User:Wsprad74/Fort Union National Monument (History of the fort section)

Lead
The fort was established in the New Mexico Territory, on the Santa Fe Trail. It was provisioned in large part by farmers and ranchers of what is now Mora County (formally created in 1860), including the town of Mora, where the grist mill established by Ceran St. Vrain in 1855 produced most of the flour used at the fort.

There were three different Fort Unions, the first was created in 1851 and lasted until 1861, the second was created in 1861 and lasted until 1862, and the third was created in 1862 and lasted until 1891.

Article body
Fort Union and its creation was a shift in the use of monetary funds for defense, as well as to provide more efficient protection in the region at the time. The secretary of war at the time, C.M. Conrad, wrote a letter to Lt. Col. Edwin V. Sumner detailing these changes, this was the beginning of a complete reset of the structure of troops positioning in the area.

The first Fort Union was constructed to provide protection for travelers and people living in the vicinity along the Santa Fe Trail from hostile Indigenous Tribes. The first fort was built and was labeled a “frontier fort” which is described as more open campuses, places to house and feed soldiers, rather than a traditional defense structure. In the early days, the Utes and Jicarilla Apaches occupied the area around the fort and were the predominant tribes that kept soldiers constantly employed.

The second Fort Union was the more traditional defense structure out of the three. It was built with the specific purpose of defending against an invasion of Confederate forces. The fort was built in less than a year. After completion in 1862 Fort Union was one of the last lines of defense between Confederate forces in Santa Fe and the extremely valuable mineral resources located in Colorado. Soldiers from Fort Union united with volunteer forces from Colorado to push back the Confederates in the Battle of Glorieta Pass.

The third Fort Union was not unlike the first in the sense that it was a frontier fort and not created for defense, but it was mainly used as a supply base to hold and distribute different types of goods such as ammunition, food, clothing, etc. The third Fort Union is what you can tour today, it is made with native materials such as clay stone, and lumber, adobe brick was used for the walls and was coated in plaster (nps.gov). The fort was abandoned by the military due to the conclusion of the American Indian Wars and the formation of the Santa Fe Railroad.

The fort served as the headquarters of the 8th Cavalry in the early 1870s and as the headquarters of the 9th Cavalry in the late 1870s during the Apache Wars.