Then he traveled abroad, hurrying home to fight the Spanish in the Everglades of Florida. This chivalrous disciplinarian was Major in the Army of twelve hundred that defeated the Mexican Army of over five thousand at Sacramento City, California, on February 28, 1847. He was an officer in the army, under General S. W. Kearny, that marched into Santa Fe on the 14th of August, 1846, and ran up the Flag of the United States for the first time. Soon after, Charles Bent, who was first Governor of New Mexico, was killed at Santa Fe in an up-rising of the natives. He had built Bent's Fort on the Arkansas River where he had his residence for years. It was at Santa Fe that Gen. Lew Wallace, while Governor of New Mexico from 1878 to 1881, wrote the concluding chapters of his great book Ben Hur. Gilpin's home was at Independence, Mo., where he practiced law. That place being near the end of the Santa Fe Trail, he often met Kit Carson. Gilpin possessed so much bravery that he started across the plains in 1843, a solitary horseman. Happening in with Fremont, he accompanied him to the Pacific Coast, it being Fremont's second expedition. The next year Gilpin returned by the way of Bent's Fort, thence down the Santa Fe Trail to his home. He was bearing a memorial, from the Oregon people, which he had helped to formulate, and which he was to present to the Administration at Washington. It set forth in detail the resources of the Great Northwest, the desire of the handful of people located there to be taken under the shelter of the Government and to be embraced within the limits of the Territory of the United States. He proceeded to Washington and presented this petition in person to President Polk, and urged in glowing terms, with all the eloquence he possessed, the future value and prospects of that unknown region. He had the freedom of both Houses of Congress and took a prominent part in turning the tide in favor of the Oregon movement. When President Lincoln started from Springfield to Washington to assume the reins of Government in February, 1861, Gilpin was one of thirteen who made the entire journey in the President's private car. He was a brilliant man and Lincoln recognized his mental gifts and learned minutely from him of his varied experiences, especially of his knowledge of the far West. So it was natural that his name should come before the very first meeting of the cabinet for appointment to the high place of Governor of the territory of Colorado. The next month he was hurrying westward with his commission in his pocket and with his appointment as well of Brigadier-General of the Army.