Author Description

The initial engagement, the Battle of the Brazito, yielded eight prisoners, two of whom would survive the first night of captivity to the US forces. Some of the soldiers were hit by bullets or cannonballs that were fired from too far away to do any damage, but others a few feet closer received mortal wounds. Cutts made no pretenses toward literary achievement in his account of the war that brought thousands of miles of Pacific coastline into the US fold. He was well aware his book's first publication in 1847 did not allow for much interpretation, and wisely chose to include documents verbatim, including orders and reports of battles, lists of the living and the dead, and eyewitness accounts. As a result the observations of General Stephen Kearney and his troops of the "Army of the West" come through without interpretation, warts and all. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)