The progress of this army may be
quickly summed up by stating that
they took New Mexico with hardly a
shot fired and quickly occupied that
vital territory. General Kearny, leav-
ing others to the occupation duties,
took a detachm in of about 100 men
and started out for C alifornia. A short
distance out of Sante Fe, Kearny met
Kit Carson on the trail. Carson was
returning from California to visit his
family in Taos. Akvised of the impor-
tant nature of Kearny's missionm, Car-
son agreed to turn around and guide
the soldiers to SanDiego for a ren-
dezvous with sailors and marines of
the Pacific Squadron commanded by
Commodore Robert F. Stockton. At
San Pascual, northeast of San Diego,
the Dragoons met a force of superbly
mounted Californianos and a desper-
ate fight ensued. They eventually
reached San Diego and, with a force
of men from the Pacific Squadron,
marched north to victories at the San
Gabriel River and at Los Angeles.
Fremont, in command of a force re-
cruited in northern California, took
so long on the way south that he ar-
rived just in time for the surrender.
Sailors and marines of the Pacific
Squadron were still using flintlock
muskets in 1846. Some had pikes and,
as has been mentioned, a group of
skirmishers had Colt revolving cylin-
der caplock carbines.
Following closely after the first ap-
pearance of U.S. soldiers in the South-
west under General Kearny, Col. Phil-
ip St. George Cooke was ordered to
build a wagon road from the Rio
Grande to the Pacific Ocean. Recruit-
ing a battalion comprised mostly of
Mormons, who had been stranded on
the way west while migrating from
Illinois, Cooke's "Mormon Battalion"
of about 400 men raised a lot of dust
and did a creditable job. One of the
conditions of their enlistment was
that they could retain thier arms when
mustered out in C"alifornia. They were
armed with an assortment of weapons,
mostly smoothbore muskets, but a
few of the fortunate ones had Model
1841 brass-mounted caplock rifles.
These excellent guns were 54 caliber
and are sometines called the "yager"
or "mississippi" rifle. they saw ser-
vice in many areas of the West and
were second only to the Hawken rifle
in efficiency and popularity.
While all this activity was going on
westward from the Missouri into the
Southwest, other trails farther north
felt the tread of venturesome Amer-
icans seeking a new life and land of
their own.
Following Captain L.E. de Bonne-
ville's expedition into Oregon in 1832,
the missionaries Whitman and Spald-
ing made the journey to christianize
the Indians. By 1846 the dispute
with England over the U.S.-Canadian
border was settled, and the Hudson's
Bay Company was forced to move its
posts up into British Columbia.
While they had been in the Oregon
Territory, however, many of those
"Northwest" flintlock trade guns
came into the hands of Indians of
that area.
With land in the Oregon Territory
open to homesteading, the trail to
Oregon through South Pass, Fort
Bridger and Fort Hall was rutted by
the passing of many wagons. In 1847
Brigham Young and his followers
swung southwest from Fort Bridger,
saw the great salt lake, and declared
"This is the place! " While the Mor-
mons in Utah obtained a number of
Colt cap and ball pistols and other
arms manufactured in the East, it
was not long before their own gun-
smiths were turning out weapons.
Among these artisans was Jonathon
Browning, father of John M. Brown-
ing, who was a greater western history-
maker than John Moses Browning,
whose inventions were eagrly sought
and used by Winchester, Colt, and
other prominent arms manufacturers!
By 1849 the stamped west got in
full swing--gold had been discovered
in California. Now the role of the
army was complicated and greatly ex-
panded. There were forts to build
and emigrants to be protected from
the Indians who were beginning to
get very restive over all this traffic
through lands which had been their
private preserves for years.
