 Making matters worse, on March 2, 1861, the U.S. government formally revoked a contract with the Butterfield Overland Stagecoach Company which was being used to support delivery of United States mail on the overland route which ran from San Antonio through El Paso, Texas, and on to Mesilla, Tucson and California.The loss of this key communications link with the rest of the United States angered settlers in the Arizona region, just as many states in the Deep South were seceding from the Union.Having been only recently annexed from Mexico following the Mexican–American War, the majority of New Mexico's population was apathetic to the ongoing secession crisis in the United States.