The Utah War of 1857–58 was the largest US military mobilization between the Mexican War and Civil War. Mormon militia used Echo Canyon's walls to construct impressive fortifications and conducted raids that burned Johnston's supply trains. Johnston's army was forced to winter at Fort Bridger, eating their horses. The war ended when Brigham Young accepted a pardon and allowed the army to march through Salt Lake City.
The early republic period saw the United States move from the weak Articles of Confederation to the federal Constitution ratified in 1788, with the Bill of Rights added in 1791. George Washington served two terms as president (1789–1797), establishing precedents for executive authority, and the federal capital moved permanently to Washington D.C. in 1800. The Louisiana Purchase (1803) doubled the nation's territory for roughly $15 million, opening vast trans-Mississippi lands to American expansion. The War of 1812 against Britain ended inconclusively but produced a surge of American national identity and eliminated most British support for Indigenous resistance east of the Mississippi. The Northwest Indian Wars (1785–1795) and the Creek War (1813–1814) broke Indigenous confederacies that had resisted US expansion. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 temporarily balanced slave and free states as the nation expanded westward, but embedded the contradiction of slavery in every subsequent territorial debate.
No battle deaths; ~50 US soldiers died from cold and disease; supply trains burned
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