Military
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Soon after a Confederate army from Fort Bliss, Texas, invaded southern New Mexico in July 1861, more than 200 men worked here in 4-hour shifts day and night, using picks and shovels to build a new Fort Union surrounded by earthworks. The danger was immediate, and in early 1862, 3,500 Confederate troops advanced up the Rio Grande Valley seeking to seize the riches of the West. The first Fort Union, used from 1851 to 1861, had been a typical western frontier Army post without a wooden stockade or fortified walls, a design that had served to protect the Santa Fe Trail and nearby settlements from Comanche, Kiowa, and Apache raids. Preventing Confederates from reaching the goldfields of California and Colorado required a new star-shaped fort strong enough to withstand an enemy armed with powerful cannon, and some of the Civil War-era entrenchments built by the U.S. Army on the open ground ahead are still visible.
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Watrous, New Mexico · United States
