In the fall of 1845, Second Lieutenant John J. Peck boarded the Pacific with a carpetbag, several trunks, a crate of liquor and cigars, and a gray dapple horse named Pete. Although he regretted giving up his comfortable post as an artillery commander in New York, he was certain that his decision to join General Zachary Taylor’s army in Texas was “for the best.” The United States Congress had voted to annex the Republic of Texas earlier that year, and the war that was likely to result with Mexico would, in Peck’s view, prevent the United States “from falling to pieces by internal causes and convulsions” over “trivial difficulties about the tariff, slaves &c.”