"It's Time to Remember the Role of Indians in the" Topic

…Mexican-American War

"A hot and humid summer day in St. Louis, 1847. Church bells pealing, flags lolling in the heavy summer air, the city had assembled to toast the arrival of Capt. Alexander Doniphan and his band of Missouri volunteers from the Mexican War. A hush came over the massive crowd as Senator Thomas Hart Benton, the keynote speaker, took to the stage. The senator invoked the remarkable triumphs of the "American Xenophon" and his hardscrabble men. Benton's gravely voice boomed as he recounted the"bloodless conquest" of New Mexico, a Mexican province; the swift and unaccountably lopsided conquest of Chihuahua; and the daring march east to rendezvous with General Zachary Taylor and his army.

The senator told these familiar stories with relish. But he devoted far more time to another story, one that many in the audience would have known but that we have since forgotten. In May of 1847, a detachment of Doniphan's men led by Captain John Reid rode into the town of Parras in the Mexican state of Coahuila and found that it had just been attacked by Comanche Indians. Moved to pity by the townspeople's lament, Reid and his soldiers pursued the raiders, killing scores and redeeming several hundred horses and eighteen captive women and children…"

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