Mexican-American War

Carrollton, KY

This was the home of General William O. Butler, a Kentucky soldier and statesman whose career spanned the young republic's formative wars. Born in 1791, he fought at the River Raisin, Pensacola, and New Orleans during the War of 1812, served on Andrew Jackson's staff, and won praise for heroism in the Mexican War. A lawyer and congressman, he ran unsuccessfully for governor, vice president, and the Senate, and in 1861 served as a Kentucky commissioner to a last-ditch peace conference.

Paris, TX

Sam Bell Maxey was a Kentucky-born West Point graduate brevetted for gallantry in the Mexican-American War before settling in Paris, Texas, as a district attorney. He rose to major general in the Confederate army, commanding in the Tennessee and Mississippi campaigns and then the Indian Territory from 1863 to 1865, where he organized three brigades of Native American troops for the Red River Campaign. After the war he served two terms in the United States Senate from 1875 to 1887.

Marshall, TX

Elkanah Greer came to Texas in 1848 after fighting in the Mexican War, settled at Marshall, and at the outbreak of the Civil War raised and led the 3rd Texas Cavalry. Recalled as a brigadier general in 1862, he ran the Confederacy's conscription bureau west of the Mississippi and organized labor and reserves to defend the Texas coast. A member of the Knights of the Golden Circle, he died in 1877 and is buried in Memphis.

Orange, TX

Hugh Ochiltree left North Carolina for Texas in 1840, read law under his prominent cousin, and volunteered for the Mexican War, fighting at the Battle of Monterrey. Settling at Sabine Pass and then at Madison—today's Orange—he built a mercantile and cotton-commission business and championed deep-water ports on the Sabine and Neches rivers. He served as the town's first postmaster, county commissioner, county clerk, and, during the Civil War, provost marshal of Orange.

Bald Prairie, TX

Tennessee native Isaac Phillip Stem enlisted in frontier service at seventeen and, after moving to Texas in 1836, joined the Republic of Texas army at Houston. He fought at the 1840 Battle of Plum Creek against Comanches who had raided the coast, served in the Somervell Campaign, and rode with mounted volunteers in the war with Mexico before joining the U.S. Infantry. He later settled in Robertson County as a farmer and rancher, dying in 1893.

Walnut Springs, TX

James Buckner "Buck" Barry came to Texas from North Carolina in 1845 and spent his life on its edges — as a soldier in the Mexican War, a fighter in Indian campaigns, and, during the Civil War, commander of Confederate cavalry strung along frontier outposts from the Red River to Fort McKavett. His patrols, camped a day's ride apart, guarded scattered settlers against raids and the threat of Federal incursion from Indian Territory. He later served in the Texas Legislature and left behind personal records of those frontier-defense years.

Cuero, TX

James F. Blair's life traced the arc of frontier Texas through its wars and lawlessness. Born in Tennessee, he fought in the Mexican War and then rose from the Confederate ranks to captain a company of the 36th Texas Cavalry, before turning to keeping the peace as a Texas Ranger and, in 1866, as the governor-appointed sheriff of DeWitt County. That county would soon become notorious for the Sutton-Taylor feud, and Blair belonged to the generation of veterans-turned-lawmen who tried to hold order on a violent frontier.

Van Alstyne, TX

James P. Dumas (1820-1875), a South Carolinian, married and moved to the Republic of Texas in 1841 and worked as a surveyor, helping map land that became part of Dallas. He fought in the Mexican War of 1846, served as Grayson County surveyor, and amassed holdings so vast he could ride the twenty miles to Sherman without leaving his own land, later helping found a Sherman bank in 1872.

San Augustine, TX

A North Carolina lawyer who arrived in Texas in 1836 leading a company of volunteers, James Pinckney Henderson swiftly became one of the young Republic's leading statesmen, serving as attorney general, secretary of state, and diplomat to Europe. When Texas joined the Union, voters chose him as the state's first governor in 1846. He then led Texas troops as a major general in the Mexican War, earning a formal vote of thanks and a sword from Congress, before a late turn as U.S. senator.

Lampasas, TX

James S. Gillett's life traced the martial history of nineteenth-century Texas: a Kentucky-born frontier fighter who earned a major's rank in the Mexican War, sat in the early Texas Legislature, served as Adjutant General, rode again with the Texas Rangers, and finally soldiered for the Confederacy. His son James B. Gillett would carry the family name into Ranger legend. The marker gathers a career that touched nearly every armed chapter of the state's formative decades.

Laredo, TX

Samuel Matthias Jarvis, a Columbia-trained engineer from New York, joined Zachary Taylor's army in the Mexican-American War, later married in Nuevo León, and settled his family in Laredo after the Civil War. As county surveyor and mayor from 1868 to 1872, he laid out streets and parks, mapped the city, and expanded the old Spanish town plan of 1767. He donated the land for this plaza, known by his name since at least 1881.

San Francisco, CA

On July 9, 1846, at the height of the Mexican-American War, Commander John B. Montgomery of the U.S.S. Portsmouth came ashore and raised the American flag over the little bay-side settlement of Yerba Buena — soon to be renamed San Francisco. The act signaled the United States' seizure of California from Mexico. In 1924 the Daughters of the American Revolution marked the spot.

Mason vicinity, TX

John Bate Berry came to Texas from Kentucky in 1826 and spent his life on its violent frontier. He fought in the Texas War for Independence in 1835–36 and joined the 1842 Mier Expedition against Mexican raids, was captured and imprisoned, then freed in 1844. Two years later he scouted for the American army during the Mexican War before settling in this Hill Country locality to defend it for incoming settlers.

Corpus Christi, TX

Born in County Cork, Ireland, in 1821, John Bernard Murphy immigrated to America in 1845 and joined the U.S. Army as a staff reporter under General Zachary Taylor at the outset of the war with Mexico, rising to captain. He later studied law, settled in the Irish community of San Patricio, and served as judge and district attorney before winning election as mayor of Corpus Christi in 1880. Inheriting a debt-ridden treasury, he restored the city's credit and oversaw streetlights, drainage, and relief for the poor before his death in 1884.

Dallas, TX

John C. McCoy practiced law in Kentucky before arriving in Texas in 1845, the year of annexation, to serve as agent for the Peters' Colony that was settling Dallas and its surrounding counties. He became the area's first practicing attorney, founded its bar association, and fought in the Mexican War. As a civic leader he helped shape the legal and institutional foundations of early Dallas.

Liberty Hill, TX

John Giles Matthews came to the raw new town of Austin as a boy in 1839, when Texas was still an independent republic. He served as a Ranger, then fought in the war with Mexico and again in the Civil War, before settling into the quieter life of a Williamson County farmer and family man in 1870.

Liberty Hill, TX

John G. Matthews came to Texas as a teenager in 1840 and served in a Ranger company during the Mexican War before settling to farm in Williamson County. In 1872 he built this hand-hewn native-limestone house, a pioneer dwelling his family occupied and later enlarged. His son Joseph, a teacher and justice of the peace, extended the home that stayed in the family for generations.

Victoria, TX

New York–born John Howland Wood came to Texas in 1836, fought in the Texas Revolution, and served as an army quartermaster at Victoria before settling on a ranch at Black Point (today Bayside) in the 1840s. He sold beef to the U.S. Army as Gen. Zachary Taylor's forces massed at Corpus Christi on the eve of the Mexican-American War, later captained coastal-defense patrols during the Civil War, and helped develop the town of Rockport.

Kimble County, TX

Born in Illinois in 1822, John James Smith came to Texas in time to enlist for the Mexican War of 1846–48, then rode as a Texas Ranger guarding the frontier before serving in the Confederate Army and as city marshal of Greenville. He settled in Kimble County in 1881 and farmed there as a respected citizen until his death at the remarkable age of 102.

Lucas, TX

Born in North Carolina in 1781, John Myers McKinney spent his life moving ever westward — through Tennessee, Missouri, and Arkansas — before finally bringing his family to Texas in 1846. Barely settled on his Collin County land, he left almost at once to enlist in the Mexican War, joining a company of mounted volunteers, and died in the service in 1847, only a year after arriving. His short Texas chapter ended in a soldier's death on the nation's newest frontier.

San Antonio, TX

John Salmon 'Rip' Ford lived nearly every role the Texas frontier offered: pioneer doctor and newspaper editor, Republic of Texas congressman, state senator, adjutant to Jack Hays in the war with Mexico, and a fearless Ranger captain in border and Indian campaigns. He served as a Confederate colonel during the Civil War and later as mayor of Austin and Brownsville, a constitutional convention delegate, and a charter member of the Texas State Historical Association. His grave marker, erected by the state in 1963, recalls his motto: 'Ready, ay, ready!'

Asheville, NC

Joseph Lane was born near this spot before rising to national prominence in the mid-nineteenth century. He won fame as a major general in the Mexican War, then became the first territorial governor of Oregon and later a U.S. Senator. In 1860 he ran for vice president on the Southern Democratic ticket with John C. Breckinridge, on the eve of the Civil War.

Seguin, TX

This burial ground holds one of Seguin's founding families, the Kings, who came from Tennessee during the days of the Republic of Texas. Brothers John, Henry, and William George King helped establish the town, and William—a Texas Ranger and veteran of the Mexican War—was one of several Rangers laid to rest here. The first burial, in 1852, was a six-month-old child, and generations of the family followed.

Brownsville, TX

This French mansard-roofed house was built in 1893 for customhouse broker Louis Kowalski and his wife Amelia by S. W. Brooks, a designer of many public buildings along the border. Kowalski served Cameron County as treasurer and then district clerk for more than four decades; later owners Jesse and Mary Dennett traced their family's arrival to soldiers who came with U.S. forces in the Mexican War era and again in 1866.

Cooper, TX

An Illinois native and veteran of the Black Hawk War, Littleton Rattan came to Texas in 1839 and built a farm in what became Delta County. In the Republic era he rode as a Texas Ranger with three area militia companies, and during the Mexican War he served under the legendary Ranger Jack Hays. He was killed in battle with Native Americans on December 18, 1847, though the site of the fight and his grave remain unknown.

Los Ebanos, TX

This bend of the Rio Grande has been crossed for centuries, first recorded when José de Escandón's Spanish colonists forded here in the 1740s along a route that also carried a salt trail to El Sal del Rey. Over the generations it saw Mexican War troops in 1846, Texas Rangers chasing cattle rustlers in 1874, and smugglers during Prohibition. A licensed ferry and inspection station opened in 1950, and the hand-pulled crossing—named for the ebony trees on its banks—is said to be the only government-licensed, hand-operated ferry on any U.S. border.

Detroit, MI

This Detroit monument honors Alpheus Starkey Williams, called a 'hero of two wars' for his service in the Mexican-American War and as a Union general in the Civil War, where he led troops from Antietam to Gettysburg and through the Georgia and Carolinas campaigns. Beyond the battlefield he was a judge, newspaper editor, postmaster, diplomat, and member of Congress. The equestrian statue on Belle Isle marks him as one of the city's most distinguished public servants.

Marshall, TX

Incorporated in 1849, this cemetery is the resting place of a remarkable roster of early Texas leaders. Among them are Edward Clark, governor of Texas in 1861 and a Confederate colonel; Walter P. Lane, a veteran of the Texas Revolution and Mexican War who rose to Confederate general; John T. Mills, a Republic of Texas supreme court justice; and Horace Randal, a Confederate general — with two Texas counties named for men buried here. A United Daughters of the Confederacy obelisk honors unknown soldiers who died in local hospitals.

Corpus Christi, TX

Orphaned and brought to Corpus Christi as a boy in 1845, Matthew Nolan served as a bugler through the Mexican-American War, rode with the Texas Rangers under 'Rip' Ford, and became Nueces County sheriff in 1858. He fought for the Confederacy along the Texas coast, returned to the sheriff's office as a major, and was murdered in 1864; he lies in Old Bayview Cemetery beside the brother who died as his deputy.

Harrisburg, PA

In the spring of 1846 the United States went to war with Mexico, and thousands of Pennsylvanians marched south with the volunteer regiments raised across the state, fighting through the heat and disease of campaigns from the Rio Grande to the gates of Mexico City. Two decades later, in 1868, the Commonwealth raised this monument in its capital to gather the memory of the sons it had lost in that three-year conflict. Standing in Harrisburg, it is one of the earlier state-sponsored war memorials in Pennsylvania, erected just as the nation was also beginning to reckon with the far greater losses of the Civil War.

Apple Springs, TX

Mount Zion Cemetery once served a scattering of vanished rural communities—Crib Creek, Trevat, Helmic, Centralia, and others—in the piney woods of Trinity County. Its earliest marked stone, that of Sarah A. Womack, dates to 1856, and among its graves are veterans of the U.S.–Mexico War and the Civil War. Tied to a Baptist church whose members deeded the land in 1894, the cemetery has been maintained by a community association since 1973.

Point Blank, TX

Born in Georgia in 1795, George Tyler Wood came to Texas in 1839 and rose through the Republic's Congress, the 1845 Annexation Convention, and the first state Senate, which he left to fight in the Mexican War. As governor from 1847 to 1849 he rallied defenses against frontier raids, urged public schools and land sales to pay the state debt, and had Texas's laws codified, its library founded, and its penitentiary built. He is buried near here.

Corpus Christi, TX

Nueces County takes its name from the 'River of Nuts' that forms its northern border, a country touched early by Spanish explorers and marked by the frontier post of Lipantitlan. The area passed into Anglo-American hands during the Texas Revolution, and in 1845 U.S. Army forces camped here on their way to the fighting of the Mexican-American War. The county itself was created in 1846 and organized the next year with Corpus Christi as its seat.

San Antonio, TX

This stone building—later the Vance House hotel—served as U.S. Army administrative offices during the Mexican War of 1846–1847. On February 16, 1861, it became the scene of General David E. Twiggs's surrender of some $1.6 million in Federal property to Confederate Texas forces, one of the war's earliest and largest transfers of U.S. assets. For a time it directed Texas military affairs before those duties scattered to Houston, Bonham, and Shreveport.

Rio Grande City, TX

Kentucky-born Henry Clay Davis came to Texas in the late 1830s and served with Zachary Taylor's army during the Mexican-American War in 1846. Marrying into the prominent Garza family of the lower Rio Grande, he established a home around which Rio Grande City grew, fed by steamboat trade up from Brownsville and by the founding of nearby Ringgold Barracks in 1848. The town became the seat of Starr County.

San Antonio, TX

The springs at Old San Pedro, five miles from the city, were a favored camping ground long used by U.S. troops during the Mexican War of 1846–48 and by picnickers and stump-speakers in the 1850s. When federal forces in Texas surrendered to the Confederacy in 1861, the site briefly held prisoners of war in dugouts and brush arbors. Thereafter it served as a staging camp for Confederate soldiers bound for the western frontier, the Arizona–New Mexico campaign, and camps of instruction for raw recruits.

Palestine, TX

Settlers from the Brushy Creek country of South Carolina reached this part of Anderson County in the 1850s, carrying the name with them to the local streams and community. By 1858 a one-room building served as church and school, with an adjoining graveyard whose earliest marked burial dates to 1856. Among those interred are pioneer families and veterans, including James Eastland, who fought in the Mexican and Civil Wars and later sat in the Texas Legislature.

San Diego County, CA

For four decades this palm-shaded spring was a vital watering stop on the arid trails of the Southern California desert. Between 1826 and 1866 it slaked the thirst of Mexican pioneers, mountain men, the U.S. Army of the West and the Mormon Battalion, Boundary and Railway surveyors, gold-rush Forty-Niners, and the Butterfield Overland Mail stages. In a landscape where water meant survival, a reliable spring like this shaped where routes ran and who could cross.

Belton, TX

Peter Hansbrough Bell's life reads like a roll call of the Texas frontier's founding decades. He charged with Sam Houston's army at San Jacinto in 1836, rode with the Texas Rangers and mounted volunteers through the Mexican War, then traded the saddle for the statehouse as Texas's third governor before serving in the U.S. Congress. This granite monument was raised by the state in 1936, the centennial of Texas independence, to honor a man who helped both win and govern the young republic.

Graford, TX

Capt. William Carroll McAdams left Tennessee for Texas in the 1840s, rangered on the frontier, and fought in the Mexican War before he and his wife Ann settled this land in 1854 to raise cattle. The burial ground that grew up here served the Pickwick community, later drowned beneath Possum Kingdom Lake, and in 1940 gathered in graves relocated from Carter Bend Cemetery ahead of the reservoir.

Port Isabel, TX

About 1828 this bluff on the lower Rio Grande held Don Rafael Garcia's ranch, "El Fronton de Santa Ysabel," and by 1844 a Mexican customs station moved here after storms destroyed nearby coastal villages. Following the Mexican War, the U.S. established the Point Isabel post office in 1849, and goods landed here were freighted inland to Matamoros. In 1873 a railroad finally linked the port to Brownsville, serving until a deepwater channel to Brownsville replaced it in 1933.

Port Isabel, TX

Established in 1824, the Port of Matamoros channeled goods shipped from New Orleans and other U.S. ports overland to the towns of northern Mexico, guarded by a Mexican garrison and naval vessel. During and after the Texas Revolution it saw repeated naval clashes between the U.S. and Mexico in 1836–37. Jurisdiction was only settled in 1846, when General Zachary Taylor's forces occupied the area at the opening of the Mexican War.

Jefferson, TX

Born in Tennessee in 1833, Richard Waterhouse served in the U.S. war with Mexico before becoming a Texas businessman and, in the Civil War, colonel of the 19th Texas Confederate Infantry. He was commended for gallantry at Milliken's Bend during the Vicksburg Campaign and fought at Mansfield and Pleasant Hill in the Red River Campaign, rising to brigadier general. He died in 1876.

Leming, TX

Robert E. Neill came to Texas as a small boy in the 1830s and, though a childhood accident crippled his left arm, went on to soldier through three of the era's conflicts. He served in the U.S. Army during the Mexican-American War of 1847, rode with the Texas Rangers on frontier duty, and closed his military life fighting for the Confederacy. Afterward he returned to ranching in Atascosa County, where he raised five children and died in 1878.

Victoria, TX

Robert Clark, a Pennsylvania native and Mexican War veteran who was severely wounded in that conflict, built his fortune in South Texas as a merchant and cattle trader in partnership with Charles Stillman. After an 1875 hurricane battered the port of Indianola, he moved his family inland to Victoria, where in 1877 he raised this frame Greek Revival house with its central portico and boxed columns. He and his wife Pauline are remembered for their civic contributions to the growing town.

Rio Hondo, TX

In the tense weeks after the United States annexed Texas, Zachary Taylor pushed his army to the Rio Grande, and supply trains moved along the dangerous frontier between Corpus Christi and Point Isabel. In May 1846, at the outbreak of the Mexican-American War, a supply party led by the Rogers family was ambushed near here, and after a false promise of quarter, the men, women, and children were murdered. Only the gravely wounded William Long Rogers survived, walking over forty miles to safety.

Sonoma, CA

This adobe was the home of Captain Salvador Vallejo, brother of Sonoma's founder Mariano Vallejo, built with Indian labor between 1836 and 1846. The Vallejo family lived here until the Bear Flag Party seized Sonoma in June 1846. In the following decade it served a second life as Cumberland College, a Presbyterian coeducational boarding school, from 1858 to 1864.

San Patricio, TX

This ground carries three centuries of change, from Spanish exploration beginning in 1519 through Mexican independence in 1821. In 1828 empresarios James McGloin and John McMullen won a Mexican land grant and brought Irish colonists to settle it, and the county—named for St. Patrick—was created in 1836 and organized the next year. Its southern edge, the Nueces River, became a flashpoint in the run-up to the Mexican-American War, crossed by Zachary Taylor's army as it marched south.

Banquete, TX

This ford on the Nueces River grew out of an 1804 Spanish land grant and the scattered ranch settlement of Santa Margarita. It became a strategic crossing on the Matamoros Road: Mexican forces fortified nearby Fort Lipantitlán, General Urrea defeated Texan troops here in 1836, and Zachary Taylor staged his army in the region in 1845 before advancing to the Rio Grande and touching off the U.S.-Mexican War. During the Civil War the same route served as the Confederacy's 'Cotton Road' to Mexico.

Laredo, TX

Born in Laredo in 1823, a great-great-grandson of the town's founder, Santos Benavides rose to become its mayor and Webb County's chief justice before the Civil War. He raised a cavalry company for the Confederacy, defeated Juan Cortina at the Battle of Carrizo in 1861, and in March 1864 held Laredo with just 42 men against a Union force of more than 200. The highest-ranking Tejano officer of the Confederacy, he later served in the Texas Legislature and as a state commissioner.

Palo Pinto County, TX

Simpson Crawford carried a soldier's life west: a Kentucky native, he fought in the Mexican War at Vera Cruz and Mexico City before marrying and moving to Texas in 1852. By 1854 he had settled in the Keechi Valley of Palo Pinto County, part of the Peters Colony land-grant settlement, where he built a home and grew a ranch of some 3,100 acres. He also rode with the Texas Rangers, patrolling a still-dangerous frontier.

McKinney, TX

John (Jack) McGarrah and his family came from Tennessee in 1842 and opened a trading post here, becoming among the first settlers of present-day Collin County and defending their family fort against raids. When the county was created in 1846, its seat was laid out here as Buckner, where citizens elected their first officials on the Fourth of July and raised a company for the Mexican War. Found to sit outside the county's legal limits, the seat was moved to nearby McKinney by 1848, and Buckner reverted to farmland.

Wills Point, TX

Neal Martin's long life spanned the making of Texas: born in 1777, he came from Kentucky in 1816, hunted buffalo in Van Zandt County, and fought at the Battle of San Jacinto in the war for Texas independence. He later rode as a Texas Ranger, campaigned in Indian conflicts, and served in the U.S. Army during the Mexican War. He was buried here at the age of 102, his grave later marked by a great-granddaughter.

D'Hanis, TX

Established by the U.S. Army on July 7, 1849, Fort Lincoln was one link in a chain of posts strung from the Rio Grande to the Red River to guard the advancing line of settlement. It honored Captain George Lincoln, killed at the Battle of Buena Vista during the Mexican-American War in 1847. As settlers pushed farther west, the frontier moved past it, and the fort was abandoned in 1852.

Port Isabel, TX

A Mexican ranching village once stood on this point, settled in the 1700s and abandoned before the United States declared war on Mexico in 1846. That March, General Zachary Taylor's forces occupied the site and built a supply depot to receive shipments from New Orleans, a six-sided earthwork named Fort Polk for the president. The fort was abandoned in 1850, but the settlement it drew grew into Port Isabel, with traces of the earthworks visible into the 1920s.

Corpus Christi, TX

Henry L. Kinney built a fort-like trading post here, enclosed by a stockade around his home, store, and quarters for armed men, and Corpus Christi grew up around it. Much of his trade was with Indians and smuggling for Mexican Federalists, but business boomed when General Zachary Taylor's army camped nearby before marching to the Rio Grande in 1846. Kinney served as Taylor's quartermaster in the Mexican-American War, won repeated election to the legislature, and later ruined himself on a failed fair and a doomed Nicaragua scheme before dying in Matamoros.

Point Blank, TX

This site marks the home of George Thomas Wood, a Georgia-born leader who rose to prominence in the young state of Texas. He commanded a regiment as a colonel in the Mexican War, served in the Congress of the Republic, and was elected the second governor of the State of Texas, holding office from 1847 to 1849. He died in Texas in 1858, and the State erected this memorial in 1936, the year of the Texas Centennial.

Monterey, CA · est. 1997

This spot in Monterey marks where the original flagstaff stood when Commodore John Drake Sloat raised the American flag on July 7, 1846, claiming California for the United States. The seizure came during the war with Mexico, and the territory was formally ceded two years later under the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. A 1997 dedication by the state park commission and the Native Sons of the Golden West preserves the memory of that morning.

Sonoma, CA

General Mariano Vallejo built these adobe barracks on Sonoma's plaza in 1836 as a Mexican military headquarters on the northern frontier. Ten years later they became the seat of the Bear Flag Party, which proclaimed a "California Republic" here in June 1846. Weeks later Commodore John Drake Sloat claimed California for the United States, and by 1847 U.S. Army troops occupied the barracks.

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.