Letter from Mexico by George S. Morrison, a Member of Capt. Albert Pike's Squadron

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Arkansas Historical Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Arkansas Historical Quarterly. You will undoubtedly be greatly surprised to hear from your brother again, after so long a silence, and probably greater surprised to hear from him from the late battle field in Mexico. I left Camden last June and came to Little Rock, there was no prospect of my doing anything there. My wife was in delicate health, and wished to spend the summer with her sister. There was a call made on the State of Arkansas for volunteers. I had long been a member of Capt. Pike's company of Little Rock Guards, the services of which were offered to the Govr, and was excepted. I concluded to go along with the company and help it f igftt the battles of my country. We volunteered as cavalry and left Little Rock about the 20 of June, for San Antonio, Texas. We arrived there the 2Qth of August, meeting with no accident worth relating and losing but a few men out of our regiment. We left San Antonio about the first of October for the Rio Grand, which is the disputed boundary between the United States and Mexico, and near two hundred miles from San Antonio. We arrived there in twelve days, crossed the river, (which is a beautiful stream near 400 yards wide) and went on three miles to the town of Presidio, an old Mexican town, the houses of which are all built of mud, and containing about three thousand inhabitants, which are very ignorant, and nearly as dark as our northern Indians, indeed the most of the Mexicans have straight black hair like the northern Indians, and are of a copper colour, the white people are the rulers of the nation, and are of Spanish or Castillian descent. From This content downloaded from 193.104.

Some Recent Publications on Ancient Warships

“…This un‐evidenced assertion did not quote the actual figures given in the reports of trials. The best sprint speed, maintained by Olympias over just five minutes, was 7.1 knots (Shaw, 1993: 42), considerably less than the estimate, based on the ancient evidence, with which Morrison had started the project—a cruising speed of 12 knots and a top speed considerably higher (Morrison, 1975)—a vast discrepancy.…”