To support Fort Stanton and its two subsidiary positions, a military road was constructed from Uniontown to the fort. Tributary roads led from Fort Stanton to the other forts in the Eastern Branch line. These roads were eventually widened into a large ring road that circled most of the 37-mile perimeter of Washington, a fact that can be noted in the 1865 map of the city's defenses. In fall 1862, however, the commission examining the defenses noted that "the work on roads about Washington requires ten regiments for twenty days ... or an equivalent of labor in some other shape."