Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America. Vol. 1.
Henry Coppee , LL.D., Ed.

But, generally speaking, let us remark again, these Southern volunteers did not resemble those who would have taken up arms in support of a truly national cause. They were, for the most part, adventurers recruited from among that idle, restless, and adventurous population which the Southern leaders had made the pioneers of their institutions and had alternately thrust upon the Antilles and the far West. They were not without military qualifications: always with rifle in hand, by turns soldiers, colonists, or traders, they had already fought as improvised citizens of Texas at the time when the North and the South were contending for the supremacy of influence in that ephemeral republic. They had already measured strength with the Mexican soldier, and at San Jacinto they had learned to outwit his vigilance and to excel his skill in horsemanship. The Americans, therefore, did not even wait for the declaration of war to launch out into the most hazardous expeditions. Between the populated districts of Mexico and the boundaries of Anglo-Saxon civilization, there was then a vast extent of country, almost untenanted, and inhabited only by roving Indians and a few settlers of Spanish origin. At certain periods this desert was ploughed by large armed caravans, which carried on a trade of more than ten millions annually, by following two routes, equally difficult and dangerous. One, starting from the rich mining districts of Chihuahua, pursued its course by way of El Paso, Santa Fe, and the Rocky Mountains to Fort Leavenworth, on the borders of the Missouri; the other, leaving Monterey, crossed the Rio Grande and Texas, and finally reached the settlements of Arkansas and Louisiana. Although nominally under the jurisdiction of Mexico, this country, of which all adventurers had glimpses in their golden dreams, was in reality the land of God, as the Arabs express it. The first object of the war was to wrest this territory from the feeble hands that were unable to turn it to account. So that, while we find the army which Scott led into Mexico proceeding with great regularity, and only fighting to compel the enemy to come to terms, the troops under Taylor, which attacked Mexico by way of the Rio Grande, were a colonizing army. To distinguish them from the Army