Fort Bliss, Texas, USA
The first American military use of the area that was to become Fort Bliss was in 1846 when Colonel Alexander Doniphan led a group of Missouri volunteers through El Paso del Norte en route to military successes at Chihuahua and the Sacramento Pass. Two years after Colonel Doniphan`s campaign, on 7 November 1848, the War Department ordered the establishment of a post in El Paso. On 8. September 1849 the garrison party, commanded by Jefferson Van Horne, arrived in this area. On the noth side of the Rio Grande they found only four small and scattered settlements.
When it was first established at the site of Smith`s Ranch, which is now downtown El Paso, Fort Bliss was one of the Southwestern outposts protecting a recently won frontier against harassing Apaches and Comanches. The troops did not remain at El Paso long, however, since Indian raids were constant and shifting, and garrisons had to be moved frequently to meet the chainging threats. In 1851 the two companies of troops stationed in El Paso were moved 40 miles north to Fort Fillmore. For more than two years there was no garrison at The Pass.
In 1854 the post was officially named Fort Bliss in honor of Brevet Lieutenant Colonel William Wallace Smith Bliss, General Zachary Taylor`s adjutant general during the Mexican War and later his Secretary when General Taylor became President of the United States. Colonel Bliss is buried in the Fort Bliss National Cementary, and his monument stands in Howze Stadium on this reservation.
When the post was reoccupied in 1854, the original site at Smith`s Ranch was abandoned and a new post was established at Magoffinville. There it remaind for the next 14 years, serving as a base for troops guarding the area against Apache attacks. Until 1861 most of these troops were units of the
8th Infantry.
At the outbreak of the War between the States, the garrison received orders from San Antonio to surrender the post to Confederate commissioners. Confederate forces held the post in 1861 but abandoned it without a fight the next year when a Federal column advanced from California.
The Californians maintained an irregular garrison at Fort Bliss until 1865 when 5th Infantry units arrived to reestablish th post. Protecting settlers and travelers against Indians was the primary duty of the garrison until the surrender of Geronimo
in 1886.
Early in 1868, flood waters from the Rio Grande seriously damaged the Magoffinville post, and in March of that year Fort Bliss was moved to higher ground and was rebuild on a site called Concordia. It continued as Camp Concordia until 1869 when the old name, Fort Bliss, was resumed.
Water, heating, and sanitation facilities were at a minimum in the adobe builings of the fort. Records reveal that troops suffered severely from dysentery and malaria. Supplies arrived irregulary over the Santa Fe Trail by wagon train.
