In the 1840s, the powerful pull of Manifest Destiny brought the U.S.
Army to today's southern Arizona. The first forces came as a vanguard
marching westward to conquer California, but soon their comrades
returned. They would establish a string of outposts, a few of which
remain more than a century after their founding. These installations
greatly contributed to local military, economic, social, and even
political history. Their inhabitants included noted 19th-century
generals George Crook and Nelson A. Miles, as well as a later officer,
Omar Bradley of World War II fame. Some of these men brought their
families to share the often lonely, monotonous existence of life at a
frontier fort. Occasionally their routine was broken by grueling field
service that more than once sent troops southward on to Mexican soil
where they suffered and sometimes died. Among these stalwarts were
buffalo soldiers, Indian scouts, and new arrivals fresh from Europe.