Leon Metz Southwest Chronicle Edu©Educational.Dual Language Leon Metz 3rd Quarter 2014 | Page 6

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THE GRANDEST MILITARY MARCH EVER
Friday July 19 1918
The Doniphan Statue Ceremony at Richmond,
Mo., to be held Monday -On the seventy-second anniversary of the crossing of the Doniphan
expedition to Mexican
soil, the bronze statue
of Colonel Alexander
William Doniphan will
be unveiled at Richmond, Mo., Monday
July 29. Governor
Frederick D. Gardner
will deliver the unveiling address. Four
companies of soldiers
with a military band
will participate. Special Invitation is extended
by the Doniphan
Statue Commission to relatives, friends and members
of the Doniphan expedition, the famous First Missouri
Mounted Volunteers who successfully made the most
famous military march in the history of nations. End

BIGGEST PARADE IN SOUTHWEST HISTORY
Wednesday May 6 1914
El Paso Grand Review of the U. S. Army, Border
Patrol Division Gen.
Joh n J. Pershing,
Commanding -5000
troops in line! The parade will be six miles
long and will take two
hours to pass. Representing all arms of the
Service, 1500 Cavalry,
2500 Infantry, 600 Artillery, 16 Field Guns,
3000 Horses and Big
Army Mules, Field
Wireless, Field Telephone and Telegraph,
Wagon Train, Pack Tra-

UNSUNG HEROE
A STUDY OF HISTORY & HERITAGE

“We are your brothers, fathers and sons”

-FORT BLISS POST 1800s

OUR BLOOD SWEAT AND TEARS
WE SERVE STRONG WITH NO REGRET!
By Leon Claire Metz / Travel The Pass Mass Media Pinnacle featured Historian & Author Since 1991
The Southwest Chronicle©TTPMMP EST. 1991

FORT BLISS -Is a
United States Army post
in the U.S. states of New
Mexico and Texas with
its headquarters located
in El Paso, Texas. With
an area of about 1,700
square miles (4,400
km2), it is the Army’s
second largest installation, behind the adjacent
White Sands Missile
Range. It is FORSCOM’s
(United States Army
Forces Command) largest installation and has
the Army’s largest Maneuver Area (992,000
acres) behind the National Training Center.
Part of the post in El
Paso County, Texas, is a
census-designated place
(CDP); it had a population of 8,591 at the 2010
census. Fort Bliss provides the largest contiguous tract (1,500 sq mi or
3,900 km2) of restricted
airspace in the Continen-

tal United States. The airspace is used for missile
and artillery training and
testing.
In 1846, Colonel Alexander Doniphan led
1st Regiment of Missouri mounted volunteers through El Paso del
Norte, with victories at
the Battle of El Brazito
and the Battle of the Sacramento. Then on 7 November 1848, War Department General Order
no. 58 ordered the establishment of a post across
from El Paso del Norte
(now Ciudad Juárez).
On 8 September 1849,
the garrison party of several companies of the
3rd U.S. Infantry (‘The
Old Guard’, currently the
oldest formation in the
US Army), commanded
by Major Jefferson Van
Horne, found only four
small and scattered settlements on the vast north

side of the Rio Grande.
The Post opposite El
established at the site
of Coon’s Ranch (often
erroneously referred to
as Smith’s Ranch, now
downtown El Paso) and,
along with Fort Selden
and other Southwestern
outposts, won territory
from harassing Apaches
and Comanches, provided law and order and
escorted the forty-niners.
Van Horne also had
nominal command of the
Post at San Elizario, the
former Presidio of San
downstream from Paseo
del Norte.
With constant Indian
raids, garrisons had to
be moved frequently to
meet the shifting threats.
In September 1851, the
Post Opposite El Paso
and the Post at San Elizario were closed and the

soldiers moved 40 miles
(64 km) north to Fort
Fillmore. On 11 January
1854, Companies B, E, I
and K of the 8th Infantry,
under the command of
Lt. Col. Edmund B. Alexander, established Post
ville under orders from
Secretary of War Jefferson Davis.
The post became Fort
Bliss on 8 March 1854.
There it remained for the
next 14 years. Until 1861
most of these troops were
units of the 8th Infantry
Brigade.
At the outbreak of the
American Civil War,
the Commander of the
Department of Texas ordered the garrison to surrender Fort Bliss to the
Confederacy. End

SOUTHWEST
C
THE

HRONICLE

ins, Ammunition Trains and Hospital Trains for a
whole Division of the United States Army. Six Regimental Bands, three Mounted Bands, Scouts, Sappers
and Miners, Engineers.
John Joseph “Black Jack” Pershing (September 13,
United States Army who led the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I. Pershing is the only
person to be promoted in his own lifetime to General
of the Armies, the highest authorized rank in the United States Army, signifying service directly under the
president. (A retroactive Congressional edict passed in
1976 promoted George Washington to the same rank

FORT BLISS TEXAS : With an area of about 1,700 square miles (4,400 km2), it is the Army’s second-largest
installation behind the adjacent White Sands Missile Range. It is FORSCOM’s (United States Army Forces
Command) largest installation and has the Army’s largest Maneuver Area (992,000 acres) behind the
National Training Center.

He was regarded as a mentor by the generation of
American generals who led the United States Army
in Europe during World War II, including George C.
Marshall, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Omar N. Bradley,
and George S. Patton.
His reliance on costly frontal assaults, long after other
allied armies had abandoned such tactics, has been accused of causing unnecessarily high American casualties. On December 20, 1913, Pershing received orders
to take command of the 8th Brigade at the Presidio in
San Francisco.
With tensions running high on the border between the
United States and Mexico, the brigade was deployed
to Fort Bliss, Texas on April 24, 1914, arriving there
on the 27th. End

PETER PIPER PIZZA & YOUR EVENT!
YOUR SCHOOL EVENT

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Peter Piper Pizza offers you a
fun way to raise money for your
school, church, club and organizations. Designating a night
(Monday-Thursday) and pro-

AT YOUR

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at the school an ad in the school
newsletter, school marquee and
announcements at assemblies...
06

READ OF OUR PAST AND FORWARD THE KNOWLEDGE.©

YOUR FUN FILLED NIGHT

Your Fab Event.
...Peter Piper Pizza will then
donate 15% of all receipts
brought in by your school or
organization during the designated time period on this funnight!

Your Fun Night.