A Concise History of the Mormon Battalion in the Mexican War.

N/P: N/P, 1881. First edition. 346pp. Original boards. Extremities rubbed, front free end paper missing, some internal soiling, and dampstain to a few pages, withal very good. "History may be searched in vain for an equal march of infantry." In these few words, Lieutenant Colonel Philip St. George Cooke summarized the achievements of the Mormon Battalion, a volunteer force of some 500 men who had walked more than two thousand miles from Council Bluffs to San Diego during the winter of 1846-7 to participate in the Mexican War. The Battalion was a part of Stephen Watts Kearny's Army of the West that left Council Bluffs bound for California. At Santa Fe command of the Battalion was transferred to Cooke who led the poorly equipped volunteers south along the Rio Grande del Norte, then west across the Sonora desert to Tucson. They were on the road to Los Angeles when they received change of orders and ultimately marched into San Diego on January 31, 1847. Daniel Tyler, third sergeant of Company C, had full access to the journals and archives of the LDS Church when he wrote his history of that adventure. It has become (along with Cooke's own account of the conquest of California and New Mexico) the standard source for the Mormon Battalion. Hafferkorn P53, Howes T447, Tutorow 3345. Item #26232

Price: $1,400.00

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