Mormon Battalion

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The Mormon Battalion was an infantry battalion of the United States Army. It was the only unit in American military history recruited solely from one religious group and having a religious title as the unit designation. The volunteers served from July 1846 to July 1847 during the Mexican–American War of 1846–1848. The battalion was a volunteer unit of between 543 and 559 enlisted soldiers from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints led by Mormon junior officers and non-Mormon senior officers. During its service, the battalion made a march of nearly 1,950 miles from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to San Diego, California. The battalion's march and service supported the eventual cession of much of the American Southwest from Mexico to the United States, especially the Gadsden Purchase of 1854 of portions of modern southern Arizona and New Mexico, extending the American-Mexican border further south to access the most suitable surveyed east-west land route for the future trans-continental railroad...

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