Walton

William J. Harper who spent his childhood in Walton County, served as a Private in the Mexican War under Captain John W. Cole, Col. G, Regiment of Louisiana Volunteers. Harper enlisted while he was residing in Monroe, Louisiana in New Orleans, the Quachita Parish in August of 1847. After the annexation of Texas by the United States and Mexico became a Republic, war broke out in 1846. Only two years earlier, James K. Polk, the newly-elected president, made a proposition to the Mexican government to purchase the disputed lands between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande. When that offer was rejected, troops from the United States commanded by Major General Zachary Taylor were moved into the disputed territory of Coahuila. These troops were then attacked by Mexican troops, killing 12 American troops and taking 52 prisoners. Afterward, the Mexican troops later laid siege to a United States fort along the Rio Grande River, a conflict that resulted in the loss of the northern territory in Mexico. The United States quickly occupied Santa Fe de Nuevo Mexico and Alta California Territory, then invaded parts of Northeastern Mexico and Northwest Mexico. Meanwhile, Major General Winfield Scott captured the capital Mexico City and marched from the port of Veracruz. The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the war with the Mexican Cession of the territories of Alta California and Santa Fe de Nuevo Mexico to the United States while the United States agreed to pay $15 million to pay the physical damage of war and assumed the debt owed by the Mexican government to citizens of the United States. Mexico conceded the loss of Texas and the Rio Grande became a national border with the United States. At the onset of the War Between the States (1862), Harper volunteered at Carthage, Mississippi, and knew service in Company B, 40th Regiment of Mississippi Volunteers.