Doniphan’s Expedition

A teacher turned soldier, John T. Hughes like so many other volunteers saw in the outbreak of the Mexican War the possibility for adventure and glory. He joined the First Regiment of Missouri Mounted Volunteers and announced that he planned to write a history of his fighting unit commanded by Col. Alexander Doniphan, who would come to be regarded as among the finest volunteer officers of the war. The result of Hughes’s efforts certainly is one of the most colorful personal accounts of the Mexican War ever written. Doniphan’s Expedition follows the regiment on its grueling 850-mile march from Fort Leavenworth, present-day Kansas, along the Santa Fe Trail, to invade Mexico. Along the way, Hughes observes and describes in impressive detail the discipline, morale, and effectiveness of the civilian soldiers encountering hardships on the rough plains and deserts. He gives their impressions of Santa Fe and offers valuable insight into the military occupation of that city. As significant cultural history, this account also chronicles the fears and prejudices of the soldiers meeting a seemingly strange people in a strange land. Furthermore, Hughes provides an excellent first-hand account of the two battles of the expedition: the Battle of Brazito and the Battle of Sacramento.

First published in 1847, Doniphan’s Expedition is now once again made available, with a new foreword by Joseph G. Dawson III, to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Mexican War. General readers will find this book to be an enthralling examination of another time and place in U.S. and Mexican military and cultural history. Historians will rediscover a significant contribution to Mexican War literature.