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Return to First Page ARKANSAS HISTORICAL QUARTERLY, Volume 12 (Winter 1953) p.306
it may have been in part the result of soreness over his defeat by Yell in the regimental election. But even such a good Democrat as Major Solon Borland reported from San Antonio that "things in our regiment [have not] been well managed."(21)
By the middle of September General Wool's army was collected at San Antonio. He marched September 26 with some 1,950 men upon his assigned mission of going to Chihuahua. Four companies of the Arkansas regiment remained behind under Major Borland to come up with the rear party with additional supplies. Pike's company, its sick left with Major Borland, marched with the advance column under Colonel Yell.(22) On October 12, the Arkansas cavalry, along with the remainder of General Wool's force, crossed the Rio Grande opposite the Mexican town of Presidio.(23) Once across the river the army encamped to await orders from General Taylor, who, it was learned, had taken Monterey and signed an armistice. A member of Pike's company wrote home:
Since the news of the Armistice, and our peaceful and bloodless entry into Presidio, all are convinced that the war is quite concluded, are anxious to return----none more so than myself. I am sick of ranging over uninteresting country, looking for an enemy we cannot find. . . Capt. Pike . . . would, himself, gladly be on his way home. He is most anxious for our immediate discharge, which may take place.(24)
But the Arkansas volunteers were not destined to return home at this juncture. General Wool determined to move on to Monclova. Pike's and Preston's companies were separated from the Arkansas regiment and formed into a squadron under command of Pike, the senior captain. Pike was then ordered to escort the topographical engineers in reconnoitering the route to Santa Rosa, which was to be
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21 Borland to Major Fields, September 28, 1846, in Banner, November 11, 1846.
22 This division of the Arkansas horse was perhaps a result of a quarrel between Major Borland and Colonel Yell. See Fulton, ed., Diary & Letters of Gregg, I, 218-219.
23 Sen. Ex. Doc. 2, 31st Cong., 1st Sess. Serial No. 558, p. 18.
24 "Letter from Presidio," October 12, 1846, in Banner, November 25, 1846.