General Zachary Taylor
Sarita, Kenedy County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Under this tree General Zachary Taylor, commanding the Expeditionary Army of the United States sent to Texas in 1845, encamped on March 15, 1846, while en route with his troops from Corpus Christi to the Rio Grande.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
On March 15, 1846, General Zachary Taylor camped beneath a tree at this spot as he marched his "Army of Occupation" south from Corpus Christi toward the Rio Grande. Within weeks the clash of his troops with Mexican forces along that river would ignite the Mexican-American War. Taylor's popularity as a wartime commander soon carried him to the White House.
Why it matters
This quiet campsite marks a step on the road to a war that redrew the map of North America and added the vast Southwest to the United States.
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Related people
- · Zachary Taylor
Related events
- · Mexican-American War
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Approximate Route of U.S. Army March to the Rio Grande, 1846
Riviera, TX
In 1845, with the annexation of the Republic of Texas approved, the United States sent Gen. Zachary Taylor to occupy the contested land between the Nueces and the Rio Grande. After wintering and drilling near Corpus Christi, his army—whose rosters included two future presidents and many future generals—marched south in March 1846 along a road roughly traced by this spot. Skirmishes and the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma soon followed, prompting the U.S. declaration of war.
Taylor Camp Site, 1846
Kingsville, TX
In March 1846, as Zachary Taylor's army marched from Corpus Christi to the Rio Grande, its four regiments camped in succession at this spot on Santa Gertrudis Creek. Within weeks the Mexican-American War erupted at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma near present Brownsville. The war fixed the Texas boundary at the Rio Grande and, through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, brought vast new territory into the United States — and the officers who camped here, among them future presidents Zachary Taylor and Ulysses S. Grant, went on to command great armies in the Civil War.
Captain Enrique Villarreal and Rincon del Oso Land Grant
Corpus Christi, TX
Soldier, colonist, and explorer, Captain Enrique Villarreal once held title to most of what is now Nueces County through the vast Rincon del Oso land grant, awarded by Mexico in 1831 though he had ranched it since 1810. Raiding forced him off the land until peace came in 1824, and as a Mexican officer he fought through the Mexican War for Independence, the Texas Revolution, and the U.S.-Mexican War. When Henry Lawrence Kinney founded his trading post on Villarreal's grant, he set in motion the sales that would make him the land's eventual owner—and give rise to the city of Corpus Christi.
Henry Lawrence Kinney
Corpus Christi, TX
Pennsylvania-born Henry Lawrence Kinney arrived on Corpus Christi Bay in 1838 and, a year later, opened a trading post on the bluff that would grow into a city. Much of his early trade was contraband run to Mexican Federalists, but his fortunes soared when General Zachary Taylor chose his outpost to stage the U.S. Army before the Mexican-American War. Kinney served as quartermaster, sold town lots to Taylor's soldiers, sat in the legislature for years, and chased grand schemes—a failed 1851 fair, a doomed Nicaragua venture—before dying in Matamoros in an unmarked grave.