Fine Style

• Main Author: Rarick, Ethan
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Oxford University PressNew York, NY 2008
• Subjects: Beaver Creek
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780195305029.003.0006; https://academic.oup.com/book/chapter-pdf/53076307/isbn-9780195305029-book-part-6.pdf

Abstract At 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, July 4, the Donners and the Reeds and some other families gathered near their campsite along Beaver Creek, a stream lined with box elder and willows. Brightly colored wildflowers poked through the grasses, and high red bluffs lined the little valley. There was no hurry to wash the breakfast dishes and hitch the teams, for they intended to stay in camp all day to celebrate the Fourth of July. Patriotic feelings ran high, for the country was at war. A few days after the wagon train left Independence, latecomers rode into camp bearing the latest St. Louis newspapers, which told of hostilities between American and Mexican troops on the Rio Grande. The news was no surprise. The year before, President Polk had acted on his campaign promise by annexing Texas, ostensibly an independent country but one that had been unrecognized by Mexico and coveted by the United States. Mexico and the United States still disputed the southern border of Texas, and it had been easy to see that the situation could lead to war, but that didn’t lessen the importance of the issue for Californiabound emigrants. California remained a part of Mexico, and now the United States and Mexico were at war.