Capture of Tucson (1846)
| Capture of Tucson | |||||||
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| Part of the Mexican-American War | |||||||
 The Mormon Battalion at the Gila River (Gila Bend, AZ) by George M. Ottinger. |
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 United States
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 Mexico
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
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Philip St. George Cooke
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Antonio Comaduron
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| Strength | |||||||
| ~360 | ~200 | ||||||
The Capture of Tucson was an uncontested United States entry into the Mexican city of Tucson, Sonora, now the present day Tucson, Arizona. The would-be combatants were provisional Mexican Army troops and the American Army's "Mormon Battalion". Tucson temporarily 'fell' in December 1846 without resistance but was immediately reoccupied two days later by the Mexican forces once the US troops moved on.
The Mexican-American War began after Thornton's Defeat in 1846. This same year a battalion of Mormon men was recruited by the United States Army in western Iowa and dispatched with General Steven Watts Kearny's "Army of the West" across what they considered the "Great Western Desert". The mission assigned to the Mormon Battalion was to create a continuous wagon road from Santa Fe to San Diego - the first into southern California. See Southern Emigrant Trail.
The American force, of around 500 riflemen and officers, were commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Philip St. George Cooke. Only an effective force of 360 took part in the trek across the Arizona desert. Previously, about 150 physically unfit men and some eighty-four women and children family members trailing the Battalion towards Santa Fe had been sent to the trapper/trader compound 'el pueblo' (modern Pueblo Colorado) on the Arkansas River.
Marching towards Tucson in November 1846, the Mormon Battalion fought their only battle and it was against wild cattle which attacked them near the San Pedro River. After the "Battle of the Bulls", as it is humorously known, the force turned west towards Tucson, where it seemed they might have to really fight the Mexican garrison of Fort Tucson, a former Spanish presidio.
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Wikipedia