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The Thornton Affair, also known as the Thornton Skirmish, Thornton's Defeat, or Rancho Carricitos, [2] was a battle in 1846 between the military forces of the United States and Mexico 20 miles (32 km) west upriver from Zachary Taylor's camp along the Rio Grande.
A Mexican soldier at Palo Alto. Facing north and moving left to right, General Arista's army consisted of General Antonio Canales Rosillo's 400 irregular cavalry in chaparral, Anastasio Torrejon's cavalry brigade consisting of the 8th, 7th and Light Cavalry, astride the Point Isabel road, then came General Jose Maria Garcia's brigade of the 4th and 10th Infantry with two 8-pounders, then ...
The Mexican War, 1846–1848. New York: Macmillan. ISBN 0-8032-6107-1. Brooks, N.C. Complete History Of The Mexican War: Grigg, Elliot & Co.Philadelphia 1849; Listing of 1846–1848 US Army Casualties; Ramsey, Albert C. The Other Side or Notes For The History of The War Between Mexico And The United States John Wiley New York 1850
On April 25, 1846, a 2,000-man Mexican cavalry detachment attacked a 70-man U.S. patrol commanded by Captain Seth Thornton, which had been sent into the contested territory north of the Rio Grande and south of the Nueces River. In the Thornton Affair, the Mexican cavalry routed the patrol, killing 11 American soldiers and capturing 52. [12]
The Mexican War overview map. The Mexican–American War began after Thornton's Defeat in 1846. This same year a battalion of Mormon men was recruited by the United States Army in western Iowa and dispatched with General Steven Watts Kearny's "Army of the West" across what they considered the "Great Western Desert".
On April 25, 1846, in an event known as the Thornton Affair, a large contingent of Mexican cavalry attacked an American patrol in the area between the Rio Grande and the Nueces, killing 16 Americans. On May 3, Mexican troops initiated the siege of Fort Texas, bombarding a makeshift American fort along the Rio Grande.
The location where the initial bloodshed (known as the Thornton Affair) occurred in April 1846 is located in present-day Cameron County, Texas, just north of the Rio Grande which represented the American claim for Texas's boundary with Mexico (as well as the current international border).
The Mexican–American War (1846–48) was the U.S. Army's first experience waging an extended conflict in a foreign land. This brief war is often overlooked by casual students of history since it occurred so close to the American Civil War and is overshadowed by the latter's sheer size and scope.