From January to March 1864, Union forces on fatigue duty excavated one of two lines of fortifications soon after capturing Madisonville. The works were intended to defend the town from Confederate attacks coming from the surrounding countryside. They originally consisted of a trench protected by an abatis, a barrier of felled trees with sharpened ends laid pointing outward along its edge. This line meandered from approximately Rene and Covington Streets westward to about this point on Johnson Street. Property records for the adjacent lot mention breastworks on the land from the 1870s forward. Madisonville was occupied to obtain war supplies including timber, lumber, logs, turpentine, tar, and bricks for the federal Department of the Gulf.