Fort McKavett State Historic Site

On November 16, 1851, General Smith ordered the 8th Infantry Regiment to establish a post on the San Saba,[10] near the San Antonio–El Paso Road.[8] The unit arrived on March 14, 1852,[11] and encamped next to a pond until it grew stagnant in May. The camp was then moved 2 miles (3.2 km) downriver,[10] onto a high bluff on the south bank of the river,[11][12] two miles from its source.[12] As the camp was 50 miles (80 km) west of Fort Mason, it was first known as the "Camp near Fort Mason", then as "Camp San Saba".[8] In October 1852, the camp was named Camp McKavett,[10] after an officer of the 8th Infantry who had died in the Battle of Monterrey in 1846,[13] and retained that name when the post was designated a fort in 1853.[8] In 1855, the US Army signed a 20-year lease of the land the fort occupied – at that time 640 acres (260 ha) – for $600 ($20,294, adjusted for inflation) a year.[14]

Stone marker placed by the State of Texas on the grounds of the fort

Construction of the post began immediately and saw rapid progress as though there were no local civilian professionals to assist construction, there was a local abundance of useable stone and timber.[8][14] By the end of the fort's first year of operation, it had five barracks, a hospital, and several kitchens that doubled as temporary officer's housing. Most of these buildings were wood and earth constructions,[14] but by 1856, the fort had 21 stone buildings.[8]

The 8th Infantry was replaced at Fort McKavett on January 26, 1854, by the 2nd Dragoons Regiment. On August 15, 1855, the 2nd Dragoons were themselves replaced at McKavett by the 1st Infantry Regiment,[15] and then on March 22, 1859, the US Army ordered the fort to be abandoned.[16][17] Fort McKavett was at that time in a remote location, which complicated supply and communications,[18][19] despite its being connected by road to San Antonio by April 1853.[18] In addition, the garrisons of Fort McKavett and of the Texas forts generally, composed mostly of infantry, had been unable to arrest the raiding of the horse-riding indigenous peoples.[20][21]

Over the first two months of 1861, Texas decided to secede from the United States,[22] and on 4 February demanded the surrender of all Federal garrisons and property in Texas.[23][24] Brevet Major General David E. Twiggs, commander of the Department of Texas since 1857,[23] complied on February 18, 1861, with an order for all Federal troops in Texas to evacuate the state.[24] In March 1861,[25] the Confederate government placed the defense of Texas's frontier upon career soldier Benjamin McCulloch. McCulloch passed the task onto his brother, Henry, who assembled a force of ten companies and garrisoned them in the abandoned US Army forts,[25][26] establishing a line 400 miles (640 km) long. After a relative calm on the frontier from 1861,[25] Confederate forces were unable to defend the Texas frontier and throughout the American Civil War white settlement receded to the east.[20] In November 1863, all Confederate troops on the frontier were sent east to fight the United States, which left civilian militias as the only defense for Texas settlements.[27]

Following the surrender of Confederate Texas on June 2, 1865, and the return of the US Army to Texas as on June 19, 1865,[28] frontier settlers made numerous petitions for protection from the US Army. These requests went unanswered until November 1866, when Federal forces began returning to the frontier. In December 1866, the 4th Cavalry Regiment,[29] which arrived in Texas the previous August,[30] was ordered to occupy the pre-war Forts Clark, Inge, Mason, and McKavett, and Camp Verde.[31]

On April 1, 1868, the 4th Cavalry's A Company, led by Brevet Lieutenant Colonel Eugene B. Beaumont, arrived at Fort McKavett.[32][33] They were joined later in the month by Company F of the 4th Cavalry and Companies D, E, and I of the 38th Colored Infantry Regiment.[34] With the exception of the original commanding officer's residence,[35] every building on Fort McKavett's grounds had by April 1868 been reduced to ruins, obliging its new garrison to live out of tents and temporary wooden structures.[36][37] On March 15, 1869,[38] Brevet Major General Ranald S. Mackenzie[37] arrived at Fort McKavett with F and M Companies of the 9th Cavalry Regiment, which replaced the 4th Cavalry companies,[39] to take command of the 38th Infantry.[38] The 9th Cavalry and 38th Infantry, which became the 24th Infantry Regiment when it merged with the 41st Infantry Regiment on November 1, 1869,[40] were two of the four post-war all-black "Buffalo Soldier" regiments of the US Army.[41] From 1869 to 1871, this garrison rebuilt Fort McKavett's permanent structures and began regular patrols for and pursuit of raiding indigenous peoples,[37] but rarely encountered any belligerents.[42][43]

In October 1870, Mackenzie departed Fort McKavett for an assignment in Washington, D.C., leaving Lieutenant Colonel William Rufus Shafter in command of the fort. Mackenzie would not return to Fort McKavett,[44] as on February 25, 1871, he was assigned to command the 4th Cavalry.[45] In May 1871, William Tecumseh Sherman, Commanding General of the United States Army from 1869,[46] inspected the Texas frontier and its garrisons, including Fort McKavett. Near the end of that tour, Sherman narrowly missed being killed by a party of Kiowa and subsequently issued orders for more aggressive measures against the Plains Nations.[46][47] Mackenzie immediately began campaigns to drive the South Plains Nations from the Texas Panhandle and Llano Estacado,[45] for which he summoned troops from the frontier forts.[42] By mid-1875, the Comanche, Kiowa, and southern Cheyenne peoples, who had been defeated in the Red River War of 1874–75, were moved fully onto reservations.[48] Fort McKavett's garrison participated in the conflict and subsequent expeditions to keep the Panhandle open to white settlement, but by 1878, with the defeat of the Lipan Apache people of far-west Texas, the fort lost its strategic importance.[49] In 1880, the US Army once more decided to close Fort McKavett,[50] and on June 30, 1883, it was closed and abandoned by the 16th Infantry Regiment.[51]

• "Fort McKavett Historic District (National Register of Historic Places Inventory – Nomination)" (PDF). National Park Service. July 1969.
• University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture (1968). McKavett. Texas Historic Forts. Vol. II. Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. OCLC 1081419.