Mexican American War Characters
US Army Officer
Description:
I thought the war was going to be a lot of fun.
How could the Mexicans put up much of a fight when
they were up against the powerful United States? But
soon enough the reality of war set in. As we moved
up the Rio Grande, it was incredibly hot, hotter than
I’d ever experienced. The water was bad and many of
my men got diarrhea, dysentery, and other diseases.
It was awful. We lost a thousand men just from sickness.
I watched some men do horrible things. As I
wrote in my diary: “We reached Burrita about 5 p.m.,
many of the Louisiana volunteers were there, a lawless
drunken rabble. They had driven away the inhabitants,
taken possession of their houses, and were
emulating [copying] each other in making beasts of
themselves.” They raped many women there.
PRIMARY SOURCE LINK:
PRIMARY SOURCE DESCRIPTION:
John Charles Freemont was born on January 31st, 1831 in Georgia. At a young age he attended Charlestown Colllege and later became an explorer traveler, and map maker. He also became and was a teacher in 1833. in 1837 he surveyed the Cherokee lands in Georgia and by 1838 he was commissioned as the US Topographical Corps. He satisfied his yearn to explore when he did so at the Rockies. He explored western of the United States in 1842 as well as land not yet part of the US.
Dona Francesca Vallejo
Description:
I live in California, a part of Mexico. I am a wealthy woman, a wealthy Mexican woman.
With my husband, I own 175,000 acres. I have numerous servants. I have two for my own personal
service. Four or five servants grind corn for tortillas, for we entertain so many guests that three servants could not feed them all. About six or seven work in the kitchen. Five or six are continually occupied washing the clothes of my 16 children and the rest are employed in the house; and finally, nearly a dozen attend to the sewing and spinning. This is where my children were born. I have always been very friendly to visitorswho come from the United States, and some even say that I am famous for the hospitality I show my guests. And now there is a war. The United States will try to take California away from Mexico, but they have no right, and we won’t let them.
The man married to Dona Francescca Vallejo was General Mariano G. Vallego (1808-1890). He was born in Monterrey, died in Sonoma, and married in San Diego on March of 1832. He was a military cadet for the Monterrey company in 1824 and in 1838 he was assigned as comandante-general of California. In 1831 he was assigned to be comandante-general yet again after being assigned to the San Fransisco company in 1830. Even though Mariano was from Spain, he served as an officer of Mexico and a California military commander.
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