American War Heroes · 1846–1848
Regulars and volunteers from the Rio Grande to Mexico City. This roll includes Taylor, Scott, Kearny, Ringgold, Doniphan, and Kit Carson. More documented names will follow from the public record.
American War Heroes is a publisher-curated historical register. Notice Nearby writes these entries from documented public records. Checkout does not add a name to a war roll, and we do not issue Heroes badges, MIA labels, or a “verified veteran” mark.
A paid Community memorial may mention military service in the family’s own words. That mention stays on the obituary. It is not verification, and it does not enroll anyone on these lists. Claiming service that was not given is stolen valor. It is disrespectful to those who served.
6 on the roll
1784–1850 · Major General
Zachary Taylor took a regular army to the Rio Grande and then refused to let a larger Mexican force talk him off a prairie. In May 1846, after the Thornton affair had already drawn blood, he met Mariano Arista at Palo Al…
1786–1866 · Major General
Winfield Scott took an army from a beach at Veracruz to the central square of Mexico City in six months and then had to govern what he had taken. He landed in March 1847, reduced the city after a siege, and turned inland…
1794–1848 · Brigadier General
Stephen Watts Kearny walked an army from Fort Leavenworth to Santa Fe and took the town without a battle. He left in June 1846 with what the War Department called the Army of the West — dragoons, Missouri volunteers, and…
1796 (some later notices say 1800)–1846 · Major
Samuel Ringgold was the first American officer the Mexican–American War killed, and the country made a song of it before the army had finished burying him. He was a Maryland artilleryman, West Point class of 1818, who sp…
1808–1887 · Colonel
Alexander William Doniphan was a Liberty, Missouri, lawyer who answered the 1846 call for volunteers as a private and was elected colonel of the 1st Regiment Missouri Mounted Volunteers. Under Brigadier General Stephen W…
1809–1868 · Scout / Guide (later brevet Brigadier General, Civil War era)
Christopher Houston "Kit" Carson entered the Mexican–American War already famous as a mountain man and as a guide for John C. Frémont's exploring parties. In 1846, after the Army of the West under Stephen W. Kearny occup…