Kearny’s March

By Winston Groom

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The subtitle of Kearny’s March is “The Epic Creation of the American West, 1846-1847.” For a reader who is weak on American history, any topic beyond the Revolutionary/federal period and before the Civil War is terra incognita. This popular history details the events of only a single year, but what a year it was! In 1846, General Stephen Kearny set out from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, with 2,000 cavalrymen and began a march to California. President Polk had just been elected, winning his election by talking war, specifically with the British, who still held the Oregon Territory. Congress, too, was in a pugnacious mood, voting to annex Texas. By 1847, Polk would have achieved both objectives, and the United States would stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Territories held by mighty empires fell with surprising ease into American hands. Here (in occasionally confusing) detail is the story of this astonishing year and the men who schemed, intrigued and fought carrying the flag across a continent. Some names are familiar – Kit Carson, Brigham Young – others, like General Kearny and Colonel Alexander Doniphan are military heroes whose exploits are not as well known. Kearny’s March is an information-dense work by a multi-published historical writer. (Novelists take note.)