It is difficult to understand how historians with academic credentials could appear on television and narrate what clearly is a tale burdened by numerous inaccuracies. Case in point is the final hour of "The Men Who Built America: Frontiersmen" that glorifies John C. Fremont and General Stephen W. Kearny in the Battle of San Pascual, December 1846.
There are numerous history works on California and also specifically the U.S.-Mexico War that discuss this battle with attempts at making their narrative as accurate as possible. Not so David Miller (UC San Diego), David Eisenbach (Columbia U.), Walter Borneman, and Hampton Sides. At this battle there was NO Mexican Army, certainly not in resplendent uniforms, beating on drums. The people who fought Kearny's little army were Californios, residents of California who were defending their homeland against an invasion by the United States. One of the main leaders of this resistance was Andres Pico who goes unmentioned in the film, yet it was Pico who sat down with Fremont and drafted the Treaty of Cahuenga that ended the fighting in California, January 1847. The war elsewhere, that is, in Mexico, went on for another year.
Pico's forces were not an army, they were civilians who rose to resist an invasion. They defeated Kearny in a battle that lasted five minutes, during which a third of Kearny's forces were killed or wounded. Kearny himself took a spear in his buttocks, a serious wound that contrasts with the video showing an apparently unwounded Kearny after the battle. The Californios achieved this victory because they were experienced horsemen and lancers (who practiced their ability by hunting wild boars).
The video depicts Kit Carson as undergoing uncredible hardship in getting to San Diego where reinforcements would come and relieve the beleaguered Kearny. The video makes no mention of two other men on the same errand, Edward Fitzgerald Beale and an unnamed Indian.
Regarding the news of the gold discovery in California, the video credits Carson with going across the county to deliver the news to President Polk. In fact, Beale and Lucien Loeser brought this information to Washington, D.C.
The video overlooks the rash choice made by Fremont in his insistence that he owed his loyalty to Commodore Robert F. Stockton even though Kearny held the higher rank and had credentials to prove his authority. For his insubordination, Fremont was court-martialed and would have faced some serious punishments had not his father-in-law, Senator Thomas Hart Benton, used his influence to get Fremont off the hook.
Fremont was not popular in California as is evidenced by the fact that when Fremont ran for President in 1856, voters in the Golden State rejected him.
Enough said here, other than to note the danger historians face in going before TV cameras and speaking off the cuff in supporting a version of history that may make for exciting television, but in the end is just plain bad history.
There are numerous history works on California and also specifically the U.S.-Mexico War that discuss this battle with attempts at making their narrative as accurate as possible. Not so David Miller (UC San Diego), David Eisenbach (Columbia U.), Walter Borneman, and Hampton Sides. At this battle there was NO Mexican Army, certainly not in resplendent uniforms, beating on drums. The people who fought Kearny's little army were Californios, residents of California who were defending their homeland against an invasion by the United States. One of the main leaders of this resistance was Andres Pico who goes unmentioned in the film, yet it was Pico who sat down with Fremont and drafted the Treaty of Cahuenga that ended the fighting in California, January 1847. The war elsewhere, that is, in Mexico, went on for another year.
Pico's forces were not an army, they were civilians who rose to resist an invasion. They defeated Kearny in a battle that lasted five minutes, during which a third of Kearny's forces were killed or wounded. Kearny himself took a spear in his buttocks, a serious wound that contrasts with the video showing an apparently unwounded Kearny after the battle. The Californios achieved this victory because they were experienced horsemen and lancers (who practiced their ability by hunting wild boars).
The video depicts Kit Carson as undergoing uncredible hardship in getting to San Diego where reinforcements would come and relieve the beleaguered Kearny. The video makes no mention of two other men on the same errand, Edward Fitzgerald Beale and an unnamed Indian.
Regarding the news of the gold discovery in California, the video credits Carson with going across the county to deliver the news to President Polk. In fact, Beale and Lucien Loeser brought this information to Washington, D.C.
The video overlooks the rash choice made by Fremont in his insistence that he owed his loyalty to Commodore Robert F. Stockton even though Kearny held the higher rank and had credentials to prove his authority. For his insubordination, Fremont was court-martialed and would have faced some serious punishments had not his father-in-law, Senator Thomas Hart Benton, used his influence to get Fremont off the hook.
Fremont was not popular in California as is evidenced by the fact that when Fremont ran for President in 1856, voters in the Golden State rejected him.
Enough said here, other than to note the danger historians face in going before TV cameras and speaking off the cuff in supporting a version of history that may make for exciting television, but in the end is just plain bad history.