Yet it was to pass through a country as wild and uncultivated as
that which the Spaniards had traversed three centuries before.
The invasion of Mexico by the United States armies in 1846 was made in
several divisions, one being known as the Army of the West, led by Colonel
Stephen W. Kearney. He was to march to Santa Fe, seize New Mexico, and
then push on and occupy California, both of which were then provinces of
Mexico. It was an expedition in which the soldiers would have to fight far
more with nature than with man, and force their way through desolate
regions and over deserts rarely trodden by the human foot.
The invading army made its rendezvous at Fort Leavenworth, on the Missouri
River, in the month of June, 1846. It consisted of something over sixteen
hundred men, all from Missouri, and all mounted except one battalion of
infantry. Accompanying it were sixteen pieces of artillery. A march of two
thousand miles in length lay before this small corps, much of it through
the land of the enemy, where much larger forces were likely to be met.
Before the adventurers, after the green prairies had been passed, lay hot
and treeless plains and mountain-ranges in whose passes the wintry snow
still lingered, while savage tribes and hostile Mexicans, whose numbers
were unknown, might make their path one of woe and slaughter.
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