Fiasco: George Clinton Gardner s Correspondence from the U.S.-Mexico Boundary Survey, 1849-1854 (DeGolyer Library Series)When young George Clinton Gardner was appointed assistant surveyor on the United States and Mexican Boundary Commission in 1849, he began a journey that took him across the tropical Isthmus of Panama, the desert lands of California, the territory of New Mexico and Texas, and into the political whirlwind of the commission itself. David J. Weber and Jane Lenz Elder have done a remarkable job in presenting Gardners letters home to his family in which he