walls have melted back into the desert soils from which they had been formed. The last time I visited, the Visitor’s Center was closed. A call to the National Park Service let me know that they were having trouble hiring someone to man the office because it is so remote and isolated. The grounds, however, were open so that I could walk the among the ruined walls and read the interpretive plaques. I was completely alone. The only sounds were the whistling of the wind over the broken stones, the chirp of crickets, and the crunch of gravel beneath my feet. It was hard to believe that the site had once bustled with life.
But it had. As I stood among the dry and silent ruins, I thought about how the fort would have looked when its buildings were roofed and occupied. I tried to conjure the tramp of drilling men, the neighing of horses, the cacophony of parade bands, the thunder of artillery and the crackle of small arms. How did the parade grounds look when the marching boots of seventeen companies of men kept the weeds at bay? I sniffed the air and though how it would have smelled when filled with the tang of horse dung and kitchen smoke and gunpowder.
Good history and good historical fiction can breathe life into events long past. It can resurrect people long dead and places that have moldered into dust. It can make that which has faded away become vivid again.
I don't know how much will be left of the old western forts in another decade or two. Perhaps there will be nothing for my grandchildren to see when they are old enough to care about what happened in New Mexico in the nineteenth century. But my hope is that those who follow will be able to resurrect the forts and the people who occupied them through the power of the written word.
Good history and good historical fiction can breathe life into events long past. It can resurrect people long dead and places that have moldered into dust. It can make that which has faded away become vivid again.
I don't know how much will be left of the old western forts in another decade or two. Perhaps there will be nothing for my grandchildren to see when they are old enough to care about what happened in New Mexico in the nineteenth century. But my hope is that those who follow will be able to resurrect the forts and the people who occupied them through the power of the written word.
Many of the scenes in Where Duty Calls take place in and around Fort Craig. Where Duty Calls is Volume 1 of a trilogy entitled Rebels Along the Rio Grande. Kinkajou Press will publish this historical novel for middle grade readers in June of 2022.
Jennifer Bohnhoff is a former New Mexico history teacher who lives and writes in the mountains of central New Mexico. Contrary to her student's assumptions, she never dated Kit Carson.
Jennifer Bohnhoff is a former New Mexico history teacher who lives and writes in the mountains of central New Mexico. Contrary to her student's assumptions, she never dated Kit Carson.
