U.S. Army Outposts in the Big Bend of Texas: Twilight of the Indian Wars, 1878 -1895.

In 1878, increasing Indian raids from Mexico drew a few cavalry troops of the U.S. Army into the Big Bend of Texas, a desolate, forbidding region with which the Army had little experience and scant knowledge. After tentative scouts and limited temporary outposts, the significant threat from the Chiricahua Apache leader Victorio in 1880 brought full-scale operations to the region, principally focused on protecting the new military and railroad construction parties starting to cross the area. Army exploration and mapping patrols blanketed the Big Bend, with other troops focused on finding and guarding water sources, intent on denying this vital resource to Indian raiders or Mexican bandits. The result was a number of long-term outposts and two major new stations, Camp Peña Colorado and Camp Rice, the latter subsequently known as Fort Hancock. Based on research from Army primary documents, the purpose of this article is to precisely catalog the details of Army operations and outposts and place them in the larger context of the intent of senior Army leadership and other historic events of the period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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