Upon secession, a company of the First Regiment Texas Mounted Rifles used Fort Phantom Hill as an outpost to protect against Indians. It also became a stopover on the way west for some Union sympathizers and people wanting to avoid the conflict of war. In 1862, the frontier defense line was pulled back more than 30 miles east, but scouting parties and patrols of Confederate and state troops continued to visit the post intermittently in aggressive warfare to keep Indians near the camps and away from settlements and to watch for invasion by Union forces. Usually supplying their own mounts, guns, and sustenance, these men guarded the frontier until the war's end. More broadly, Texas had 2000 miles of coastline and frontier to defend from Union attack, Indian raids, and marauders, so defense lines were arranged to give maximum protection with the few men left in the state. One line stretched from El Paso to Brownsville, another placed posts a day's horseback ride apart from the Red River to the Rio Grande, and Phantom Hill and other U.S. forts used by scouting parties lay in a line between them. Behind these lines and to the east, organized militia and citizens' posses from nearby settlements supported Confederate and state troops in efforts to curb Indian raids.