American Empire
"They had done that, the people of this book: they had brought in that empire and made that war inevitable. The soldiers who followed Kearny to Santa Fe and on…
The Wilmot Amendment
"This narrative has remarked that a decisive tum was rounded at some time between August and December, 1846. On August 10, the First Session of the Twenty-ninth Congress adjourned while…
Frémont’s Character
"Fremont . . . was worse than a fool, he was an opportunist, an adventurer, and a blunderer on a truly dangerous scale. He was foisted on the Republic in…
Slow Communications With Taylor
"Taylor sat under his grapevine at Matamor6s and could not have had a better press. Clearly the country appreciated his victories but the administration sent no official praise. The holy…
Conquest of New Mexico
"Late in the afternoon [August 18, 1846] the conquerors were ready. Two subofficials had come out to profess submission and, sending his artillery to a hill that commanded the town,…
Unpreparedness for War, Part II
The sole practical preparation for war that had been made was the order for Commodore Sloat to seize the California ports if he should learn that war with Mexico had…
The Call to the Mexican War
"Polk thought with admirable realism about tariffs, the treasury, and the routine of domestic policy. He thought with. astonishing shrewdness about the necessary political maneuvers of government. But he thought…
America’s Unpreparedness for the Mexican War
"The President and the nation had a war now, and neither was up to it. This book is to touch briefly on certain campaigns and their backgrounds which are related…
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
"The action that followed was a good deal more of a battle. It is known as Resaca de la Palma. It was a fierce, bloody, and obstinate confusion in the…
Zachary Taylor
"Taylor spent a week at Point Isabel building the earthworks he should have finished a month before, then, on May 7, started back to relieve the fort. His West Pointers…
Yclepted
"On August 22 [1849] the Missouri Republican correspondent 'Nebraska' told of a fiasco 'of our last Indian war, in which the chivalry of Missouri, yclepted the Oregon Battalion [out of…
Mile 258: Liberty Farm Station
"The storm had been local and, after we had worked our way slowly through ten more miles of mud, things became more normal. Along little roadways with reassuringly solid bases…
Mile 235: Oak Grove Ranch Marker
Just after Mile 235, near the town of Oak, is a historical marker commemorating the August 7, 1864 raid on this ranch.
Grattan Fight
"The casus belli was a lame cow! The Mormons, whose cow had been taken, complained at Fort Laramie, and a rash young officer, Lieutenant John Grattan, rode out [to the…
Indian Difficulties in the mid-1860s
"Overland staging had met some Indian difficulties previously, but not until the sixties did these become chronic. The isolated depredations of the fifties were but preliminaries of the general uprisings…