Site of San Agustín Springs

Lynde paid for it with his career. Officers later protested that he had agreed to the surrender without consulting one of them. His paroled men marched to Las Cruces and then some 300 miles north to Fort Union, where they were put to work strengthening the post as soon as they arrived. In November 1861 an order by direction of the president dropped Lynde from the Army for abandoning Fort Fillmore and surrendering to an inferior force. He was reinstated in September 1866. The Confederates were driven from New Mexico in 1862.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Site of San Agustín Springs Here on July 27, 1861, less than 300 Confederate troops intercepted 500 Union soldiers retreating from Fort Fillmore to Fort Stanton. Exhausted from the heat and fam- ished for water, the Union troops straggled across the desert in a five-mile evacuation train. Unable to fight, Major Isaac Lynde surren- dered his command without firing a single shot.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mesilla Plaza — 16 mi
  A plaza laid out in 1848 by people who meant to stay in Mexico, American six years later, a stage stop and Civil War headquarters, and scene of a deadly political riot in 1871.
• White Sands National Park — 34 mi
  The largest gypsum dunefield on Earth, a national park since 2019, surrounded on all sides by military ground whose missile tests close its only road for hours at a time.

More markers nearby

• San Augustin Pass — 1.2 mi
• Pat Garrett Murder Site — 9.1 mi
• Doña Ana (1604-1680) — 13 mi
• Disappearance of Albert J. Fountain and his son Henry — 14 mi