Mormon Battalion
Ideology | Defunct
1846 CE to 1847 CE
The Mormon Battalion, the only religion-based unit in United States military history, serves from July 1846 – July 1847 during the Mexican–American War of 1846–1848.
The battalion is a volunteer unit of between 534 and 559 Latter-day Saints men, led by Mormon company officers commanded by regular U.S. Army officers.
During its service, the battalion makes a grueling march of nearly two thousand miles from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to San Diego, California.
The battalion’s march and service support the eventual cession of much of the American Southwest from Mexico to the United States, especially the Gadsden Purchase of 1853 of southern Arizona and New Mexico.
The march also opens a southern wagon route to California.
Veterans of the battalion play significant roles in America's westward expansion in California, Utah, Arizona and other parts of the West.
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Another expedition, a company of five hundred Mormon volunteers from Utah led by Phillip St. George Cooke, arrives in San Diego “half-naked and half-fed” in late January, their numbers much-reduced by their march to Santa Fe and across the blazing deserts of southern New Mexico and Arizona.