Big Canoe Records

Winning the West reproduces Kearny's official letters dating just before and during his now-famous campaign to New Mexico and California during the Mexican War. The editors transcribed these directly from Kearny's original letter book now in the collections of the Missouri Historical Society in St. Louis…. Here, for the first time, Kearny's letters are together in a single volume, which fact alone makes this book a significant contribution to Mexican War scholarship. But this work contains much more than just Kearny's letter book.

Winning the West is actually a rich compendium of information pertaining to Kearny. His great-great-granddaughter, Stephanie Kearny, provides an interesting genealogy in her introduction. Editor Hans von Sachsen-Altenburg contributes ninety-one pages of text on a plethora of related subjects, including events leading up to the Mexican-American War, the Santa Fe Trail, Kearny's military career, and the humble efforts made in 1996 to recognize the 150th anniversary of Kearny's occupation of New Mexico. In addition to all of this, the editors have included a selection of Kearny letters not found in the letter book; many of these are published here for the first time. Also noteworthy is a section containing several thumbnail sketches of Kearny's contemporaries….

Although the retail selling price may at first glance appear exorbitant, one should bear in mind that Winning the West has been privately printed in a numbered edition of only one thousand copies. Even at $59 it will not take long for attractive volume to sell out, and who knows how much a copy will bring after that? For those interested in Kearny and his role in the acquisition of a large chunk of Mexico for the United States, Winning the West…should be required reading