Special Collections The University of Texas at Arlington Libraries Vol. XV III* No. 1 * Spring 2004

American troops forcing their way to the Main Plaza of Monterrey, Mexico, September 23, 1846. (Currier lithograph.

Special Collections recently acquired two manuscript collections relating to the U.S.-Mexican War of 1846-48 and its aftermath. The Lt. Delaney Floyd-Jones Letters, 1846-1862, and the Lt. Joseph Bennett Plummer Copy Letter Book, 1849-1853, now complement a comprehensive collection of Mexican War materials currently held in Special Collections known to researchers, scholars, and students across the country and in Mexico.

Map of the U.S. Army Operations at Monterey, Mexico, September 20-23, 1846.

The Floyd-Jones collection is comprised of forty-one autograph letters (circa 145 pages), written by 4^th U.S. Infantry 1^st Lieutenant Delaney Floyd-Jones to various correspondents, primarily his sister, mother and father, all of Long Island, New York; two manuscript maps of battles in Mexico; and three manuscript Mexican Army decrees (circa 8 pages). The letters, penned from 1846 to 1850, are housed in a contemporary period black album, carefully pasted in by the edge. This is a rare and significant collection of letters written by an American officer during the Mexican War providing an intimate, highly detailed first-hand account of his experiences and observations.

Floyd-Jones wrote from varied locations – aboard troop transport ships and from camps at the mouth of the Rio Grande, Monterrey, Camargo, Vera Cruz and Mexico City - telling of troop positions, strategic movements, travel conditions, news of dispatches, encampment grounds, reconnoitering parties, battles, casualties, and terms of surrender. Those letters written to the lieutenant’s father, fellow Army officer, Major General Henry Floyd-Jones, are perhaps the most noteworthy, including one nine-page letter that provides meticulously detailed descriptions of the battle of Monterrey, complete with a two-page manuscript map keyed to his narrative.

Lt. Plummer’s folio ledger book contains approximately three hundred letters (circa 340 pages) written from Fort Brown (current day Brownsville) July 14, 1849, to February 24, 1850, Fort Duncan (near Eagle Pass) March 18, 1850, to August 17,1851, and Washington, D.C., February 1, 1853. Plummer (1816-1862; West Point Class of 1841) was a 1^st Lieutenant in the 1^st U.S. Infantry and served as quartermaster on the Texas frontier. At the outbreak of the Civil War, Plummer advanced to the rank of Brigadier General in the Army of the Mississippi; he died of complications from a combat wound in 1862. As a regimental quartermaster, Plummer was responsible for provisioning all of the newly formed Army posts along the Rio Grande, including Fort Duncan, one of the most exposed and remote forts on the Texas frontier.

Lt. Floyd-Jones mapped the Valley of Mexico, using flags to designate the battlegrounds of Chapultepec, Churubusco, Mexico City, Molino del Rey and San Antonio.

The ledger book consists of daily letters written to various quartermasters at posts along the Rio Grande, reports to superiors in San Antonio and Washington, D.C., as well as correspondence with private individuals with whom the forts conducted business. The collection documents the constant problems and frustrations encountered in establishing outposts along the Rio Grande frontier immediately following the Mexican War. Plummer’s letter of July 29, 1850, reports the Harry Love Expedition up the Rio Grande River, including two original manuscript maps attributed to that expedition.

UTA Libraries’ Special Collections houses one of the most comprehensive collections of Mexican War materials in the U.S., including books, maps, broadsides, government documents, newspapers, sheet music, graphics, and microforms. In 1995, Texas A&M University Press published a comprehensive guide to UTA’s Mexican War holdings compiled by former UT System Regent Jenkins Garrett and entitled The Mexican-American War of 1846-1848: A Bibliography of the Holdings of the Libraries, The University of Texas at Arlington—a guide of seven hundred pages that has been sold to libraries and researchers around the world. In addition, from 1994-1998, UTA partnered with Dallas public television station KERA to produce the award-winning PBS documentary entitled The U.S. Mexican War, 1846-1848. Much of the documentary was based on research conducted in Special Collections.

For more information on the Floyd-Jones Letters and the Plummer Copy Letter Book, please contact Brenda McClurkin, (817) 272-7512 or mcclurkin@uta.edu.

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This page last update on Wednesday, April 14, 2004