In 1829 Major Riley took 4 companies of soldiers to accompany and protect traders. The caravan was attacked by Kiowas and Riley's men marched into battle. The Kiowas were defeated, but the battle showed Major Riley that protecting caravans would be expensive. After that, traders had to fend for themselves.
As we look into the open fire for our fancies, so we are apt to study the dim past for the wonderful and sublime, forgetful of the fact that the present is a constant romance, and that the happenings of to-day which we count of little importance are sure to startle somebody in the future, and engage the pen of the historian, philosopher, and poet.
Accustomed as we are to think of the vast steppes of Russia and Siberia as alike strange and boundless, and to deal with the unknown interior of Africa as an impenetrable mystery, we lose sight of a locality in our own country that once surpassed all these in virgin grandeur, in majestic solitude, and in all the attributes of a tremendous wilderness.
That fact the Polk's message convinced Congress to vote to go to war with Mexico showed ow eager the United States was to gain territory, since this speech provided relatively no rational arguments in favor for war.
