Victory at Palo Alto

 

(Library of Congress) On May 8, 1846, General Zachary Taylor defeated a detachment of the Mexican army in a two-day battle at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. This victory forced Mexican troops across the Rio Grande River to Matamoros, protecting the newly annexed state of Texas from invasion. Five days later, the United States declared war against Mexico. Continued

The Battle of Buena Vista

 

The Battle of Buena Vista (February 22 – February 23, 1847), also known as the Battle of Angostura, saw the United States Army use artillery to repulse the much larger Mexican Army in the Mexican–American War.

Buena Vista, a village in the state of Coahuila, is seven miles (12 km) south of Saltillo, in Mexico. Continued

Sarah Bowman

 

(Wikipedia) Sarah A. Bowman (c. 1813 – December 22, 1866) was an American innkeeper, restaurateur, and madam. Nicknamed "The Great Western", she gained fame, and the title "Heroine of Fort Brown", as a camp follower of Zachary Taylor's army during the Mexican–American War.
Following the war she operated an inn in Franklin, Texas (now El Paso) before settling near Arizona City (now Yuma, Arizona).
Over the course of her life she was married multiple times, often without legal record or the blessing of a priest, and was known at various times by the names Boginnis, Bourdette, Bourget, Bourjette, Borginnis, Davis, Bowman, and possibly Foyle. Continued

James K. Polk

(Wikipedia) James Knox Polk (November 2, 1795 – June 15, 1849) was the 11th President of the United States (1845–49).
... When Mexico rejected the U.S. annexation of Texas (which Mexico considered part of its territory, despite the 1836 Texas Revolution), Polk led the nation to a sweeping victory in the Mexican–American War, which resulted in the cession by Mexico of nearly the whole of what is now the American Southwest. Continued

The Compromise of 1850

Map by User:Golbez

(Wikipedia) The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850, which defused a four-year political confrontation between slave and free states regarding the status of territories acquired during the Mexican–American War (1846–48). The compromise, drafted by Whig Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky and brokered by Clay and Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois, reduced sectional conflict. Controversy arose over the Fugitive Slave provision. The Compromise was greeted with relief, although each side disliked specific provisions. Continued

1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo remains hot topic

 

(Albuquerque Journal) Republican Congressman Steve Pearce of New Mexico has introduced a bill aimed at giving Hispanic families stronger measures to review claims of lost lands under the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo – the treaty that ended the U.S.-Mexican War.
Meanwhile, New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas announced last week he is seeking to void a 2003 land transfer from a historic Hispanic land grant in New Mexico to a Colorado group on grounds it was illegal.
Here’s why the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo remains a hot topic in the American Southwest more than 160 years after the war ended: Continued

Alexander Doniphan

(Wikipedia) … In 1846, at the beginning of the Mexican–American War Doniphan was commissioned as Colonel of the 1st Regiment of Missouri Mounted Volunteers, and served in several campaigns, including General Stephen W. Kearny's capture of Santa Fe and an invasion of northern Mexico (present day northern New Mexico).
After Santa Fe was secure, Kearny left Doniphan in charge in New Mexico, and departed towards California on September 25, 1846. Doniphan's orders were to wait until General Sterling Price arrived with the Second Missouri Mounted Volunteers, who were coming from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; after they arrived he was to lead them to Chihuahua via El Paso, Texas. They were to link up with the Brigadier General John E. Wool, who was moving southwest from San Antonio, Texas toward Guerrero and Monclova, Coahuila, to attack Monterrey, Nuevo León from the west. Kearny had known that the Navajo people were going on the war path.
With the Spanish gone, the Navajos wanted to test these new American soldiers; hence, as Doniphan waited for Price, the Navajos mounted a raid and kidnapped 20 Mexican families. Continued

The Battle of Buena Vista

The Battle of Buena Vista (February 22 – February 23, 1847), also known as the Battle of Angostura, saw the United States Army use artillery to repulse the much larger Mexican Army in the Mexican–American War.

Buena Vista, a village in the state of Coahuila, is seven miles (12 km) south of Saltillo, in Mexico. Continued

"The Great Western"

(Wikipedia) Sarah A. Bowman (c. 1813 – December 22, 1866) was an American innkeeper, restaurateur, and madam. Nicknamed "The Great Western", she gained fame, and the title "Heroine of Fort Brown", as a camp follower of Zachary Taylor's army during the Mexican–American War.
Following the war she operated an inn in Franklin, Texas (now El Paso) before settling near Arizona City (now Yuma, Arizona). Over the course of her life she was married multiple times, often without legal record or the blessing of a priest, and was known at various times by the names Boginnis, Bourdette, Bourget, Bourjette, Borginnis, Davis, Bowman, and possibly Foyle. Continued

Texas gives up nonexistent New Mexico counties

Map by Ch1902

(Texas Day by Day) On this day in 1850, Texas gave up its claim to disputed land in New Mexico.
In 1841, seeking a share of the Santa Fe trade, President Mirabeau Lamar dispatched the Texan Santa Fe Expedition to secure the territory for the Republic of Texas, but Mexican authorities captured the entire expedition without firing a shot.
U.S. troops occupied New Mexico during the Mexican War, and in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed in February 1848, Mexico relinquished all claim to territory north and east of the Rio Grande. Continued

“She packed two six-shooters, and they all said she shore could use ’em....”

 

(Paul Andrew Hutton) In late August 1890, a detachment from the U.S. Army Quartermasters Department began the arduous task of exhuming the bodies of the soldiers in the long abandoned and overgrown Fort Yuma cemetery to be reburied at the Presidio in San Francisco, California.

Of the 159 bodies disinterred, only one was that of a woman, yet it was the largest of all the remains. Around her neck was an oversized Catholic medallion. This was the body of Sarah Bowman—the Great Western. Continued

Victory At Palo Alto

(Library of Congress) On May 8, 1846, General Zachary Taylor defeated a detachment of the Mexican army in a two-day battle at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. This victory forced Mexican troops across the Rio Grande River to Matamoros, protecting the newly annexed state of Texas from invasion. Five days later, the United States declared war against Mexico. Continued

Kearny’s Dragoons Out West: The Birth of the U.S. Cavalry

Gen. Kearny proclaiming
 New Mexico part of the U.S.,
 in Las Vegas, New Mexico.

(True West) In literature, film and television, the role of the U.S. cavalry in the history of the American West has been as romanticized as any major element of Western popular culture. Similarly, historians have published countless articles, monographs and syntheses on the military history of the West, but very few have written the definitive chronicle of the cavalry’s origins and the role of horse soldiers in the creation of the 1st Dragoons from 1833 to 1848. Kearny’s Dragoons Out West: The Birth of the U.S. Cavalry (University of Oklahoma Press, $34.95) by Will Gorenfeld and John Gorenfeld is the first major history of its kind for nearly a century. Continued

James K. Polk

(Wikipedia) James Knox Polk (November 2, 1795 – June 15, 1849) was the 11th President of the United States (1845–49).
... When Mexico rejected the U.S. annexation of Texas (which Mexico considered part of its territory, despite the 1836 Texas Revolution), Polk led the nation to a sweeping victory in the Mexican–American War, which resulted in the cession by Mexico of nearly the whole of what is now the American Southwest. Continued

The Compromise of 1850

Map by User:Golbez

(Wikipedia) The Compromise of 1850 was a package of five separate bills passed by the United States Congress in September 1850, which defused a four-year political confrontation between slave and free states regarding the status of territories acquired during the Mexican–American War (1846–48). The compromise, drafted by Whig Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky and brokered by Clay and Democratic Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois, reduced sectional conflict. Controversy arose over the Fugitive Slave provision. The Compromise was greeted with relief, although each side disliked specific provisions. Continued

Alexander William Doniphan

(Wikipedia) Alexander William Doniphan (July 9, 1808 – August 8, 1887) was a 19th-century American attorney, soldier and politician from Missouri who is best known today as the man who prevented the summary execution of Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, at the close of the 1838 Mormon War in that state. He also achieved renown as a leader of American troops during the Mexican–American War, as the author of a legal code that still forms the basis of New Mexico's Bill of Rights, and as a successful defense attorney in the Missouri towns of Liberty, Richmond and Independence. Continued