ABSTRACT
During the 1840s, Alexander William Doniphan (1808-87) and thousands of other United States (US) citizens believed that their nation would expand by acquiring more land between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean. Doniphans military actions during the Mexican-American War represent a significant personal expression of American expansionism, delineated so strongly in the popular term Manifest Destiny. Regular army officers of the 1st Dragoons, commanded by Colonel Stephen Watts Kearny, conducted the tactical drills. In the 1840s Americans were going to have to distinguish between martial law and military government. A modern scholar, Theodore Grivas, explains that martial law is a temporary circumstance imposed after an enemy invasion or a natural disaster. Doniphans first battle occurred on 25 December 1846, near an arm of the Rio Grande hence the name Brazito. Under Colonel Antonio Ponce de Leon, Mexican forces numbering between 1,100 and 1,300 took the initiative, approaching the 1st Missouri Regiment in an open area.
