- (November 2007) FORT STANTON, N.M. - New Mexico has a new state monument, Fort Stanton, a site with Civil War connections. The announcement was made during the annual Fort Stanton Live celebration and reenactment. According to Dr. Walter Early Pittman, president of Fort Stanton Inc., the state proclamation is a major victory for historic preservation.

"Led by Fort Stanton Inc., local preservationists have had to fight hard to save the fort from real estate interests and to convince the governor and legislature that the old fort is worth saving," he told Civil War News.

The fort's buildings date to 1855. Pittman said Fort Stanton is the best preserved of the old cavalry forts, with more original buildings than any other, and the most beautiful, nestled under the Sierra Blanca Mountains along the Bonita River in southeastern New Mexico.

Preservation groups and reenactors rallied to save the fort in 1994 when the state tried to dispose of it. Since then the state has provided funds to restore the fort.

Earlier this year Gov. Bill Richardson pledged another $1 million to convert the 1855 Administration Building into a new historical museum. A $210,000 Save America's Treasures grant and other funds will total $ 1.76 million for the restoration project.

Pittman says real estate development is still a threat as the area is a resort region and expensive housing has spread rapidly. Eleven hundred acres around the fort are sought by developers and were not included in the state monument proclamation.

In 2005 a "strenuous public campaign" prevented 600 to 1,800 houses from being built there and Pittman vows an even more vigorous campaign if needed.

Fort Stanton State Monument has some 70 buildings on 2,400 acres. Troopers of the 1st Dragoon Regiment built the fort to serve as a base of operations against the Mescalero Apaches.

In August 1861 the U.S. garrison left the fort, setting fire to it. Rains put out the fires and Confederates took the fort and its stores, including cannon. They burned the fort as they left in September after Indian raids resumed.

The next year Col. Kit Carson and New Mexican Volunteers took over the fort, which they rebuilt. They fought at the Feb. 21 battle at Valverde against C.S. Gen. Henry H. Sibley's invading force. Carson pacified the Mescaleros who were forced to walk to a reservation in Navajo country. They did not stay and Fort Stanton ended up as a new reservation for them until 1873.

A famous shootout happened at the fort in 1862 when Capt. Paddy Graydon and Army Doctor John Whitlock quarreled over charges that Graydon's men had massacred peaceful Indians at Gallinas Springs. Whitlock fatally shot Graydon whose troopers then shot him more than 100 times.

Buffalo Soldiers of the 9th Cavalry were among those keeping the peace in what then was Lincoln County after the Civil War. William Bonney, Billy the Kid, was one of the hired guns in the range wars and was brought to Fort Stanton for hanging, but he escaped.

Before the fort became a U.S. Public Health Service tuberculosis hospital for the Merchant Marine in 1896 Gen. John J. "Black Jack" Pershing had served there twice during the Indian Wars. The state took over the fort in 1953. For information about its preservation and history go to www.fortstanton.com.

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