The Second Massachusetts Cavalry included the only organized group (5 companies totaling 504 men) from California to fight in the east during the Civil War. Led by a young Boston aristocrat, Colonel Charles R. Lowell, these men began their wartime careers in Northern Virginia in 1862, clashing with the partisan rangers of Major John S. Mosby, in a deadly world of guerrilla warfare. In August of 1864, the regiment was assigned to Major General Phil Sheridan's Army of Shenandoah and served through all of the battles in the victorious campaign to clear the valley of Confederates, witnessing the final surrender at Appomattox Courthouse. This account tells what these men from California and Massachusetts accomplished, how they communicated, and how they viewed themselves. The book contains three appendices that list the battle casualties of the regiment during its largest engagements. Photographs and a bibliography are also included.

"Much has been written about the Mexican war, but this . . . is the best military history of that conflict. . . . Leading personalities, civilian and military, Mexican and American, are given incisive and fair evaluations. The coming of war is seen as unavoidable, given American expansion and Mexican resistance to loss of territory, compounded by the fact that neither side understood the other. The events that led to war are described with reference to military strengths and weaknesses, and every military campaign and engagement is explained in clear detail and illustrated with good maps. . . . Problems of large numbers of untrained volunteers, discipline and desertion, logistics, diseases and sanitation, relations with Mexican civilians in occupied territory, and Mexican guerrilla operations are all explained, as are the negotiations which led to war's end and the Mexican cession. . . . This is an outstanding contribution to military history and a model of writing which will be admired and emulated."-Journal of American History. K. Jack Bauer was also the author of Zachary Taylor: Soldier, Planter, Statesman of the Old Southwest (1985) and Other Works. Robert W. Johannsen, who introduces this Bison Books edition of The Mexican War, is a professor of history at the University of Illinois, Urbana, and the author of To the Halls of Montezumas: The Mexican War in the American Imagination (1985).

Historian Dale L. Walker chronicles the early days of the American Pacific Northwest in two engrossing accounts, now available in one volume: Pacific Destiny and Bear Flag Rising. Pacific Destiny: The Three-Century Journey to the Oregon Country Pacific Destiny chronicles the discovery, exploration, and settlement of America's Pacific Northwest. It is a story of cut-throat competition for control in an expanding America, first between Spain and England, then England and the United States. A story of explorers and tycoons, most notably John Jacob Astor, whose effort to establish a fur trading empire on the Columbia River ended with the massacre of his crew by the Vancouver Island Native Americans. Bear Flag Rising: The Conquest of California, 1846 Bear Flag Rising traces the history of California from the Native Americans who first inhabited the land through the warfare that would finally leave the province in the hands of European settlers. The lives of the Californians in tranquil days before the advent of American trappers and the steady decline of the province under Mexico's neglectful rule are brought to life in this epic chronicle. Battles and skirmishes, such as the bitter fight at San Pascual are meticulously recreated in all their vicious glory. Through exacting research and masterful prose, Bear Flag Rising reveals the full story of how Mexico lost California and how this Pacific paradise went on to became "the greatest jewel in the crown of the American Empire." At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.