Fort Quitman

Fort Quitman stood on the Rio Grande sixteen miles southwest on the old military and stage road from San Antonio to El Paso. When U.S. posts were surrendered at the outbreak of the Civil War, it was designated as part of the Confederate far western frontier defense line and occupied by a unit of Texas mounted rifles. It lay on the supply and communication line for troops going to and from the 1861-1862 Arizona-New Mexico campaign, which was designed to make the Confederacy an ocean to ocean nation. Union troops from California occupied it briefly in August 1862. More broadly, Texas served as a source of supply and a gateway to vital trade through Mexico for the western Confederacy, while also guarding a 2000 mile frontier and coastline from Union troops and the constant threat of savage Indians. Four hundred miles east, frontier defenders established a line of camps, a day's ride apart, from the Red River to the Rio Grande, and a small number of Confederate troops, joined by rangers, the organized militia, and citizens' posses, held on until the war's end despite shortages of mounts and arms.

Sierra Blanca, Texas · United States