U.S Dragoon

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On 13 January 1846, General Taylor was ordered to the Rio Grande, reaching there 28 March. A Mexican reconnaissance in force on the northern river bank shot up and captured Captain Thornton's reconnaissance troop on 24 April near Matamoros, and fighting had officially begun. War was not officially declared by the United States until 13 May 1846, after the first battles had been fought on the Rio Grande.

The actions of the war concerned two principal columns of invasion, one from the Rio Grande under General Taylor, and the other from an amphibious landing at Vera Cruz under General Scott. Taylor won his first major encounter at Palo Alto on 8 May 1846, and the aftermath Resaca de la Palma the next day. Starting from Matamoros, he captured Monterey on 24 September, and Saltillo 16 November, in a remarkably dilatory campaign. He met Santa Anna's army on the rough ground at the pass of La Angostura just beyond Saltillo on the way to San Luís Potosí on 22 February 1847. This Battle of Buena Vista was essentially a draw, since Santa Anna withdrew with his outnumbering army without following up the previous day's events, and Taylor never proceeded farther. Both Generals proclaimed victory, but Taylor can be considered to have profited the most, since it led to his Presidency. Units of Taylor's army captured Tampico on 28 October 1846, and held it until the end of the war.
Apart from the Dragoons involvement in Mexico they also waged war against the Indians.
1819-30, witnessed the creation of a so-called "permanent Indian frontier." The Indians of the newly created territories of Missouri (1816) and Arkansas (1819) were displaced west of their boundaries. Then, between 1819 and 1827, a line of seven new military posts, reaching from present Minnesota to the state of Louisiana, was established. The posts were in part intended to reassure territorial settlers. However, the most active of the forts were those assigned to keep the peace between the Indians who had been relocated and the Indian nations that were already resident west of the frontier.1819-30, witnessed the creation of a so-called "permanent Indian frontier." The Indians of the newly created territories of Missouri (1816) and Arkansas (1819) were displaced west of their boundaries. Then, between 1819 and 1827, a line of seven new military posts, reaching from present Minnesota to the state of Louisiana, was established. The posts were in part intended to reassure territorial settlers. However, the most active of the forts were those assigned to keep the peace between the Indians who had been relocated and the Indian nations that were already resident west of the frontier.
Several of the treaties obligated the United States to provide protection for the "removed" eastern Indians from the "wild Indians" of the Plains. The relocated Indians also had to deal with outlaws and whiskey runners from Arkansas and with brigands and horse thieves from the American colonies within Mexican Tejas (the independent Republic of Texas after 1836). Conversely, Comanche and Kiowa raiders began to use "Indian territory" as a refuge after preying on the American settlements in Tejas/Texas. In response to the various demands for protection, the U.S. Army reestablished Forts Gibson and Smith and founded Forts Coffee (1834), Wayne (1838), and Washita (1842). A system of military roads, the first genuine roads in today's Oklahoma, were blazed to connect such posts. During the 1830-48 phase of military activity soldiers took part in four expeditions in the Oklahoma portion of Indian territory. All of these efforts were partially intended to further the work of the Stokes Commission. The commission, established in 1832 by the secretary of war, sought to discourage the raiding of removed eastern Indians by Plains Indians. Capt. Jesse Bean's 1832 expedition of volunteer "mounted riflemen" and Capt. James B. Many's 1833 expedition of infantry and riflemen failed to make contact with the Plains nations they sought. However, Capt. Henry Dodge's "Dragoon Expedition" of 1834 (dragoons are heavily armed, mounted troops) was able to persuade some Kiowa, Comanche, and Wichita in southwestern Oklahoma to meet with U.S. representatives. The Dragoon Expedition was significant as the first major mounted military expedition in U.S. history. A year later the Stokes Commission sent out Maj. Richard B. Mason with another party of dragoons. The 1835 Treaty of Camp Holmes secured by the Mason Expedition was the first U.S. treaty with southern Plains or southwestern Indians. At least two of the expeditions mentioned above were also concerned with protecting the burgeoning trade with the Mexican province of Nuevo Mexico via the Santa Fe Trail. Some of the Indians engaged in raiding the caravans were based in what is now western Oklahoma. The Many Expedition doubled as a show of strength after an attack on a party of U.S. traders. The Mason Expedition attempted to secure a promise that the Plains Indians would not make further raids on traders. The expeditions of 1832-35 provided training for the U.S. Army units that fought in the Mexican War more than a decade later.

The fourth phase of military engagement in Oklahoma, 1848-61, took place between the end of the war with Mexico and the beginning of the Civil War. This period was one of intensified settlement in the new state of Texas (December 29, 1845) and the new territories of Nebraska and Kansas (1854). Today's Oklahoma was the recipient of the Indian populations of Kansas, Nebraska, and Texas as they were forced out. There was, accordingly, an increasing tendency to refer to present Oklahoma as the Indian Territory. Once again, the army was called upon to be an instrument of coercion in Indian removal. As the fiction of the "permanent Indian frontier" disappeared, Forts Gibson and Towson were closed. In their place came Fort Cobb (1859), which received Indians from Texas, and Fort Arbuckle (1851). The latter post sought to protect the Choctaw and Chickasaw, as well as overland emigrants, from increasingly numerous raids by Kiowa and Comanche holdouts in Texas.




















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