In a recent post, I mentioned Lt. Richard Smith Elliott, who was with General Stephen Watts Kearny’s Army of the West during the August 1846 invasion of New Mexico. Elliott was also a reporter. He started writing for the St. Louis Reveille before he left Missouri in June 1846 and continued sending articles to them until June 1847, when his enlistment ended.

In 1997, 150 years later, historians Mark L. Gardner and Marc Simmons compiled Elliott’s reports from Santa Fe and the sketches he wrote afterward and published them in The Mexican War Correspondence of Richard Smith Elliott. The result is an intriguing account of events in New Mexico during this period.

The pieces the lieutenant sent East were often written and published as letters. Reading them can feel like you’ve been given access to someone’s diary. Much of his reportage sounds like that of any soldier anywhere. He includes lists of men who’ve died from measles and other diseases as well as bullets, reports on the weather, complaints about quartermaster supplies, and grumbling about the attitude, expertise, and morals of both his fellow and superior officers.

When Elliott turns to New Mexico specifically, his letters reflect the prejudices of his time. There are the usual disapproving descriptions of the local priest and of businesswoman and monte dealer Gertrudes Barceló, as well as commentary on the adobe housing and lack of glass windows.

However, I find the lieutenant most engaging when he describes his interactions with the locals. Among other vignettes, there’s a delightful description of a stroll with a couple señoritas. The women turn what the lieutenant thought was to be a social outing into a shopping trip, loading him and his male companions with chickens, onions, and other goods to haul back home for them.  

So the book is an interesting view of Santa Fe from the perspective of an American Army officer in 1846/47. Elliott was unwell a good part of the time and often displays an invalid’s irritableness. His illness kept him from participating in campaigns against the Navajo, expeditions to California and Mexico, as well as the suppression of the Taos Revolt in early 1847. By the time his enlistment was up, he was in a hurry to get home. The written record  he left behind reminds us that not every Anglo who arrived in New Mexico in the 1800s fell in love with the place or found it profitable to stay.

I recommend The Mexican War Correspondence of Richard Smith Elliott to any student of New Mexico history, especially of the early portion of the American occupation. It’s a useful and fascinating look at the attitudes that I suspect the majority of Anglos brought with them to the land of enchantment.