U.S. Expansion and the Establishment of Fort Stanton, 1846-1860

The outbreak of the Mexican-American War in 1846 and U.S. annexation of New Mexico in 1848 led to new challenges for the Mescalero. U.S. soldiers entered the territory and U.S. officials pledged to protect the new Hispano and Puebloan citizens from the surrounding independent indigenous groups. This policy took on greater urgency as a result of the Taos Rebellion in 1847, when concern over Navajo raids contributed to an uprising across northern New Mexico against the new U.S. administration. In the southwestern part of the territory, Anglo prospectors attempted to reoccupy the Santa Rita del Cobre Mines near present-day Silver City, which resulted in growing conflict with the Western Apache bands. U.S. officials worked to mollify these issues by striking peace treaties with the Navajo and various Western Apache groups. But these agreements failed. Anglos and Hispanos continued to encroach on Navajo and Western Apache lands. Various Apache bands and the Comanche, in response, continued to raid northern Mexico. Such attacks violated Article 11 of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and mandated that the U.S. government respond to prevent them.
Beginning in the early 1850s, U.S. officials pursued a new policy of building forts to bring peace to the region. In 1851, the U.S. military built Fort Union near Las Vegas, Fort Conrad outside Socorro (replaced by Fort Craig in 1854), Fort Defiance along the present-day Arizona-New Mexico border, and Fort Webster next to the Santa Rita del Cobre Mines. The following year, they built Fort Massachusetts in the San Luis Valley in present-day southern Colorado. Ostensibly, U.S. soldiers stationed at these forts were tasked with policing not only the Navajo and Western Apache, but also preventing Anglos and Hispanos from interloping on indigenous land.

The Mescalero's relative isolation in the mountains of southeastern New Mexico initially spared them from U.S. military scrutiny. But the U.S. presence in the region soon unleashed Anglo and Hispano interlopers onto Mescalero lands. The 1848 California Gold Rush led to the establishment of the San Antonio-El Paso Road in 1849. Thousands of primarily Anglo migrants from Texas, as a result, began to flood through Mescalero territory near the Guadalupe Mountains on their way to the coast. The following year, Hispanos fleeing from U.S. rule in northern New Mexico established the town of Mesilla near Mescalero territory. Originally on the Mexican side of the border, Mesilla became part of the United States with the Gadsden Purchase in 1853. At around the same time, Hispano sheepherders and ciboleros (buffalo hunters) began to enter northern Mescalero territory from the Llano Estacado and established the small community of La Placita, which later became the town of Lincoln. These various encroachments diminished the amount of wild game to hunt and plants to gather for the Mescalero, undercutting their ability to provide sustenance for their communities.
The Mescalero were divided over how to respond to these growing pressures. The northern Mescalero bands, especially the Sierra Blanca band, occupied the most fertile region within Mescalero territory, which included zúuníidu. They sought to transition to greater agricultural production to make up for the loss of traditional foodstuffs. The southern Mescalero bands, especially those living in the Guadalupe and Davis Mountains, lived in a more arid environment that was less suitable for agriculture. They began to raid for livestock and other supplies from nearby settlements and travelers to survive.

In the early 1850s, Chief Josecito, the leader of the Sierra Blanca band, attempted to establish an alliance with the United States that would diminish the power of the southern bands. In 1851 and 1852, he traveled to Santa Fe to negotiate with New Mexico Governor John C. Calhoun. On both occasions, he highlighted his band's efforts at farming and struck peace treaties with the governor. Josecito then returned to Santa Fe in June 1853 to renew the peace treaty with Calhoun's successor, Governor William Carr Lane.

By this point, Mescalero raiders were a growing U.S. concern and Josecito had to mollify Lane in order to renew the peace treaty. The leader of the Sierra Blanca band made clear that he lacked the power to control the behavior of other Mescalero bands, but he suggested that the U.S. establish a military post in Mescalero territory to ensure that "the bad people [i.e. raiders] which they have among them could be made to respect the treaty." Josecito likely also believed that a U.S. military presence would help protect the Mescalero from further outside encroachments. His words won the New Mexico governor over, who not only agreed to renew the peace treaty but also provide food and agricultural equipment for the Mescalero. The new U.S.-Mescalero alliance thus promised to transform zúuníidu into a valley dotted with farmland. It also laid the foundation for the establishment of Fort Stanton two years later.

Despite Josecito's efforts, the treaty soon collapsed. The U.S. Senate refused to ratify it, which left the program to supply the Mescalero bereft of funding. The New Mexico governor discontinued the program only a month after promising the resources to Josecito. In the meantime, southern Mescalero bands continued to raid around Socorro and El Paso. These attacks climaxed in August 1853, just two months after the treaty was agreed upon, when a group of Mescalero attacked an emigrant wagon train bound for California. The raiders killed ten settlers and drove off 150 head of stock. The event outraged U.S. officials who were either unwilling or unable to understand the decentralized political structure of the Mescalero. They held the Sierra Blanca Mescalero responsible for the attack and vowed to retaliate.

1n 1854, the United States launched a series of punitive campaigns against the Mescalero in the Sierra Blanca. In January 1854, 150 soldiers from Fort Conrad journeyed into the Sierra Blanca to find the perpetrators of the massacre and obtain remuneration for the stolen goods. The Mescalero, however, succeeded in evading them. Six months later, a larger force of soldiers from both Fort Craig and Fort Filmore returned to the Sierra Blanca but once again failed to find any Mescalero encampments. They did, however, scout the terrain and reported an excellent location for a military post in zúuníidu along the junction of the Rio Bonito and Rio Ruidoso.

The following year, U.S. military commanders launched a major campaign to subjugate the tribe. In January 1855, a combined force of 160 troops from Fort Fillmore and Fort Craig swept south from the Capitán Mountains through the Sierra Blanca and Sacramento Mountains. The campaign caught the Mescalero by surprise in their winter camps. Mescalero warriors launched hit-and-run attacks to slow down the U.S. troops long enough for their families to escape. In the resulting violence, at least fifteen Mescalero warriors died as well as two U.S. privates and Captain Henry Stanton, one of the commanding officers of the expedition. Most of the Mescalero managed to escape, but they were destitute because U.S. soldiers destroyed their camps and winter provisions.

The northern Mescalero fled to the Guadalupe Mountains and attempted to recuperate with their southern kinsman. But they lacked enough food and supplies to survive. In early March, Josecito was part of a Mescalero delegation that traveled to Fort Thorn to sue for peace. They negotiated with New Mexico Governor David Meriweather, who, upon seeing the wretched state of the Mescalero delegates, immediately authorized the dissemination of rations to the tribe. Despite this gesture of goodwill, Meriweather made clear that the Mescalero faced further U.S. reprisals unless they capitulated to his demands. In June 1855, Josecito and other Mescalero leaders signed a new treaty with the U.S. government. They agreed to live within the confines of a new twelve-mile by twelve-mile reservation in return for a monthly supply of rations. The Mescalero were forced to give up their autonomy in exchange for survival.

During the treaty negotiations, three hundred U.S. soldiers occupied zúuníidu and began constructing the military outpost that Josecito had first proposed two years earlier. But rather than a sign of friendship between the United States and the Mescalero as Josecito had envisioned, the fort was a manifestation of conquest. Named after the deceased Captain Stanton, the military post was located at the center of the new reservation. Fort Stanton henceforth served two primary purposes. First, its garrison launched scouts to corral the Mescalero onto the reservation and ensure that they remained there. Second, it served as a distribution center of rations for the Mescalero and a place where the Mescalero could trade, usually game, for goods. Over the next several months, hundreds of Mescalero began to converge on Fort Stanton and live within its surrounding confines.

The post that emerged took on the unique features of zúuníidu. Whereas other forts in New Mexico were constructed out of adobe, the soldiers utilized the materials found in the valley. They quarried nearby sandstone and harvested timber from the surrounding forests, including Engelman Spruce and Ponderosa Pine. From this material, they constructed nine buildings of undressed stone and shingled roofs around a single parade ground. Although they have all since undergone renovations, five of these nine buildings remain in some form today. These include the pair of officers' quarters (822 and 836), and barracks (827 and 830). Of note, building 836 currently comprises what were originally two separate officer's quarters. In addition, the original parade ground remains intact today.
Fort Stanton brought new peoples to the Mescalero's mountainous homeland. Anglo soldiers, many of them German and Irish immigrants, and their wives occupied the military post. Among these newcomers was Lydia Spencer Lane, the wife of an officer, who lived at Fort Stanton from 1856 to 1859 and later wrote about her experience there. She recorded that the garrison at Fort Stanton maintained peaceful, if not overtly friendly, relations with the surrounding Mescalero. She also noted that "Fort Stanton was a beautiful post, with the best quarters in the army at the time." In this sense, the U.S. soldiers and their families at Fort Stanton recognized, as the Mescalero had before them, the unique beauty of zúuníidu.

During these first years after Fort Stanton's construction, the Mescalero faced perilous conditions. Congress never ratified the June 1855 treaty and, as a result, the Mescalero lived for years under the illusion that they enjoyed a treaty status that did not exist. The presence of U.S. troops at Fort Stanton, moreover, attracted settlers to the area. The small community of La Placita grew at the edge of the reservation, which later became the town of Lincoln. Its predominately Hispano inhabitants supplied goods to the fort and competed with the Mescalero for access to the area's resources. At the same time, the Mescalero remained vulnerable to outsiders. In 1858, vigilantes killed groups of Mescalero peacefully encamped outside Fort Thorn and near Doña Ana. The U.S. government never held the murderers accountable. The U.S. government also failed to supply the Mescalero with adequate rations and equipment for farming. The Mescalero, confined to a reservation that was a fraction of the size of their original homeland, were unable to hunt enough game to make up for the food shortfall. Some members of the tribe fled south to the few remaining bands that refused to move into the reservation. The majority of the Mescalero, however, found ways to survive on the reservation. Most notably, they turned once again to gathering and roasting agave hearts.

The Civil War and its Aftermath, 1861-1869 The outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 destabilized the tenuous conditions at Fort Stanton and the surrounding Mescalero reservation. During that spring and early summer, many of the soldiers stationed in New Mexico defected to the Confederacy. In late July, a Confederate force invaded southern New Mexico from west Texas. Within short order, they occupied Mesilla and forced the surrender of the entire garrison at nearby Fort Fillmore. With the support of the majority of the residents of Mesilla as well as in the mining community of Tucson, then located in southwestern New Mexico, the Confederates declared the establishment of the new Confederate State of Arizona. Union officials were so concerned about the situation that they briefly considered withdrawing all regular troops from the New Mexico.

News of these events reached Fort Stanton several days later and caused panic among the garrison. The fort was designed to oversee the generally peaceful Mescalero and lacked any meaningful fortifications, let alone walls capable of withstanding artillery. Faced with the specter of fighting well-armed Confederate troops, the commanding officer of Fort Stanton ordered the garrison's immediate withdrawal to Fort Thorn. As they departed, the soldiers hastily set fire to Fort Stanton. They also invited the Mescalero and the inhabitants of Placita to loot what remained at the fort. Fort Stanton likely would have been destroyed if not for a rainstorm that extinguished the fire shortly after the garrison left.

For the Mescalero, the abandonment of Fort Stanton posed new challenges and opportunities. The withdrawal of U.S. forces brought a sudden end to the supply of rations and other goods that they had come depend on for their survival. Yet, they found themselves liberated from their reservation and free to reestablish their autonomy. Many members of the tribe moved to expel nearby settlers and regain control over their traditional hunting and gathering grounds. Others returned to raiding for captives and livestock, focusing in particular on the wagon trains along the El Paso-San Antonio Road.

The newly disenthralled Mescalero quickly came into conflict with the Confederacy. Mescalero raiders annihilated a Confederate detachment from Fort Davis. They also disrupted the supply routes that the Confederates in southern New Mexico relied upon for food and equipment. Colonel John Baylor, the Confederate commanding officer and self-appointed Governor of Arizona, retaliated by issuing orders for his troops to exterminate the Apache. He mandated that they kill all Apache adults and sell their children as slaves. As part of these efforts, he dispatched a company of troops to occupy Fort Stanton in mid-August 1861.

The Confederates soon discovered that they had underestimated their foe. In early September 1861, Mescalero warriors ambushed and nearly wiped out an entire Confederate patrol outside Fort Stanton. A week later, the two groups fought at nearby Placita. The battle proved to be the last straw for the Confederates. They withdrew to Mesilla the following day and on their way out set fire to Fort Stanton once again. The Confederate’s occupation of Fort Stanton lasted less than a month. In the meantime, Mescalero raiders continued to maraud Confederate supply lines, forcing Confederate leaders to devote valuable troops to defend against them. As a result, the Confederate invasion force that sought to conquer northern New Mexico in early 1862 was significantly smaller than it might otherwise have been. The Mescalero thus made a crucial, if indirect, contribution to the ultimate defeat of Confederate forces in New Mexico at Glorieta Pass in March 1862.

Following the retreat of the Confederates back into Texas, Union officials turned their attention to the Mescalero. They were divided, however, on how to deal with the tribe. General James Carleton, the commander of Union forces in the territory, believed that the Mescalero had broken the 1855 treaty and ought to be severely punished. In October 1862, he ordered Lieutenant Colonel Christopher "Kit" Carson to lead five companies of the New Mexico Volunteers to reoccupy Fort Stanton and launch a ruthless campaign against the Mescalero. He told Carson:

"The Indians are to be soundly whipped without parleys or councils…All Indian men of the tribe are to be killed whenever and wherever you find them. The women and children will not be harmed, but you will take them prisoners, and feed them at Ft. Stanton until you receive instructions about them."

If the Mescalero wanted peace, Carleton also explained that their leaders had to go to Santa Fe to speak with him directly.

    Dr. Michael Steck, the Superintendent of Indian Affairs for New Mexico and former Indian Agent for the Southern Apache, pleaded with Carleton to avoid violence. He argued that the Mescalero had been peaceful and devoted to farming as long as they had received government rations. He also noted that it would be cheaper to feed the tribe rather than fight them. Left unsaid was the fact that it was arguably the U.S. government and not the Mescalero who had broken the 1855 treaty. Congress, after all, had never formally ratified the treaty. In addition, the U.S. government had effectively abrogated the existing agreement when its soldiers had abandoned Fort Stanton and ceased to provide rations to the Mescalero.

    Steck's efforts to dissuade Carleton from using force on the Mescalero failed. The general stood by his position and reasoned, "I think severity in the long run will be the most humane course that could be pursued toward these Indians." He also decided to move the Mescalero away from their homeland to a new reservation at Bosque Redondo in eastern New Mexico.

    The campaign against the Mescalero began in October 1862. Carson and the New Mexico Volunteers reoccupied Fort Stanton and found the post in ruins. While the stone walls of the buildings and stables still stood, the fires had destroyed the ceilings and looters had stripped away the doors, windows, and anything else removable. Carson's primarily Hispano soldiers began to use adobe to make temporary repairs to the walls and ceilings. Some of their adobe repairs are still visible today inside Building 836.

    In the meantime, Carleton dispatched cavalry units of California Volunteers and Graydon's Independent Company to annihilate or force the unconditional surrender of the Mescalero. The ensuing casualties included Manuelito, the most influential Mescalero chief. In late October, Manuelito and members of his band attempted to surrender to Captain James Graydon and his cavalry. However, Graydon and his troops, following Carleton's orders, attacked without warning and killed Manuelito along with five men and a woman. Afterward, Graydon learned that Manuelito was also attempting to follow Carleton's instructions to travel to Santa Fe to meet with the general. Such attacks led to the deaths of at least 301 members of the tribe.

    The violence toward the Mescalero outraged Carson, who had previously served as the Indian Agent to the Jicarilla Apache. He thought the campaign was needlessly brutal and was dismayed at Graydon's attack on Manuelito. He wrote to Carleton describing it as "not fair and open" and demanded that the general return all horses and mules seized in the attack to Manuelito’s band. Carson also disobeyed orders by thereafter allowing all Mescalero, including men, to find protection at Fort Stanton. Hundreds of the surviving members of the tribe subsequently fled to the post for sanctuary. Carson furthermore dispatched Cadete, who had replaced Manuelito as the most influential Mescalero leader, and four other chiefs under armed escort to ensure that they safely reached Santa Fe to negotiate an end to the hostilities.

The harsh treatment of the Mescalero continued to create dissent among the forces stationed at Fort Stanton. In early November, Dr. J.M. Whitlock, a personal friend of Carson who was at Fort Stanton serving as a surgeon for the New Mexico Volunteers, became infuriated at Graydon's cruelty towards the Mescalero. The exact event that triggered Whitlock is unclear and the stories are manifold, including drunken soldiers murdering Mescalero infants. Many of these purported sparks of the conflict are likely apocryphal, but what they all represent is senseless brutality inflicted on the Mescalero. Upon some kind of atrocity, Whitlock confronted Graydon and their exchange of words resulted in a duel. Whitlock mortally wounded Graydon in the contest. In one last act of depravity, Graydon's men shot and killed Whitlock in retaliation. Carson was away during the incident, but when he returned to the fort he was incensed. He had Graydon's Independent Company disbanded and arrested a handful of its members for murder. Graydon subsequently died from his wounds, but not before Carson had him dishonorably discharged.

Cadete and the other Mescalero leaders, in the meantime, arrived in Santa Fe and attempted to negotiate with Carleton. The general's terms were blunt. He told them that that the Mescalero must go to be Bosque Redondo or be treated as hostiles. Cadete, like Josecito before him, recognized that his people had little choice but to accept the U.S. government's stipulations. He told Carleton, "You have driven us from our last best stronghold, and we have no more heart. Do with us as may seem good to you, but do not forget that we are men and braves." He surrendered and agreed to uproot his people from their homeland.

By Spring 1863, nearly 500 Mescalero had relocated to Bosque Redondo. At this new reservation, the U.S. military expected the Mescalero to fully adopt an agricultural way of life. But conditions there were intolerable. The Mescalero discovered that the water at Bosque Redondo was alkaline and unfit to drink, wood was scarce, and they were exposed to Navajo raiders. Carleton's decision to begin resettling Navajo prisoners at Bosque Redondo in 1864 made a bad situation even worse for the Mescalero. The over 9,000 Navajo internees greatly outnumbered them and seized control of the limited amount of shelter and land fit for farming. Carleton, in turn, not only refused to allow the Mescalero to hunt, but he even barred them from roasting agave hearts. These conditions led to starvation and disease, ultimately causing the deaths of nearly one-third of the prisoners at the reservation.

By November 1865, the Mescalero could no longer endure life at Bosque Redondo. Cadete warned local army officers that his people would not stay on the reservation in its current state but offered to return if the U.S. government improved conditions there. A short time later, nearly the entire Mescalero tribe fled Bosque Redondo in the middle of the night. They then scattered, many returning to the Sierra Blanca, Sacramento, and Davis Mountains. Some took shelter among the Western Apache. A significant number fled into the Great Plains and joined their ancient enemies, the Comanche. Outside of an occasional raid, the Mescalero more or less disappeared from the oversight of U.S. authorities for the next five years.

In 1868, the U.S. government finally closed Bosque Redondo and the Navajo returned to a new reservation in their homeland. Viewed as a brutal failure, the experiment soured the public on further reservations in New Mexico. At the same time, the U.S. government became focused on Reconstruction and failed to formulate a meaningful Indian policy. The situation of the Mescalero drifted into limbo.

Despite the disappearance of most of the Mescalero, U.S. troops remained at Fort Stanton and searched for the few bands that lived covertly in the mountains. California and New Mexico Volunteers were stationed at the post until the 125th Colored Infantry relieved them at the end of 1866. Formed in Kentucky in 1865, most of the soldiers of the 125th Colored Infantry were slaves at the time of their enlistment. Expecting to the fight Confederate forces closer to their homes, they were dismayed when they learned of their deployment to New Mexico. In St. Louis, some members of the unit attempted to mutiny, claiming that their officers "wanted [them] to follow the Devil." Most of the members of the unit, however, made the journey across the Santa Fe Trail. A number of their wives accompanied them on the trip. At Fort Stanton, the Black soldiers went on patrols and made repairs to the still dilapidated fort while their wives worked as cooks and laundresses. The 125th Colored Infantry's stayed at Fort Stanton until the end of 1867, when they journeyed back to Kentucky. A handful of its members, however, signed up for the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry Regiments and likely returned to the Southwest, and potentially Fort Stanton, in the following decade as Buffalo Soldiers.

As the Civil War came to end, an influx of Anglo and Hispano settlers arrived in the area. Taking advantage of the newly vacated land and the market to supply goods to Fort Stanton, they concentrated in La Placita and renamed the town Lincoln after the recently martyred president. Among them were two former commanders of Fort Stanton, Emil Fritz and Lawrence Murphy. They became sutlers to Fort Stanton and established a trading post on its grounds called the Murphy Company. They soon expanded their business by building a saloon on the outskirts of Fort Stanton as well as a store in Lincoln known colloquially as the Big House. Through their control over supplying Fort Stanton, they became the most powerful figures in the region. Another notable settler was Saturnino Baca, who had served under Carson as a captain in the New Mexico Volunteers. In 1869, Baca introduced the bill to the Territorial Legislature that established Lincoln County. By this point, the community around Fort Stanton became a burgeoning center of cattle ranching and mineral prospecting.

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