Buffalo Springs stood on the line of sentry forts along the Red River and the far frontiers of North Texas from 1861 to 1865. It was used at intervals by cavalry, especially when 3,000 Federals massed to the north in Indian Territory in 1864. Soldiers there saw little of war's glory but endured much fighting and shortages of guns, ammunition, food, clothing, and horses. It was also a place where families who wished to remain near their frontier homes fortified themselves with their goods and stock, living in picket houses in a fortified square and posting guards over parties gathering water or wood, until they left in 1862 during a water famine.