"A recent event on the minds of many Americans at the beginning of the US-Mexico War was the Republic of Texas? disastrous expedition to Santa Fe of 1841. Instead of a relatively easy trek westward, the Texans had lost their way and endured severe hardships. Instead of finding allies in their struggle against Mexico, the Texans had received a hostile reception. Not only did the Texans have inadequate information about the sentiments of New Mexicans, they also brought no maps or scientific instruments to guide them or to record measurements for later work. One positive result was this map ? one of the first of many to focus on Texas and New Mexico together with a considerable portion of Mexico as far south as Mexico City and Veracruz. Apparently with little first-hand cartographic material available, the map?s draftsman and engraver Kemble did an admirable job for publishers Harper & Bros. of New York, compiling it as an illustration to New Orleans Picayune correspondent George Wilkins Kendall?s account of the expedition and his captivity in Mexico. It delineates the expedition?s route north from Austin into the Cross Timbers and westward, crossing the Chihuahua and Santa Fe trails used by earlier traders. From Santa Fe it documents the route of the prisoners southward, deep into Mexico before their release at the port of Veracruz. See William B.Taylor and Gerald D. Saxon?s introduction to George Wilkins Kendall, Narrative of the Texan Santa Fe Expedition (2 vols.; Dallas: DeGolyer Library and William B. Clements Center for Southwestern Studies, 2004 reprint), vol. 1, pp. xiii-xxxvi; Wheat, Mapping the Trans-Mississippi West, vol. 2, pp. 188, 264-265, no. 483. Themes: Road to War"
