Comprised of the frontier military and the Indian conflicts of the southwest preceding the Civil War. The conflicts and eventual peace. Well researched and written. "Between 1845 and 1848 the United States came into possession of a princely domain. During that short period of time it acquired Texas, the Oregon country, and the Mexican Cession—more than a million square miles of territory—and thereby virtually established its present western and southern boundaries. Then came the discovery of gold in California and the mighty emigrant waves to the El Dorado. The problem of frontier defense, ever present from the beginning of the nation's history, was truly formidable now. The frontier was much longer and more remote, and the pioneers, though more numerous, were often dangerously scattered. The Indian was too close to the white man. The national government had acquired an added responsibility—defense of the new frontier. The period 1848-60 witnessed the evolution of the trans-Mississippi policy of defense. United States armies and engineers, supplementing the activities of the unofficial explorers, traders and trappers, blazed the trail for the march of empire...Moreover, the frontier army created an era full of color and romance which left a deep impression on our literature, our drama, and our arts. Some of our most distinguished military leaders of the Civil War—McClellan, Sherman, Grant, and Lee—served their apprenticeship on the western frontier. It is the purpose of this study to examine important phases of frontier defense in our Far Southwest—Texas, the Territories of New Mexico and Utah, and California—in the twelve years preceding the Civil War. Neighboring areas, such as present-day Kansas, Colorado, and Oklahoma, necessarily formed an integral part of the Southwest of the period."-Print ed.