Published just before the War with Mexico, Mitchell's map embodies the theme of the United States' drive to "fulfill its manifest destiny to overspread the continent." It shows the recently annexed former Republic of Texas in its largest territorial form, including its farthest claims into present New Mexico and Colorado. Looming large in pale yellow is the vast Oregon Territory -- until only recently jointly administered by the U.S. and Great Britain and stretching up to the 54° 40' parallel of North latitude. For this area, the map largely followed the printed map of Oregon from the report of U.S. Navy Commander Charles Wilkes's expedition. The large pink area labeled "Upper or New California" includes the Mexican territories of Upper California and New Mexico ? both of which were soon seized by U.S. forces. This section derived in part from U.S. Army Topographical Engineer Lieutenant William H. Emory's Map of Texas and the Country Adjacent? of 1844, which was a compilation of the best information on what became the American Southwest available in Washington, D.C., before the war with Mexico. It also included up-to-date information obtained by another U.S. Army Topographical Engineer, Lieutenant John C. Fremont, who had first concluded that the continent's interior included a "Great Basin." Mitchell's map calls it "Great Interior Basin of California" where "streams and rivers?have no outlet to the sea." Mitchell's commercial map was widely used ? Mormon leader Brigham Young ordered six copies for his western migration in the winter of 1846. At that time the controversial Mormons were preparing to flee from persecution by fellow citizens who did not share or respect their faith and way of life. The map also served as an inset in Mitchell's Reference and Distance Map of the United States. Ben W. Huseman, Revisualizing Westward Expansion: A Century of Conflict in Maps, 1800-1900 (UT Arlingotn Library, 2008), p. 21; Cohen, ed., Mapping the West, pp. 134-135; Wheat, Mapping the Trans-Mississippi West, vol. 3, pp. 35, 253-254, no. 520; Francaviglia, Mapping and Imagination in the Great Basin, pp. 88-89; Judith A. Tyner, Map 25, in Warren Heckrotte and Julie Sweetkind, eds., California 49: Forty-Nine Maps of California from the Sixteenth Century to the Present (San Francisco: California Map Society Occasional Paper No.6 with The Book Club of California, 1999), pp. 50-51;
