Soldiers on Parade

Fort Bliss, In 1846, Colonel Alexander Doniphan led 1st Regiment of Missouri mounted volunteers through El Paso del Norte, with victories at the Battle of El Brazito and the Battle of the Sacramento. Then on 7 November 1848, War Department General Order no. 58 ordered the establishment of a post across from El Paso del Norte now Ciudad Juárez. On 8 September 1849, the garrison party of several companies of the 3rd U.S. Infantry ('The Old Guard', currently the oldest active duty regiment in the US Army), commanded by Major Jefferson Van Horne, found only four small and scattered settlements on the north side of the Rio Grande. The Post opposite El Paso del Norte was first established at the site of Coon's Ranch, protected recently won territory from harassing Apaches and Comanches, provided law and order, and escorted the forty-niners. (The post became Fort Bliss on 8 March 1854.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Bliss Image Description: Black and white photograph shows a group of several uniformed volunteers neatly marching in the street. They hold rifles in their left hand and rest them on their shoulder as thy march with the American flag among them. Behind the soldiers stand a building and a small corner of another building with people standing to view the volunteers march through. Telegraph lines can barely be seen above the marching volunteers head and at their feet a long shadow can be seen for each of them.