Kearny, Stephen Watts
Kearny, Stephen Watts (1794–1848), frontier army commander, conqueror of New Mexico, governor of California.Born in Newark to a prominent New Jersey family, Kearny became a regular army lieutenant in the War of 1812. He served with distinction at the Battle of Queenston Heights on the Niagara frontier. Promoted in the postwar period, he served in several expeditions and posts on the western frontier and molded the dragoons into one of the U.S. Army's crack units.
During the Mexican War, Colonel Kearny received orders to organize an expedition of dragoons and Missouri Volunteers and seize Sante Fe, the provincial capital of New Mexico. Commanding the Army of the West, Kearny led 1,800 men 700 miles from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, on 30 June 1846, arriving at Santa Fe on 18 August. As a brigadier general, he established a U.S. civil government and a territorial constitution there, then...
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