Operations in New Mexico and California. ROM the theatre of war where General Taylor was personally engaged, we now turn our eyes to the north. During the operations on the Rio Grande, just related, as well as subsequent to the fall of Monterey, important movements had taken place in northern Mexico, of which it may not be irrelevant to take a brief notice. Several pretty important battles had been fought, which had placed the army of invasion" in possession of the provinces of New Mexico, New Leon, Coahuila, Tamaulipas, and the Californias; a territory larger in extent than that embraced in the thirteen original States of the Union, inhabited by a considerable population, and much of it more than a thousand miles from the points at which the Americans collected their forces, and commenced their movements. Before describing the engagements which took place between 66 the Mexican and American forces, it may not be inappropriate to give an account of the invasion of the above provinces by the Americans. On the 30th of June, 1846, Brigadier-General Kearney, with the force under his command, amounting, in all, to about 1600 men, regulars and volunteers, moved from Fort Leavenworth upon Santa Fé, the capital of New Mexico, where, after a march of eight hundred and seventy-three miles, he arrived on the 18th of August, and took military possession of New Mexico without resistance at his approach. The Mexican forces, about four thousand in number, which had been collected near that city under the late Governor Armijo, to oppose his progress, dispersed, and the governor himself fled with a small command of dragoons in the direction of Chihuahua. Under the apprehension that the force which left Fort Leavenworth in June, might not be sufficient fully to effect the purpose of the expedition, which was, if found practicable, to pass on to California, after conquering and securing New Mexico, General Kearney was author |