Kearny's March: The Epic Creation of the American West, 1846-1847, Groom - B

    When the war with Mexico started, President Polk ordered Gen. Kearny to take his 2,000 man Army of the West from Kansas  down the old Santa Fe Trail to capture the New Mexico Territory. Afterwards, he was to go a further 1,000 miles and add California to the flag. At the same time, 7,000 Mormons were leaving the US and heading west, as were a few families that would be known to history as the Donner Party, and already ahead of them was US Army Captain Fremont's third topographical expedition to the coast. Kearny's march..."was an astonishing, daring and difficult adventure..."

    The 962 mile trek was no walk in the park. Indians were a risk, as was the weather, and the simple fact that, as you progressed, there was no wood and cooking was done with buffalo dung. The heat was intense; men and horses began to die. Kearny persevered and entered Santa Fe on August 18th. "For the first time in its history the United States had taken by military conquest a territory belonging to a foreign nation - and, remarkably, without firing a shot." 

   California, where very few officials ruled on behalf of faraway Mexico City, was initially just as easy. A substantial influx of Americans frightened the locals, whom the Yanks rebelled against in the summer of '46. Fremont had entered California with less than a hundred men and the belief he was under orders to capture California when war broke out. Time has never resolved whether he had, or had not, received such orders. He pitched in to help his countrymen, and soon found out that a naval ship arrived to announce the war and raise the American flag in San Francisco. Commodore Stockton sent Fremont to conquer Los Angeles and it too fell without a fight. 

      In September, Kearny took 300 men and headed for California. Halfway there, he learned that conquest was no longer necessary and he sent back two-thirds of his men. It was over a thousand miles through unchartered desert and extremes of weather. After months on the trail, Kearny then learned that a rebellion in Los Angeles had freed much of southern California from American rule. His troops were exhausted, had lost most of their horses and were riding mules. They engaged in a vicious skirmish with Mexican forces and had to send Kit Carson to San Diego for help from Stockton. In the nick of time, the Navy rescued Kearny. Together, the two services recovered the City of Angels.

    When Kearny left Santa Fe, he sent Colonel Alexander Doniphan and a thousand men south to march on Chihuahua and capture the city and province. Once again traveling great distances, the Americans marched to El Paso and on to Chihuahua defeating the enemy at Brazito and overcoming a larger force at Sacramento.  After occupying the capital for two months, Doniphan was ordered to head hundreds of miles southeast to Saltillo. They had marched 3,500 miles before a grateful Army ordered them home.

    The triumph in California was sullied by contretemps, arguments and insubordination pitting Kearny against Stockton and Fremont, that led to a court martial of Fremont later in the nation's capital. The three month trial was a national media circus that featured Fremont's father-in-law, Sen. Thomas Hart Benton attacking General Kearny. When the 'Pathfinder' was convicted, he was offered a degree of clemency by Polk and the opportunity to stay in the Army. He declined. Kearny was named Governor General of Mexico City, but died later in 1848. Fremont lived to 1890, but never again accomplished anything to equal his feats as an explorer. Polk had always intended to be a one term president. He had accomplished a vast expansion of the country in the southwest and had settled the Canadian border with the UK.  He fell to cholera three months after leaving office. The victorious General Zachary Taylor had succeeded him. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo settled the war. The US paid Mexico $18M and garnered the entire southwestern United States. The war was condemned by many, including Ulysses Grant, who said it was "one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation." A century later,  John Eisenhower said, "The fact is that Mexico stood in the way of the American Dream of Manifest Destiny." The war proved to be a training ground for what came next, because almost every general in the Civil War had fought in Mexico. I am not sure who of my friends recommended this book, but thank you.