After Federal evacuation at the start of the Civil War, Fort Stockton was occupied by the 2nd Regiment Texas Mounted Rifles on the far western frontier defense line. It served as a supply post for troops going to and from the Arizona-New Mexico campaign of 1861-1862, an effort designed to make the Confederacy an ocean to ocean nation. At times the area was the center of Comanche and Apache activities, and California Union troops dominated it from 1862 to 1865. It was also a stopover on the way west for many Union sympathizers and people wanting to avoid the conflict of war. During the Civil War, 90,000 Texas troops served the South, and Texas, as a source of supply and gateway to vital trade through Mexico, was the storehouse of the western Confederacy. Texas also had to guard a 2,000 mile frontier and coastline from Union troops and the constant threat of Indians. Two hundred miles east, frontier defenders established a line of camps, each a day's ride apart, from the Red River to the Rio Grande, and a few Confederate troops joined by rangers, the organized militia, and citizens' posses held on until the war's end despite shortages of mounts and arms.