"A library of Western Americana is incomplete with it" - Zamorano 80
With the Superior Plates in the Abert Report
The House version of Emory's essential report, with the additional reports by Abert, Cooke, and Johnson. Howes accords the present House edition priority: "That the House edition has priority is indicated by the fact that many copies were seemingly issued before the large map was available..."
This is among the most important government reports on overland travel, with accounts of the march of the Army of the West from Missouri to Santa Fe, and the Mexican-American War in New Mexico and California.... The text is illustrated with some of the first American views of the far Southwest - Reese.
Emory's report includes one of the earliest published views of San Diego, as seen from the Presidio ("old fort"), which is interesting for showing the vast treeless landscape surrounding the tiny village.
In this edition the lithograph plates of scenery were lithographed by C. B. Graham. And in this example the Abert report is illustrated with what Howes calls the superior versions of its 24 plates (here all present), executed without a lithographer credit. These plates include beautiful views of Santa Fe, San Miguel, San Felipe, Santo Domingo, Santa Ana, and other New Mexico pueblos.
The three plans of Mexican American War battles are:
- Sketch of the Actions Fought at San Pasqual in Upper California Between the Americans and Mexicans, Dec. 6th & 7th, 1846
- Sketch of the Passage of the Rio San Gabriel, Upper California by the Americans, discomfiting the opposing Mexican Forces, January 8th, 1847
- Sketch of the Battle of Los Angeles
This work contains some interesting particulars concerning the Pimo, Apache, Navajo, and Maricopa Indians, with several engravings of Indian antiquities, portraits of women and chiefs of these tribes, and of scenes in the country inhabited by them. One of these plates represents the Aztec temple of Pecos, where the sacred fire of Montezuma was kept burning by the zeal of his worshippers until 1841 - Field.
Notes of a Military Reconnaissance was issued many times in its first year of publication, resulted in a complicated bibliography... The House of Representatives issued its own edition of Emory's narrative, with the added reports of James W. Abert, Philip St. George Cooke, and A. R. Johnston... Many, if not most, House editions were not issued with the large map - Dawson 80.
Col. Cooke's narrative takes an added interest in view of the fact that it represents the viewpoint of the non-Mormon leader of the historic Mormon Battalion.... The Journal of Col. Cooke provides the basic account of the Battalion's march across the desert to San Diego - Edwards.