On July 28, 1862, a 100-man detachment of the 5th California Volunteer Infantry began building the first Fort Bowie and completed the primitive post two weeks later. A four-foot-high stone wall enclosed tents and a stone guard house, and the camp was named for Col. George Washington Bowie, commander of the 5th Infantry. General James Carleton, commander of the Department of New Mexico, ordered the fort commander to attack Apaches found near the post, escort trains and couriers through the pass and well out onto the mesa, and send detachments strong enough to protect soldiers and kill when he judged it wise. Although the Apaches no longer controlled Apache Spring, they continued raiding and killing travelers who lacked military escort. During the first fort's six-year history, sporadic patrols pursued the Apaches with little success. The post was widely disliked because isolation, bad food, sickness, crude quarters, and the seldom-seen but ever-present Indians produced low morale and frequent troop rotation. In 1866 regular soldiers relieved the Volunteers, and in 1868 they finished a new Fort Bowie on a spacious plateau to the east, where it operated for another 26 years.