Narrative of the Texan Santa Fe Expedition, Comprising a Description of a Tour through Texas, and Across the Great Southwestern Prairies, the Camanche and Cagua Hunting Grounds, with an Account of the Sufferings from Want of Food, Etc.
Author: George Wilkins Kendall (1809–1867)
Year: 1845
Publisher: Harper and Brothers Publishers
Place: New York
Description:
2 volumes. xii-[13]-405 pages with frontispiece, folding map and one lithographic plate; xii-[11]-406 pages with frontispiece and two lithographic plates. Octavo ( 8" x 5 1/4") bound in original publisher's brown cloth and blind-stamped gilt titles to spine. and blind stamped pictorial design to covers. (Best of the West 84; Jenkins, Basic Texas Books 116; Graff 2304; Howes K75 "aa"; Wagner-Camp 110:1; Rittenhouse 347; Sabin 37360; Streeter, Texas 1515) First edition, second issue binding with 1845 imprinted on spine.
George Wilkins Kendall, journalist and pioneer Texas sheepman. In 1841 at Austin Kendall joined the Texan Santa Fe expedition, launched by Texas President Mirabeau B. Lamar. Near Tucumcari, New Mexico, the expedition, suffering hardships and confusion, surrendered to the Mexican army. Kendall marched as a prisoner to Mexico City, where he and others were imprisoned for a time in a leper colony. The Picayune published twenty-three of his letters (June 17, 1841-April 30, 1842) detailing his experiences, and influential friends secured his release in May 1842. On his return to New Orleans Kendall ran a serial account of the expedition in the Picayune, and in 1844 he published Narrative of the Texan Santa Fé Expedition, a 900-page book that sold 40,000 copies in eight years. When it appeared in book format, much of Kendall's material had been plagiarized in Frederick Marryat's Narrative of the Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet. For the next three years Kendall's Picayune advocated war with Mexico. When the Mexican War came in 1846 Kendall became a volunteer in Capt. Benjamin McCulloch's Texas Ranger company, attached to Gen. Zachary Taylor's army on the Rio Grande. He accompanied the rangers on long and dangerous reconnaissances and was present at the storming of Monterrey. Kendall's reporting brought immediate fame, and he was hailed as the nation's first war correspondent. Kendall next traveled with the staff of Gen. William Jenkins Worth and recorded Gen. Winfield Scott's landing at Veracruz and the subsequent Mexico City campaign. Kendall was wounded in the knee in the storming of Chapultepec. After the war Kendall sojourned in Europe for several years, and in 1849 in Paris he married Adeline de Valcourt. The couple had four children. There too, he prepared his second book, The War between the United States and Mexico, which was published in 1851 with a profusion of illustrations by Carl Nebel.
Condition:
Spine dulled, recased with new end papers,, previous owner's old ink name and blind stamp to front end papers, foxing, page 65 volume one and two old ink name to margin effecting text, else very good.
