Capture of Tucson (1846)
Encyclopedia
The Capture of Tucson was a United States
attack on the Mexican
city of Tucson, Sonora
, now the present day Tucson, Arizona
. The would be combatants were provisional Mexican Army
troops and the American Mormon Battalion
. Tucson fell in December of 1846 without resistance.
in 1846. This same year the Mormon
battalion was dispatched across the what they considered the "Great Western Desert."
American force were commanded by Lieutenant Colonel
Philip St. George Cooke
and around 500 riflemen and officer
s. Although there were around 500 men on the Mormon Battalion roster, only an effective force of 360 took part in the trek across the Arizona desert. Eighty-four women and children were also present during the advance across Arizona.
Marching northwest to Tucson in November of the said year, the battalion fought their only battle in Arizona, against wild cattle
which attacked them near the San Pedro River
. After the "Battle of the Bulls", as it is known, the force moved on to the outskirts of Tucson, where they expected to fight the Mexican garrison of Fort Tucson, a former Spanish
presidio
.
The Mexican force consisted of around 200 men, most likely infantry
and cavalry
plus two small brass
cannon
s, as well as an unknown force of men from the garrisons of Tubac
, Santa Cruz
and Fronteras. On December 16, 1846, the American enlisted men of the Mormon Battalion arrived at the end of Tucson, to attack the town's garrison.
The Mexican Captain Antonio Comaduron had received short warning of the approaching Americans. At first he was reluctant to surrender the presidio, but eventually after realizing he was outnumbered, Captain Comaduron decided to withdraw without fighting. He also advised many civilians to abandon Tucson with him.
The Mexicans retreated to San Xavier
just as the Americans began their assault to take the city. No fighting occurred and a twenty-eight star American flag flew over Tucson for the first time. As soon as colonel's army entered Tucson, they began to assure the frightened and staring population of their friendly intentions. Many of the Mormon men were interested in trade.
Lieutenant Colonel Cooke's soldiers had been low on food so the Mexicans and Pimas bartered meat and bread for cloth, buttons and pins, but only a little food was transferred to the Mormons through trade. Several thousand bushels of grain were left behind by the Mexican garrison. The Mormons took this, and on December 17 they proceeded onto San Xavier. The only shots fired had been from a picket who mistook approaching Mexican civilians for soldiers and fired. Nobody was harmed though.
Fifty men under Colonel Cooke were spotted five miles before the mission
town, prompting the Mexican Army to retreat again, south towards the Tubac
presidio. The Mormons then ended their occupation and continued on their march across the desert. Eventually the Mormons left Tucson and the Mexicans recaptured the city. Tucson, which was said to have 400 to 500 inhabitants at this time, would officially become an American community ten years later in 1856, after the Gadsden Purchase
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
attack on the Mexican
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
city of Tucson, Sonora
Sonora
Sonora officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora is one of the 31 states which, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 72 municipalities; the capital city is Hermosillo....
, now the present day Tucson, Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
. The would be combatants were provisional Mexican Army
Mexican Army
The Mexican Army is the combined land and air branch and largest of the Mexican Military services; it also is known as the National Defense Army. It is famous for having been the first army to adopt and use an automatic rifle, , in 1899, and the first to issue automatic weapons as standard issue...
troops and the American Mormon Battalion
Mormon Battalion
The Mormon Battalion was the only religiously based unit in United States military history, and it served from July 1846 to July 1847 during the Mexican-American War. The battalion was a volunteer unit of between 534 and 559 Latter-day Saints men led by Mormon company officers, commanded by regular...
. Tucson fell in December of 1846 without resistance.
Capture
The Mexican-American War began after Thornton's DefeatThornton Affair
The Thornton Affair, also known as the Thornton Skirmish, Thornton's Defeat, or Rancho Carricitos was a battle between the military forces of the United States and Mexico. It served as the primary justification for U.S. President James K. Polk's declaration of war against Mexico in 1846,...
in 1846. This same year the Mormon
Mormon
The term Mormon most commonly denotes an adherent, practitioner, follower, or constituent of Mormonism, which is the largest branch of the Latter Day Saint movement in restorationist Christianity...
battalion was dispatched across the what they considered the "Great Western Desert."
American force were commanded by Lieutenant Colonel
Lieutenant colonel
Lieutenant colonel is a rank of commissioned officer in the armies and most marine forces and some air forces of the world, typically ranking above a major and below a colonel. The rank of lieutenant colonel is often shortened to simply "colonel" in conversation and in unofficial correspondence...
Philip St. George Cooke
Philip St. George Cooke
Philip St. George Cooke was a career United States Army cavalry officer who served as a Union General in the American Civil War. He is noted for his authorship of an Army cavalry manual, and is sometimes called the "Father of the U.S...
and around 500 riflemen and officer
Officer (armed forces)
An officer is a member of an armed force or uniformed service who holds a position of authority. Commissioned officers derive authority directly from a sovereign power and, as such, hold a commission charging them with the duties and responsibilities of a specific office or position...
s. Although there were around 500 men on the Mormon Battalion roster, only an effective force of 360 took part in the trek across the Arizona desert. Eighty-four women and children were also present during the advance across Arizona.
Marching northwest to Tucson in November of the said year, the battalion fought their only battle in Arizona, against wild cattle
Cattle
Cattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius...
which attacked them near the San Pedro River
San Pedro River (Arizona)
San Pedro River is a northward-flowing stream originating about ten miles south of Sierra Vista, Arizona near Cananea, Sonora, Mexico. It is one of only two rivers which flow north from Mexico into the United States. The river flows north through Cochise County, Pima County, Graham County, and...
. After the "Battle of the Bulls", as it is known, the force moved on to the outskirts of Tucson, where they expected to fight the Mexican garrison of Fort Tucson, a former Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
presidio
Presidio
A presidio is a fortified base established by the Spanish in North America between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. The fortresses were built to protect against pirates, hostile native Americans and enemy colonists. Other presidios were held by Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth...
.
Infantry
Infantrymen are soldiers who are specifically trained for the role of fighting on foot to engage the enemy face to face and have historically borne the brunt of the casualties of combat in wars. As the oldest branch of combat arms, they are the backbone of armies...
and cavalry
Cavalry
Cavalry or horsemen were soldiers or warriors who fought mounted on horseback. Cavalry were historically the third oldest and the most mobile of the combat arms...
plus two small brass
Brass
Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc; the proportions of zinc and copper can be varied to create a range of brasses with varying properties.In comparison, bronze is principally an alloy of copper and tin...
cannon
Cannon
A cannon is any piece of artillery that uses gunpowder or other usually explosive-based propellents to launch a projectile. Cannon vary in caliber, range, mobility, rate of fire, angle of fire, and firepower; different forms of cannon combine and balance these attributes in varying degrees,...
s, as well as an unknown force of men from the garrisons of Tubac
Tubac, Arizona
Tubac is a census-designated place in Santa Cruz County, Arizona, United States. The population was 949 at the 2000 census. The place name Tubac is an English borrowing from a Hispanicized form of the O'odham name, which translates into English as "rotten". The original O'odham name is written...
, Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz, Sonora
Santa Cruz is a town in Santa Cruz Municipality, in the northern region of the Mexican state of Sonora.- External links : ...
and Fronteras. On December 16, 1846, the American enlisted men of the Mormon Battalion arrived at the end of Tucson, to attack the town's garrison.
The Mexican Captain Antonio Comaduron had received short warning of the approaching Americans. At first he was reluctant to surrender the presidio, but eventually after realizing he was outnumbered, Captain Comaduron decided to withdraw without fighting. He also advised many civilians to abandon Tucson with him.
The Mexicans retreated to San Xavier
Mission San Xavier del Bac
Mission San Xavier del Bac is a historic Spanish Catholic mission located about 10 miles south of downtown Tucson, Arizona, on the Tohono O'odham San Xavier Indian Reservation...
just as the Americans began their assault to take the city. No fighting occurred and a twenty-eight star American flag flew over Tucson for the first time. As soon as colonel's army entered Tucson, they began to assure the frightened and staring population of their friendly intentions. Many of the Mormon men were interested in trade.
Lieutenant Colonel Cooke's soldiers had been low on food so the Mexicans and Pimas bartered meat and bread for cloth, buttons and pins, but only a little food was transferred to the Mormons through trade. Several thousand bushels of grain were left behind by the Mexican garrison. The Mormons took this, and on December 17 they proceeded onto San Xavier. The only shots fired had been from a picket who mistook approaching Mexican civilians for soldiers and fired. Nobody was harmed though.
Fifty men under Colonel Cooke were spotted five miles before the mission
Mission San Xavier del Bac
Mission San Xavier del Bac is a historic Spanish Catholic mission located about 10 miles south of downtown Tucson, Arizona, on the Tohono O'odham San Xavier Indian Reservation...
town, prompting the Mexican Army to retreat again, south towards the Tubac
Presidio San Ignacio de Tubac
The Presidio of San Ignacio de Túbac or Fort Tubac was a Spanish built fortress. The fortification was established by the Spanish Army in 1753 at the site of present-day Tubac, Arizona.-Spanish Period:...
presidio. The Mormons then ended their occupation and continued on their march across the desert. Eventually the Mormons left Tucson and the Mexicans recaptured the city. Tucson, which was said to have 400 to 500 inhabitants at this time, would officially become an American community ten years later in 1856, after the Gadsden Purchase
Gadsden Purchase
The Gadsden Purchase is a region of present-day southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico that was purchased by the United States in a treaty signed by James Gadsden, the American ambassador to Mexico at the time, on December 30, 1853. It was then ratified, with changes, by the U.S...
.
See also
- Capture of Tucson (1862)Capture of Tucson (1862)The Capture of Tucson was a United States attack on Tucson in Confederate Arizona on May 20, 1862. A Union force of 2,000 took the city from ten Tucson militiamen without a shot fired.-Background:...
- First Battle of TucsonFirst Battle of TucsonThe First Battle of Tucson was a confrontation at Tucson, Arizona on December 6, 1779, as part of the Apache-Mexico Wars. Captain Pedro Allande y Saabedra with a force of only fifteen men defeated an army of around 350 strong.-Battle:...
- Second Battle of TucsonSecond Battle of TucsonThe Second Battle of Tucson or the May Day Attack was a battle in Tucson, Arizona, and the neighboring pueblo. It occurred during the Mexican Apache Wars on May 1, 1782, between a small garrison of Spanish soldiers and hundreds of Apache warriors....
- Third Battle of TucsonThird Battle of Tucson (1782)The Third Battle of Tucson was a battle during the Spanish colonization of Sonora, now the present day Arizona in the United States. The battle pitched the Apache warriors against the Spanish cavalry garrison of Tucson.-Battle:...
- Fourth Battle of TucsonFourth Battle of TucsonThe Fourth Battle of Tucson was a raid during the Spanish-Apache Wars. At break of day, on March 21, 1784, a force of no more than 500 Apaches and Navajos attacked Spanish cavalry guards protecting a herd of livestock at the Presidio San Augustin del Tucson in southern Arizona.-Battle:The Spanish...
- Apache WarsApache WarsThe Apache Wars were a series of armed conflicts between the United States and Apaches fought in the Southwest from 1849 to 1886, though other minor hostilities continued until as late as 1924. The Confederate Army participated in the wars during the early 1860s, for instance in Texas, before being...
- Navaho Wars
- Spanish period of ArizonaSpanish period of ArizonaIn the late 18th century, colonists began steadily entering the region of northern New Spain that is the modern-day U.S. state of Arizona. They were attracted by reports of the discovery of deposits of silver around the Arizonac mining camp...
- Mexican period of ArizonaMexican period of ArizonaIn 1821, Mexico won its independence from Spain after a decade of war. The revolution had destroyed the colonial silver mining industry and had bankrupted the national treasury. Along the northern frontier, funds that had supported missions, presidios and trading routes were reduced. As missions...