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Having received orders to move his army to the Rio Grande, General Zachary Taylor established a base of operations at Point Isabel, a small fishing village on a narrow inlet near the southern tip of Padre Island. Arriving on March 24, 1846, the army quickly transformed the hamlet into a bustling supply depot. The new recruits set about to build a hastily constructed earthenwork fortification, named Fort Polk, in anticipation of a Mexican attack that never materialized. Thirty miles to the west, U.S. troops also built a similar fortification opposite Matamoras, known as Fort Texas.
