Arriving at his destination, the widow of the deceased Chavez employed the good doctor to sell the goods and take the sole supervision of her immense business interests, and there is a touch of romance attached to the terrible Kansas tragedy, which lies in the fact that the doctor in about two years married the rich widow, and lived very happily for about a decade, dying then on one of the large estates in New Mexico, which he had acquired by his fortunate union with the amiable Mexican lady. CHAPTER VII. MEXICO DECLARES WAR. Mexico declared war against the United States in April, 1846. In the following May, Congress passed an act authorizing the President to call into the field fifty thousand volunteers, designed to operate against Mexico at three distinct points, and consisting of the Southern Wing, or the Army of Occupation, the Army of the Centre, and the Army of the West, the latter to direct its march upon the city of Santa Fe. The original plan was, however, somewhat changed, and General Kearney, who commanded the Army of the West, divided his forces into three separate commands. The first he led in person to the Pacific coast. One thousand volunteers, under command of Colonel A. W. Doniphan, were to make a descent upon the State of Chihuahua, while the remainder and greater part of the forces, under Colonel Sterling Price, were to garrison Santa Fe after its capture. There is a pretty fiction told of the breaking out of the war between Mexico and the United States. Early in the spring of 1846, before it was known or even conjectured that a state of war would be declared to exist between this government and Mexico, a caravan of twenty-nine traders, on their way from Independence to Santa Fe, beheld, just after a storm and a little before sunset, a perfectly distinct image of the Bird of Liberty, the American eagle, on the disc of the sun. When they saw it they simultaneously and almost involuntarily exclaimed that in less than twelve months the Eagle of Liberty would spread his broad plumes over the plains of the West, and that the flag of our country would wave over the cities of New Mexico and Chihuahua. The student of the classics will remember that just before the assassination of Julius Caesar, both Brutus and Cassius, while in their places in the Roman Senate, saw chariots of fire in the sky. One story is as true, probably, as the other, though separated by centuries of time. The Army of the West, under General Stephen W. Kearney, consisted of two batteries of artillery, commanded by Major Clark; three squadrons of the First United States Dragoons, commanded by Major Sumner; the First Regiment of Missouri Cavalry, commanded by Colonel Doniphan, and two companies of infantry, commanded by Captain Aubrey. This force marched in detached columns from Fort Leavenworth, and on the 1st of August, 1846, concentrated in camp on the Santa Fe Trail, nine miles below Bent's Fort.