This is part eight of my ongoing series over the Mexican War of 1846-1848.
In this episode I cover the only religious military unit the United States has ever created: The Mormon Battalion. I follow them as they leave Council Bluff’s Iowa, head down the Santa Fe Trail, down the Rio Grande, and across the American Southwest to California. It’s a long arduous journey and their march is the longest known military march in world history.
Selected Sources:
Kit Carson's Own Story of His Life by Kit Carson
Jefferson Davis Mexican War Regiment by Joseph E Chance
The Conquest of New Mexico and California, An Historical and Personal Narrative by Philip St. George Cooke
Revolt at Taos by James A. Crutchfield
Doniphan’s Epic March by Joseph Dawson III
A Perfect Gibraltar: The Battle for Monterrey, Mexico, 1846 by Chris D. Dishman
The Training Ground by Martin Dugard
So Far From God by John SD Eisenhower
The Mexican War Correspondence of Richard Smith Elliott by Richard Smith Elliott
Texian Iliad by Stephen Hardin
Big Wonderful Thing: A History of Texas by Stephen Harrigan
James K Polk and the Expansionist Impulse by Sam W Haynes
The California Campaign of the US Mexican War by Hunt Janin and Ursula Carlson
To The Halls of The Montezumas by Robert Johannsen
A Gallant Little Army by Timothy Johnson
Climax at Buena Vista by David Lavender
The Mexican war: a history of its origin, and a detailed account of the victories which terminated in the surrender of the capital; with the official despatches of the generals. To which is added, the treaty of peace, and valuable tables of the strength and losses of the United States army by Edward D. Mansfield
Mormon Battalion by Michael N Landon & Brandon J Metcalf
The Old West: The Mexican War by the Editors of Time-Life Books with text by David Nevin
The Old West: The Texans by the Editors of Time-Life Books with text by David Nevin
The Mormon Battalion by Norman Baldwin Ricketts
A Newer World by David Roberts
Blood and Thunder by Hampton Sides
Texas and the Mexican War: A Chronicle of the Winning of the Southwest, Volume 24 by Nathaniel Stephenson