Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park

Anastasio Torrejón

Mariano Arista

Pedro de Ampudia

Philip Norbourne Barbour

Samuel Ringgold

Zachary Taylor

Palo Alto Battlefield is known for its bird diversity. The park is home to several unique habitats providing birds a wealth of habitat types and food sources. Despite being a small park, Palo Alto Battlefield supports resident bird species and provides habitat for migratory species.

One of the more interesting artifacts on display at the Palo Alto Battlefield Visitor Center is a fragment of a clay pipe. The pipe bowl is largely intact and portrays a locomotive, fuel car and passenger car.

On March 1, 1872, Grant signed the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act, which made the area “a public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.” This landmark legislation created the first National Park and led to the creation of the National Park Service.

On April 9th, General Grant and his mud-splattered staff arrived at Appomattox Court House. They were in stark contrast to General Lee in his new uniform. In a fine brick home, the two men discussed the surrender terms. Lee’s surrender was the symbolic end of the Civil War.

Two years after grading from West Point, 24-year-old Second Lieutenant Ulysses S. Grant found himself on the frontlines of the U.S.-Mexican War. Arriving on the north bank of the Rio Grande at the end of March 1846, Grant and the rest of future president Zachary Taylor’s Army of Occupation quickly started constructing an earthwork that would come to be called Fort Brown.

By 1862, Grant was a brigadier-general commanding over 27,000 troops. Grant decided to attack Fort Donelson to achieve his goal of capturing the Confederate stronghold of Nashville.

Following the US-Mexican War, Grant was shifted from post to post by the army. He married Julia Dent and celebrated the birth of his first child, but the need to protect the newly acquired Oregon Territory interrupted his relative domestic bliss. In the spring of 1852, Grant’s regiment was ordered West.

Although Grant considered the battle at Lookout Mountain nothing more than a small skirmish, the Union victory freed General Hooker to join the main assault on Missionary Ridge the following day and forced the Confederates to retreat to Georgia.