In 1847 General Winfield Scott boldly led a small but undaunted army from the Mexican coast all the way to the Halls of Montezuma, routing Mexican forces at every turn while pacifying the countryside. Scott's military campaign--America's first ever in a foreign country--helped pave the way for victory in the wider war against Mexico and also posed new challenges for discipline, logistics, and the treatment of civilians. Yet it has remained largely neglected by historians.

In this first book-length study of Scott's brilliant six-month campaign, Timothy Johnson shows how Scott overcame such...

A welcome addition to the eyewitness sources available to researchers and scholars of the U.S.-Mexican War

Born in July 1821, Daniel Harvey Hill grew up in "genteel poverty" on a large plantation in York District, South Carolina. He entered West Point and graduated in the middle of the renowned Class of 1842. Following garrison duty as a junior lieutenant with the First and Third Artilleries, Hill joined the Fourth Artillery at Fortress Monroe in January 1846. Six months later he was en route to Mexico.

Published here for the first time, Hill's diary vividly...