been adopted to insure its early departure and its ultimate success.

Having completed all the arrangements, on June 26th the main body of
this expedition had moved from the fort; and after a rapid but
interesting march of eight hundred seventy-three miles, on August 18th
it entered and took possession of Santa Fé, the capital of New Mexico,
the Mexican forces, numbering four thousand, which had been collected to
defend the town, having dispersed, without offering the least
opposition, as it approached.

While these operations in New Mexico and on the western frontier of the
United States were taking place, Brevet-Captain John C. Frémont, who had
been engaged in explorations on the western slope of the Rocky
Mountains, had also revolutionized the Province of California, and, to
some extent at least, had anticipated the movements of the expedition
commanded by General Kearney. The character of his mission being
scientific and peaceful rather than warlike, he had not had an officer
or soldier of the regular army in his company; and his whole force had
consisted of sixty-two men employed by himself for security against the
Indians and for procuring subsistence in the wilderness and desert
country through which he had passed. For the purpose of obtaining game
for his men and grass for his horses, in an uninhabited part of
California, he had, during the winter of 1845-1846, solicited and
obtained permission from the Mexican authorities to winter in the Valley
of San Joaquin; but he had scarcely established himself before he
received advices that the Mexican commander was preparing to attack him
under the pretext that under the cover of a scientific mission he was
exciting the American settlers in that vicinity to revolt.

In view of this threatened attack, and for the purpose of repelling it,