Conquests by the Navy

Doniphan rested six weeks in Chihuahua, when he joined Wool at Saltillo late in May. Then he proceeded to New Orleans, having made a march from the Mississippi and back of about five thousand miles. The conquest of all Northern Mexico and California was now complete. Some conspiracies against the new government in New Mexico ripened into revolt in January, 1847, when Governor Bent and others were murdered. Massacres occurred at various places. The insurgents were defeated at Canada, by troops under Colonel Price, and were scattered at the Pass of Embudo. Permanent peace was then secured.

By these conquests New Mexico, one of the places in the interior of the North American continent earliest visited by the Spaniards, became a permanent portion of the domain of our country. It was first traversed by the white race in the persons of Cabeca de Vaca and the remnant of those who followed Narvaez to Florida. They reached New Mexico some time in 1536, when de Vaca sent a report of what he saw to the viceroy of Mexico. Expeditions were sent into that region from Mexico, and one of them penetrated to the Rio Grande. That company were the first Europeans who saw the bison, or buffalo, on our continent. Castaneda, the historian of the expedition, calls the animal "a new kind of ox, wild and fierce, whereof the first day they killed fourscore, which sufficed the army with flesh."