The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed on February 2, 1848, by diplomat Nicholas Trist and Mexican plenipotentiary
representatives Luis G. Cuevas, Bernardo Couto, and Miguel Atristain,
ended the war. The treaty gave the U.S. undisputed control of Texas,
established the U.S.–Mexican border along the Rio Grande, and ceded to
the United States the present-day states of California, Nevada, and Utah, most of New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming. In return, Mexico received $15 million[233]
($545 million today) – less than half the amount the U.S. had attempted
to offer Mexico for the land before the opening of hostilities[234] – and the U.S. agreed to assume $3.25 million ($118 million today) in debts that the Mexican government owed to U.S. citizens.[235]
The area of domain acquired was given by the Federal Interagency
Committee as 338,680,960 acres (529,189 square miles). The cost was
$16,295,149 or approximately five cents per acre.[236] The area amounted to one-third of Mexico's original territory from its 1821 independence.
The treaty was ratified by the U.S. Senate by a vote of 38 to 14
on March 10 and by Mexico through a legislative vote of 51–34 and a
Senate vote of 33–4, on May 19. News that New Mexico's legislative
assembly had passed an act for the organization of a U.S. territorial
government helped ease Mexican concern about abandoning the people of
New Mexico.[237]
The acquisition was a source of controversy, especially among U.S.
politicians who had opposed the war from the start. A leading anti-war
U.S. newspaper, the Whig National Intelligencer, sardonically concluded that "We take nothing by conquest ... Thank God."[238][239]
The acquired lands west of the Rio Grande are traditionally called the Mexican Cession in the U.S., as opposed to the Texas Annexation
two years earlier, though the division of New Mexico down the middle at
the Rio Grande never had any basis either in control or Mexican
boundaries. Mexico never recognized the independence of Texas[240] before the war and did not cede its claim to territory north of the Rio Grande or Gila River until this treaty.
Before ratifying the treaty, the U.S. Senate made two
modifications: changing the wording of Article IX (which guaranteed
Mexicans living in the purchased territories the right to become U.S.
citizens) and striking out Article X (which conceded the legitimacy of
land grants made by the Mexican government). On May 26, 1848, when the
two countries exchanged ratifications of the treaty, they further agreed
to a three-article protocol (known as the Protocol of Querétaro) to
explain the amendments. The first article claimed that the original
Article IX of the treaty, although replaced by Article III of the Treaty
of Louisiana, would still confer the rights delineated in Article IX.
The second article confirmed the legitimacy of land grants under Mexican
law.[241] The protocol was signed in the city of Querétaro by A. H. Sevier, Nathan Clifford, and Luis de la Rosa.[241]
Article XI offered a potential benefit to Mexico, in that the
U.S. pledged to suppress the Comanche and Apache raids that had ravaged
the region and pay restitution to the victims of raids it could not
prevent.[242] However, the Native raids did not cease for several decades after the treaty, although a cholera epidemic in 1849 greatly reduced the numbers of the Comanche.[243]Robert Letcher,
U.S. Minister to Mexico in 1850, was certain "that miserable 11th
article" would lead to the financial ruin of the U.S. if it could not be
released from its obligations.[244] The U.S. was released from all obligations of Article XI five years later by Article II of the Gadsden Purchase of 1853.[245]
Writing many years later, Trist's wife Virginia claimed that her
husband had related to her his feelings at the time of the signing of
the treaty:
Could those Mexicans have seen into
my heart at that moment, they would have known that my feeling of shame
as an American was far stronger than theirs could be as Mexicans. For
though it would not have done for me to say so there, that was a thing
for every right-minded American to be ashamed of, and I was ashamed of
it, most cordially and intensely ashamed of it.[246]
Before the secession of Texas, Mexico's claimed territory comprised almost 1,700,000 sq mi (4,400,000 km2), but by 1849 it covered just under 800,000 square miles (2,100,000 km2). Another 30,000 square miles (78,000 km2)
were sold to the U.S. in the Gadsden Purchase of 1853, a total
reduction in Mexican claimed territory of more than 55%, or 900,000
square miles (2,300,000 km2).[247]
Although the annexed territory was about the size of Western Europe, it
was sparsely populated. The land contained about 14,000 non-indigenous
people in Alta California[248] and about 60,000 in Nuevo México,[249] as well as large Native nations, such as the Papago, Pima,
Puebloan, Navajo, Apache and many others. Although some native people
relocated farther south in Mexico, the great majority remained in the
U.S. territory.
The U.S. settlers surging into the newly conquered Southwest replaced Mexican law (a civil law system based on the law of Spain), which, in the Law of April 6, 1830,
forbade any further immigration. However, they recognized the value of a
few aspects of Mexican law and carried them over into their new legal
systems. For example, most of the Southwestern states adopted community property marital property systems, as well as water law.[citation needed]
Many Mexicans, including mestizos, Afro-Mexicans,
and indigenous peoples in the annexed territories, experienced a loss
of civil and political rights. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo promised
U.S. citizenship to all former Mexican citizens living in the
territories. However, the United States gave ceded states the authority
to establish citizenship policy, and within a year, states were passing
laws that banned all Mexicans in Arizona, California, New Mexico and
Texas from U.S. citizenship, except white male Mexicans. Furthermore,
non-white Mexicans lost certain citizenship rights, such as the right to
practice law, vote or hold certain government positions. Indigenous
peoples lost land rights and were exterminated as in the California genocide or forced into reservations.
Mexico lost part of its northern territories in Nevada, Utah, Colorado,
Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming that included few if any Mexicans, and
many indigenous groups.[250]
Furthermore, the U.S. government did not grant full citizenship
to Native Americans in the Southwest until the 1930s, even though they
were Mexican citizens.[251] The California Constitution of 1849
conferred voting rights only to white male citizens (Article II,
Section 1), and the number of senators was proportioned only "according
to the number of white inhabitants" (Article IV, Section 29).[252]
Effect on the United States
In much of the United States, victory and the acquisition of new land
brought a surge of patriotism. Victory seemed to fulfill Democrats'
belief in their country's Manifest Destiny. Although the Whigs had
opposed the war, they made Zachary Taylor their presidential candidate
in the election of 1848, praising his military performance while muting their criticism of the war.
Has the Mexican War terminated yet,
and how? Are we beaten? Do you know of any nation about to besiege
South Hadley [Massachusetts]? If so, do inform me of it, for I would be
glad of a chance to escape, if we are to be stormed. I suppose [our
teacher] Miss [Mary] Lyon [founder of Mount Holyoke College] would furnish us all with daggers and order us to fight for our lives ...
A month before the end of the war, Polk was criticized in a United States House of Representatives
amendment to a bill praising Taylor for "a war unnecessarily and
unconstitutionally begun by the President of the United States." This
criticism, in which Congressman Abraham Lincoln played an important role
with his Spot Resolutions, followed congressional scrutiny of the war's
beginnings, including factual challenges to claims made by President
Polk.[254][255]
The vote followed party lines, with all Whigs supporting the amendment.
Lincoln's attack won lukewarm support from fellow Whigs in Illinois but
was harshly counter attacked by Democrats, who rallied pro-war
sentiments in Illinois; Lincoln's Spot Resolutions haunted his future
campaigns in the heavily Democratic state of Illinois and were cited by
his rivals well into his presidency.[256]
While the Whig Emerson rejected war "as a means of achieving
America's destiny," toward the end of the war he wrote: "The United
States will conquer Mexico, but it will be as the man swallows the
arsenic, which brings him down in turn. Mexico will poison us."[257] He later accepted that "most of the great results of history are brought about by discreditable means."[258] Civil War historian James M. McPherson
dedicates an entire chapter of his Pulitzer winning Civil War history
to the Mexican–American war, entitled "Mexico Will Poison Us". McPherson
argues that the Mexican–American War and its aftermath was a key
territorial event in the leadup to the Civil War.[259]
Veterans of the war were often broken men. "As the sick and
wounded from Taylor's and Scott's campaigns made their way back from
Mexico to the United States, their condition shocked the folks at home.
Husbands, sons, and brothers returned in broken health, some with
missing limbs."[260] The 1880 "Republican Campaign Textbook" by the Republican Congressional Committee[261]
describes the war as "Feculent, reeking Corruption" and "one of the
darkest scenes in our history—a war forced upon our and the Mexican
people by the high-handed usurpations of Pres't Polk in pursuit of
territorial aggrandizement of the slave oligarchy."
Following the signing of the 1848 treaty, Polk sought to send
troops to Yucatan, where there was a civil war between secessionists and
those supporting the Mexican government. The U.S. Congress refused his
request. The Mexican War was supposed to be short and nearly bloodless.
It was neither. Congress did not support more foreign conflict.[262]
The Mexican–American War,[b] also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the United States intervention in Mexico,[c] (April 25, 1846 – February 2, 1848) was an invasion of Mexico by the United States. It followed the 1845 American annexation of Texas, which Mexico still considered its territory because it refused to recognize the Treaties of Velasco, signed by President Antonio López de Santa Anna after he was captured by the Texian Army during the 1836 Texas Revolution. The Republic of Texas was de facto an independent country, but most of its Anglo-American citizens who had moved from the United States to Texas after 1822 wanted to be annexed by the United States.[6][7]
Sectional politics over slavery in the United States
had previously prevented annexation because Texas would have been
admitted as a slave state, upsetting the balance of power between
Northern free states and Southern slave states.[8] In the 1844 United States presidential election, Democrat James K. Polk was elected on a platform of expanding U.S. territory to Oregon, California (also a Mexican territory), and Texas by any means, with the 1845 annexation of Texas furthering that goal.[9] However, the boundary between Texas and Mexico was disputed, with the Republic of Texas and the U.S. asserting it to be the Rio Grande and Mexico claiming it to be the more northerly Nueces River.
Polk sent a diplomatic mission to Mexico in an attempt to buy the
disputed territory, together with California and everything in between
for $25million (equivalent to $798 million in 2024), an offer the Mexican government refused.[10][11] Polk then sent a group of 80 soldiers across the disputed territory to the Rio Grande, ignoring Mexican demands to withdraw.[12][13] Mexican forces interpreted this as an attack and repelled the U.S. forces on April 25, 1846,[14] a move that Polk used to convince the Congress of the United States to declare war.[12]
Beyond the disputed area of Texas, U.S. forces quickly occupied the regional capital of Santa Fe de Nuevo México along the upper Rio Grande. U.S. forces also moved against the province of Alta California and then turned south. The Pacific Squadron of the U.S. Navy blockaded the Pacific coast in the lower Baja California Territory. The U.S. Army, under Major General Winfield Scott, invaded the Mexican heartland via an amphibious landing at the port of Veracruz on March 9 and captured the capital, Mexico City,
in September 1847. Although Mexico was defeated on the battlefield,
negotiating peace was politically complex. Some Mexican factions refused
to consider any recognition of its loss of territory. Although Polk
formally relieved his peace envoy, Nicholas Trist, of his post as negotiator, Trist ignored the order and successfully concluded the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. It ended the war, and Mexico recognized the cession
of present-day Texas, California, Nevada, and Utah as well as parts of
present-day Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming. The U.S. agreed
to pay $15 million (equivalent to $479 million in 2024) for the physical
damage of the war and assumed $3.25 million of debt already owed by the
Mexican government to U.S. citizens. Mexico relinquished its claims on
Texas and accepted the Rio Grande as its northern border with the United
States.
The victory and territorial expansion
Polk had spearheaded inspired patriotism among some sections of the
United States, but the war and treaty drew fierce criticism for the
casualties, monetary cost, and heavy-handedness. The question of how to
treat the new acquisitions intensified the debate over slavery in the
United States. Although the Wilmot Proviso
explicitly forbade the extension of slavery into conquered Mexican
territory, it was not adopted by Congress, and debates about it
heightened sectional tensions. Some scholars see the Mexican–American
War as leading to the American Civil War. Many officers who had trained at West Point
gained experience in the war and later played prominent leadership
roles during the Civil War. In Mexico, the war worsened domestic
political turmoil and led to a loss of national prestige, as it suffered
large losses of life in both its military and civilian population, had
its financial foundations undermined, and lost more than half of its
territory.
Mexico obtained independence from Spain’s Spanish Empire with the Treaty of Córdoba in 1821 after a decade of conflict between the Spanish royal army and Mexican insurgents for independence, with no foreign intervention. The conflict ruined the silver-mining districts of Zacatecas and Guanajuato. Mexico began as a sovereign nation with its future financial stability from its main export destroyed. Mexico briefly experimented with monarchy, but became a republic in 1824. This government was characterized by instability,[15]
and it was ill-prepared for a major international conflict when war
broke out with the U.S. in 1846. Mexico had successfully resisted Spanish attempts to reconquer its former colony[16] in the 1820s and resisted the French in the so-called Pastry War of 1838[17] but the secessionists' success in Texas and the Yucatán against the centralist government of Mexico showed its political weakness as the government changed hands multiple times.[18] The Mexican military and the Catholic Church in Mexico, both privileged institutions with conservative political views, were stronger politically than the Mexican state.[citation needed]
The United States' 1803 Louisiana Purchase
resulted in an undefined border between Spanish colonial territories
and the U.S. Some of the boundary issues between the U.S. and Spain were
resolved with the Adams-Onís Treaty of 1818. U.S. negotiator John Quincy Adams wanted clear possession of East Florida and establishment of U.S. claims above the 42nd parallel, while Spain sought to limit U.S. expansion into what is now the American Southwest. The U.S. sought to purchase territory from Mexico, starting in 1825, in order to settle some of these issues. U.S. President Andrew Jackson made a sustained effort to acquire northern Mexican territory, with no success.[19]
Historian Peter Guardino states that in the war "the greatest advantage the United States had was its prosperity."[20] With the Industrial Revolution across the Atlantic increasing the demand for cotton for textile factories, there was a large external market for cotton
produced by enslaved African-American labor in the southern states.
This demand helped fuel expansion into northern Mexico. Although there
were political conflicts in the U.S., they were largely contained by the
framework of the constitution and did not result in revolution or
rebellion by 1846, but rather by sectional political conflicts.
Northerners in the U.S. sought to develop the country's existing
resources and expand the industrial sector without expanding the
nation's territory. The existing balance of sectional interests would be
disrupted by the expansion of slavery into new territory. The Democratic Party, to which President James K Polk belonged, in particular had strongly supported U.S. expansion.[21]
Historian Rachel John argues that Americans and the United States
government viewed this opportunity through an ideological lens. As a
new nation seen as an experiment, the United States sought to gain
prestige and demonstrate its power. Mexico's failure to control its
territory—such as its inability to maintain control over Texas—made it
vulnerable and viewed as a target. With a stronger military capability,
the United States was in a position of power, enabling it to fulfill
these ideological goals.[22]
The historian Peter Guardino argues racial and gender-based
stereotypes against the Mexicans, such as them being displayed as more
feminine compared to the American's sense of masculinity and superiority
over the Mexicans contributed to the war and the ideals of American
expansionism.[23]
Neither colonial Mexico nor the newly sovereign Mexican state effectively controlled Mexico's far north and west.[citation needed]
Mexico's military and diplomatic capabilities declined after it
attained independence from Spain in 1821 and left the northern half of
the country vulnerable to attacks by Comanche, Apache, and Navajo American Indians.[24]
The Comanche, in particular, took advantage of the weakness of the
Mexican nation to undertake large-scale raids hundreds of miles into the
country to acquire livestock for their own use and to supply an
expanding market in Texas and the U.S.[25]
The northern area of Mexico was sparsely settled because of its challenging climate and topography.[26]
Mostly high desert with scarce rainfall, it supported little sedentary
agriculture during the pre-Hispanic and colonial periods.[27]
After independence, Mexico became preoccupied with internal struggles
that sometimes verged on civil war, and the worsening situation on the
northern frontier was largely neglected.[citation needed] In northern Mexico, the end of Spanish rule was marked by the end of financing for garrisoned presidios
and the pay-offs to American Indians to maintain peace. In the absence
of effective governance, Comanche and Apache took to raiding for
livestock and looted much of the northern countryside outside of the
scattered towns. The raids after 1821 resulted in many deaths, halted
most transportation and communications, and decimated the ranching
industry that was a mainstay of the northern economy. As a result, the
demoralized civilian population of northern Mexico put up little
resistance to the invading U.S. army.[28]
Furthermore, distance and hostile activity by Native Americans
made communications and trade between the heartland of Mexico and
provinces such as Alta California and New Mexico
increasingly difficult. As a result, at the outbreak of the war, New
Mexico was economically dependent on trade with the United States via
the eastern branch of the Santa Fe Trail.[29]
The Mexican government, being overstretched, failed to influence and
control its claimed territories. However, it was viewed as a great
potential source of wealth by the Mexicans, whilst American settlers
believed it was their nation's destiny to claim this land and that its
acquisition would secure the United States' position from European
colonial empires.[30]
The Mexican government's policy of allowing the settlement of U.S. citizens in its province of Tejas was aimed at expanding control into Comanche lands, the Comancheria. However, rather than settling in the dangerous central and western parts of the province, Anglos preferred to settle in East Texas with its rich farmland contiguous with the southern U.S. slave states. As settlers poured in from the U.S., the Mexican government discouraged further migration with its 1829 abolition of slavery.[31]
Foreign designs on California
Mexico in 1824 with the boundary line with the U.S. from the 1818 Adams-Onís Treaty that Spain negotiated with the U.S.
During the Spanish colonial era, the Californias (i.e., the Baja
California peninsula and Alta California) were sparsely settled. After
Mexico became independent, it shut down the missions and reduced its
military presence. In 1842, the U.S. minister in Mexico, Waddy Thompson Jr.,
suggested Mexico might be willing to cede Alta California to the U.S.
to settle debts, saying: "As to Texas, I regard it as of very little
value compared with California, the richest, the most beautiful, and the
healthiest country in the world ... with the acquisition of Upper
California we should have the same ascendency on the Pacific ... France
and England both have had their eyes upon it."[32]
U.S. President John Tyler's administration suggested a tripartite pact to settle the Oregon boundary dispute and provide for the cession of the port of San Francisco from Mexico. Lord Aberdeen declined to participate but said Britain had no objection to U.S. territorial acquisition there.[33] The British minister in Mexico, Richard Pakenham, wrote in 1841 to Lord Palmerston
urging "to establish an English population in the magnificent Territory
of Upper California", saying that "no part of the World offering
greater natural advantages for the establishment of an English
colony ... by all means desirable ... that California, once ceasing to
belong to Mexico, should not fall into the hands of any power but
England ... there is some reason to believe that daring and adventurous
speculators in the United States have already turned their thoughts in
this direction." By the time the letter reached London, though, Sir Robert Peel's Tory government, with its Little England policy, had come to power and rejected the proposal as expensive and a potential source of conflict.[34][35]
Pío Pico, the last governor of Alta California, advocated that California achieve independence from Mexico and become a British protectorate.[36][37]
California battle and change in governorship
In 1842, Mexico forcibly replaced California Governor Juan Bautista Alvarado with Manuel Micheltorena.
Micheltorena was sent up from lower Mexico, along with an army, that
had largely been recruited from Mexico's worst jails. The Californios
resented this, partly because California had previously been governed
by native-born Californios, partly because Micheltorena's policies were
unpopular, and also because the soldiers in Micheltorena's army got a
reputation for spending much of their time stealing the local
Californios' chickens. Women were not considered safe from the
depredations of Micheltorena's army.[36][38][39][40]
Former Governor Alvarado organized a revolt in 1845, which culminated in the Battle of Providencia in Cahuenga Pass near Los Angeles. As a result of the actions of pioneer California rancher John Marsh, Micheltorena's forces were defeated.[36][38][39][40]
The Republic of Texas: The present-day outlines of the individual U.S. states are superimposed on the boundaries of 1836–1845.
In 1800, Spain's colonial province of Texas (Tejas) had few inhabitants, with only about 7,000 white settlers.[41]
The Spanish crown developed a policy of European colonization to more
effectively control the territory. After independence, the Mexican
government implemented the policy, granting Moses Austin,
a banker from Missouri, a large tract of land in Texas. Austin died
before he could bring his plan of recruiting American settlers for the
land to fruition, but his son, Stephen F. Austin, brought over 300 American families into Texas.[42]
This started the steady trend of migration from the United States into
the Texas frontier. Austin's colony was the most successful of several
colonies authorized by the Mexican government. The Mexican government
intended the new settlers to act as a buffer between the Tejano
residents and the Comanches, but the non-Hispanic colonists tended to
settle in areas with decent farmland and trade connections with
Louisiana rather than farther west where they would have been an
effective buffer against the Indian tribes.
In 1829, because of the large influx of American settlers, the
non-Hispanic population outnumbered the Hispanic population in Texas.
President Vicente Guerrero,
a hero of Mexican independence, moved to gain more control over Texas
and its influx of non-Hispanic colonists from the southern U.S. and
discourage further immigration by abolishing slavery in Mexico.[41][43]
The Mexican government also decided to reinstate the property tax and
increase tariffs on shipped American goods. The settlers and many
Mexican businessmen in the region rejected the demands, which led to
Mexico closing Texas to additional immigration, which continued
regardless from the United States into Texas illegally.
In 1834, Mexican conservatives seized the political initiative, and General Antonio López de Santa Anna
became the centralist president of Mexico. The conservative-dominated
Congress abandoned the federal system, replacing it with a unitary
central government that removed power from the states. Leaving politics
to those in Mexico City, General Santa Anna led the Mexican army to
quash the semi-independence of Texas. He had done that in Coahuila (in
1824, Mexico had merged Texas and Coahuila into the enormous state of Coahuila y Tejas).
Texan settlers were threatened by abolitionist states and nations, such
as Great Britain. The possibility of ending slavery threatened the
political and social fabric of Texas and other slaveholding States in
America.[44]
Austin called Texians to arms, and they declared independence from Mexico in 1836. After Santa Anna defeated the Texians in the Battle of the Alamo that March, he was defeated by the Texian Army commanded by General Sam Houston and was captured at the Battle of San Jacinto in April. In exchange for his life, Santa Anna signed a treaty with Texan President David Burnet
ending the war and recognizing Texian independence. The treaty was not
ratified by the Mexican Congress, as it had been signed by a captive
under duress.[45]
Although Mexico refused to recognize Texian independence, Texas
consolidated its status as an independent republic and received official
recognition from Britain, France, and the United States, which all
advised Mexico not to try to reconquer the new nation. Most Texians
wanted to join the United States, but the annexation of Texas was
contentious in the U.S. Congress, where Whigs and Abolitionists opposed the addition of another slave state.[46]: 150–155
Southern Americans who held influence and government officials saw
Texas as an opportunity to open markets for northerners and a place to
produce goods. Southern planters wanted to create and ensure a Southern
empire of slavery; for them, upholding Texas's status as a slave state
was important.[47]
In 1845, Texas agreed to the offer of annexation by the U.S. Congress
and became the 28th state on December 29, 1845, which set the stage for
the conflict with Mexico.[48]
Prelude
Nueces Strip
By the Treaties of Velasco made after Texans captured General Santa Anna
after the Battle of San Jacinto, the southern border of Texas was
placed at the "Rio Grande del Norte." The Texans claimed this placed the
southern border at the modern Rio Grande.
The Mexican government disputed this placement on two grounds: first,
it rejected the idea of Texas independence; and second, it claimed that
the Rio Grande in the treaty was actually the Nueces River,
since the current Rio Grande has always been called "Rio Bravo" in
Mexico. The latter claim belied the full name of the river in Mexico,
however: "Rio Bravo del Norte." The ill-fated Texan Santa Fe Expedition
of 1841 attempted to realize the claim to New Mexican territory east of
the Rio Grande, but its members were captured by the Mexican Army and
imprisoned. Reference to the Rio Grande boundary of Texas was omitted
from the U.S. Congress's annexation resolution to help secure passage
after the annexation treaty failed in the Senate. President Polk claimed
the Rio Grande boundary, and when Mexico sent forces over the Rio
Grande, this provoked a dispute.[49]
Polk's Actions
In July 1845, Polk sent General Zachary Taylor
to Texas, and by October, Taylor commanded 3,500 Americans on the
Nueces River, ready to take the disputed land by force. At the same
time, President Polk wrote to the American consul in the Mexican
territory of Alta California, disclaiming American ambitions in
California but offering to support independence from Mexico or voluntary
accession to the United States, and warning that the United States
would oppose any European attempts to take over.[49]
To end another war scare with the United Kingdom over the Oregon Country, Polk signed the Oregon Treaty dividing the territory, angering Northern Democrats who felt he was prioritizing Southern expansion over Northern expansion.
In late 1845, a 62-man exploring and mapping expedition sent by Polk under the command of U.S. Army Brevet Captain John C. Frémont entered California. Early in 1846, Frémont visited American Consul Thomas O. Larkin in Monterey. California's Commandante General José Castro became alarmed and ordered him to leave. Frémont acted provocatively by encamping his party on nearby Gavilan Peak
and raising the American flag. Larkin sent word that Frémont's actions
were counterproductive. Under a threat of military confrontation,
Frémont then in March moved his group out of California into Oregon Country.[50] He was followed into Oregon by U.S. Marine Lt. Archibald H. Gillespie
who had been sent by Polk from Washington with a secret message for
Larkin and instructions to share the message with Frémont. Gillespie
reached Frémont in early May.[51] Frémont then returned to the Sacramento Valley and set up camp near Sutter Buttes, where he supported the nascent Bear Flag Revolt that occurred in June 1846 in Sonoma.[52] In July 1846, most of the Bear Flag rebels joined Fremont's men to form the California Battalion.[53]
In November 1845, Polk sent John Slidell,
a secret representative, to Mexico City with an offer to the Mexican
government of $25 million for the Rio Grande border in Texas and
Mexico's provinces of Alta California and Santa Fe de Nuevo México. U.S.
expansionists wanted California to thwart any British interests in the
area and to gain a port on the Pacific Ocean. Polk authorized Slidell to
forgive the $3 million owed to U.S. citizens for damages caused by the
Mexican War of Independence and pay another $25 to $30 million for the
two territories.[10][11]
Mexico's response
Mexico was neither inclined nor able to negotiate. In 1846 alone, the
presidency changed hands four times, the war ministry six times, and
the finance ministry sixteen times.[54]
Despite that, Mexican public opinion and all political factions agreed
that selling the territories to the United States would tarnish the
national honor.[55][56] Mexicans who opposed direct conflict with the United States, including President José Joaquín de Herrera, were viewed as traitors.[57]
Military opponents of de Herrera, supported by populist newspapers,
considered Slidell's presence in Mexico City an insult. When de Herrera
considered receiving Slidell to settle the problem of Texas annexation
peacefully, he was accused of treason and deposed. After a more
nationalistic government under General Mariano Paredes y Arrillaga came to power, it publicly reaffirmed Mexico's claim to Texas.[57]
Preparation for war
Challenges in Mexico
Mexican Army
General Antonio López de Santa Anna
was a military hero who became president of Mexico on multiple
occasions. The Mexican Army's intervention in politics was an ongoing
issue during much of the mid-nineteenth century.
The Mexican Army
was a weak and divided force. Only 7 of the 19 states that formed the
Mexican federation sent soldiers, armament, and money for the war
effort.[58]
Many leaders expressed their concern for the country, including Santa
Anna who stated that, "The leaders of the army did their best to train
the rough men who volunteered, but they could do little to inspire them
with patriotism for the glorious country they were honored to serve."[59] According to the leading Mexican conservative politician, Lucas Alamán,
the "money spent on arming Mexican troops merely enabled them to fight
each other and 'give the illusion' that the country possessed an army
for its defense."[60]
However, an officer criticized Santa Anna's training of troops, "The
cavalry was drilled only in regiments. The artillery hardly ever
maneuvered and never fired a blank shot. The general in command was
never present on the field of maneuvers, so that he was unable to
appreciate the respective qualities of the various bodies under his
command ... If any meetings of the principal commanding officers were
held to discuss the operations of the campaign, it was not known, nor
was it known whether any plan of campaign had been formed."[61]
At the beginning of the war, Mexican forces were divided between the permanent forces (permanentes) and the active militiamen (activos).
The permanent forces consisted of 12 regiments of infantry (of two
battalions each), three brigades of artillery, eight regiments of
cavalry, one separate squadron and a brigade of dragoons. The militia
amounted to nine infantry and six cavalry regiments. In the northern
territories, presidial companies (presidiales) protected the scattered settlements.[62]
Indigenous populations in Mexico played a crucial role in the
defending of their land. By the beginning of the war, indigenous
populations were depleted of their natural resources[further explanation needed] due to an influx of settlers.[63] As a result, indigenous populations from the Great Plains region raided American and Mexican settlements in order to survive.[64]
Although raiding was much more lucrative than hunting, the indigenous
population did not have much of a choice. Indigenous soldiers who
volunteered to fight with the Mexican Army were often abandoned and
compensated unfairly.[64] By raiding, indigenous populations were also able to acquire horses and properly tame them to move efficiently during battles.[65]
Captive-taking methods, especially that of the Comanche tribe, were
also used, as captives would end up assisting indigenous populations in
raids against Mexican or American forces.[66]
The Mexican army was using surplus British muskets (such as the Brown Bess), left over from the Napoleonic Wars.
While at the beginning of the war most American soldiers were still
equipped with the very similar Springfield 1816 flintlock muskets, more
reliable caplock
models became increasingly popular as the conflict progressed. Some
U.S. troops carried more modern weapons that gave them a significant
advantage over their Mexican counterparts, such as the Springfield 1841
rifle of the Mississippi Rifles and the Colt Paterson revolver of the Texas Rangers. In the later stages of the war, the U.S. Mounted Rifles were issued Colt Walker
revolvers, of which the U.S. Army had ordered 1,000 in 1846. Most
significantly, throughout the war, the superiority of the U.S. artillery
often carried the day.
In his 1885 memoirs, former U.S. President Ulysses Grant, a veteran of the Mexican war, attributed Mexico's defeat to the poor quality of their army, writing:
"The Mexican army of that day was
hardly an organization. The private soldier was picked from the lower
class of the inhabitants when wanted; his consent was not asked; he was
poorly clothed, worse fed, and seldom paid. He was turned adrift when no
longer wanted. The officers of the lower grades were but little
superior to the men. With all this I have seen as brave stands made by
some of these men as I have ever seen made by soldiers. Now Mexico has a
standing army larger than the United States. They have a military
school modeled after West Point. Their officers are educated and, no
doubt, very brave. The Mexican war of 1846–48 would be an impossibility
in this generation."[67]
Political divisions
Liberal Valentín Gómez Farías,
who served as Santa Anna's vice president and implemented a liberal
reform in 1833, was an important political player in the era of the
Mexican–American War.
There were significant political divisions in Mexico which seriously impeded the war effort.[68] Inside Mexico, the conservative centralistas
and liberal federalists vied for power, and at times these two factions
inside Mexico's military fought each other rather than the invading
U.S. Army. Santa Anna bitterly remarked, "However shameful it may be to
admit this, we have brought this disgraceful tragedy upon ourselves
through our interminable in-fighting."[69]
During the conflict, presidents held office for a period of
months, sometimes just weeks, or even days. Just before the outbreak of
the war, liberal General José Joaquín de Herrera was president (December
1844 – December 1845) and willing to engage in talks so long as he did
not appear to be caving to the U.S., but he was accused by many Mexican
factions of selling out his country (vendepatria) for considering it.[70] He was overthrown by Conservative Mariano Paredes (December 1845 – July 1846), who left the presidency to fight the invading U.S. Army and was replaced by his vice president Nicolás Bravo (July 28, 1846 – August 4, 1846). The conservative Bravo was overthrown by federalist liberals who re-established the federal Constitution of 1824. José Mariano Salas
(August 6, 1846 – December 23, 1846) served as president and held
elections under the restored federalist system. General Antonio López de
Santa Anna won those elections, but as was his practice, he left the
administration to his vice president, who was again liberal Valentín Gómez Farías
(December 23, 1846 – March 21, 1847). In February 1847, conservatives
rebelled against the liberal government's attempt to take Church
property to fund the war effort. In the Revolt of the Polkos, the Catholic Church and conservatives paid soldiers to rise against the liberal government.[71] Santa Anna had to leave his campaign to return to the capital to sort out the political mess.
Santa Anna briefly held the presidency again, from March 21,
1847 – April 2, 1847. His troops were deprived of support that would
allow them to continue the fight. The conservatives demanded the removal
of Gómez Farías, and this was accomplished by abolishing the office of
vice president. Santa Anna returned to the field, replaced in the
presidency by Pedro María de Anaya
(April 2 – May 20, 1847). Santa Anna returned to the presidency on May
20, 1847, when Anaya left to fight the invasion, serving until September
15, 1847. Preferring the battlefield to administration, Santa Anna left
office again, leaving the office to Manuel de la Peña y Peña (September 16 – November 13, 1847).
With U.S. forces occupying the Mexican capital and much of the
heartland, negotiating a peace treaty was an exigent matter, and Peña y
Peña left office to do that. Pedro María Anaya returned to the
presidency on November 13, 1847 – January 8, 1848. Anaya refused to sign
any treaty that ceded land to the U.S., despite the situation on the
ground with Americans occupying the capital. Peña y Peña resumed the
presidency January 8, 1848 – June 3, 1848, during which time the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, bringing the war to an end.
Challenges in the United States
U.S. Army full dress and campaign uniforms, 1835–1851
Polk had pledged to seek expanded territory in Oregon and Texas, as part of his campaign in 1844,
but the regular army was not sufficiently large to sustain extended
conflicts on two fronts. The Oregon dispute with Britain was settled
peaceably by treaty, allowing U.S. forces to concentrate on the southern
border.
The war was fought by regiments of regulars bolstered by various
regiments, battalions, and companies of volunteers from the different
states of the Union, as well as Americans and some Mexicans in
California and New Mexico. In general, the Regular Army officers looked
down on the volunteers, whose training was poor and whose behavior was
undisciplined. (see below)
On the West Coast, the U.S. Navy fielded a battalion of sailors, in an attempt to recapture Los Angeles.[72]
Although the U.S. Army and Navy were not large at the outbreak of the
war, the officers were generally well trained and the numbers of
enlisted men fairly large compared to Mexico's. At the beginning of the
war, the U.S. Army had eight regiments of infantry (three battalions
each), four artillery regiments and three mounted regiments (two
dragoons, one of mounted rifles). These regiments were supplemented by
10 new regiments (nine of infantry and one of cavalry) raised for one
year of service by the act of Congress from February 11, 1847.[73]
A large portion of this fighting force consisted of recent immigrants.
According to Tyler V. Johnson, foreign-born men amounted to 47 percent
of General Taylor's total forces. In addition to a large contingent of
Irish- and German-born soldiers, nearly all European states and
principalities were represented. It is estimated that the U.S. Army
further included 1,500 men from British North America, including French
Canadians.[74][75]
Although Polk hoped to avoid a protracted war over Texas, the
extended conflict stretched regular army resources, necessitating the
recruitment of volunteers with short-term enlistments. Some enlistments
were for a year, but others were for 3 or 6 months.[76] The best volunteers signed up for a year's service in the summer of 1846, with their enlistments expiring just when General Winfield Scott's
campaign was poised to capture Mexico City. Many did not re-enlist,
deciding that they would rather return home than place themselves in
harm's way of disease, threat of death or injury on the battlefield, or
in guerrilla warfare. Their patriotism was doubted by some in the U.S.,
but they were not counted as deserters.[77]
The volunteers were far less disciplined than the regular army, with
many committing attacks on the civilian population, sometimes stemming
from anti-Catholic and anti-Mexican racial bias.[78]
Soldiers' memoirs describe cases of looting and murder of Mexican
civilians, mostly by volunteers. One officer's diary records: "We
reached Burrita about 5 pm, many of the Louisiana volunteers were there,
a lawless drunken rabble. They had driven away the inhabitants, taken
possession of their houses, and were emulating each other in making
beasts of themselves."[79]John L. O'Sullivan,
a vocal proponent of Manifest Destiny, later recalled "The regulars
regarded the volunteers with importance and contempt ... [The
volunteers] robbed Mexicans of their cattle and corn, stole their fences
for firewood, got drunk, and killed several inoffensive inhabitants of
the town in the streets." Many of the volunteers were unwanted and
considered poor soldiers. The expression "Just like Gaines's army" came
to refer to something useless, the phrase having originated when a group
of untrained and unwilling Louisiana troops was rejected and sent back
by General Taylor at the beginning of the war.[80]
In his 1885 memoirs, Ulysses Grant assesses the U.S. armed forces facing Mexico more favorably.
The victories in Mexico were, in
every instance, over vastly superior numbers. There were two reasons for
this. Both General Scott and General Taylor had such armies as are not
often got together. At the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca-de-la-Palma,
General Taylor had a small army, but it was composed exclusively of
regular troops, under the best of drill and discipline. Every officer,
from the highest to the lowest, was educated in his profession, not at
West Point necessarily, but in the camp, in garrison, and many of them
in wars with Natives. The rank and file were probably inferior, as
material out of which to make an army, to the volunteers that
participated in all the later battles of the war; but they were brave
men, and then drill and discipline brought out all there was in them. A
better army, man for man, probably never faced an enemy than the one
commanded by General Taylor in the earliest two engagements of the
Mexican war. The volunteers who followed were of better material, but
without drill or discipline at the start. They were associated with so
many disciplined men and professionally educated officers, that when
they went into engagements it was with a confidence they would not have
felt otherwise. They became soldiers themselves almost at once. All
these conditions we would enjoy again in case of war.[81]
Political divisions
The U.S. had been an independent country since the American Revolution,
but it was a country that was strongly divided along sectional lines,
especially in regard to slavery. Enlarging the country, particularly
through armed combat against a sovereign nation, deepened those
sectional divisions. Polk had narrowly won the popular vote in the 1844 presidential election
and decisively won the Electoral College, but with the annexation of
Texas in 1845 and the outbreak of war in 1846, Polk's Democrats lost the
House of Representatives to the Whig Party, which opposed the war.
Unlike Mexico, which had weak formal state institutions, chaotic changes
in government, and a military that regularly intervened in politics,
the U.S. generally kept its political divisions within the bounds of the
institutions of governance.
María Josefa Zozaya was a Mexican woman who aided wounded and ill troops of both the American and Mexican armies during the War.
Since Mexico fought the war on its home territory, a traditional support system for troops were women, known as soldaderas.
They did not participate in conventional fighting on battlefields, but
some soldaderas joined the battle alongside the men. These women were
involved in fighting during the defense of Mexico City and Monterrey. On
the other hand, some Mexican women were seen as "angels" as they
provided aid and comfort to the injured men on both sides.[82] Some women such as Doña Jesús Dosamantes and María Josefa Zozaya would be remembered as heroines.[83]
On the home front
Although soldaderas were able to prove the abilities Mexican women
had outside of the private sphere, Mexican women on the home front still
contributed to the war effort. After having to face the losses in their
country, Mexican women were seen dressed in black and creating somber
paintings.[84]
Sarah A Bowman was an American woman, that during the war operated an inn in Franklin, Texas (now El Paso, Texas) before settling near Arizona City (now Yuma, Arizona).
American and Mexican women shared the similarities of providing their
domestic services on the battlefield. Among the most notable American
women on the battlefield was Sarah Bowman. She was often seen delivering food, carrying wounded soldiers, and in close combat.[85]
On the home front
In Mexico
While their husbands enlisted, many American women stayed in Mexico to
tend to oversee their business, making themselves factory women.[86] However, factory woman Ann Chase was willing enough to become a spy for U.S. forces in order to protect her home and business in the absence of her husband.[87]
In the U.S.
Just as Mexican women contributed to the war efforts from their homes,
women in the U.S. similarly protested publicly and made patriotic crafts
that U.S. soldiers could carry.[88]
In addition, female journalists across multiple states took advantage
of their literacy to speak up in support or in opposition of the war,
including Anne Royall,[89]Jane Swisshelm,[90] and Jane Cazneau.[91]
Female American journalists played a crucial role in representing the
voices of women that had been silenced within the public sphere.
Outbreak of hostilities
Sarah A. Bowman "The Great Western", depicted as the Heroine of Fort Brown. At her death, she was buried with full military honors.
President Polk ordered General Taylor and his forces south to the Rio
Grande. Taylor ignored Mexican demands to withdraw to the Nueces. He
constructed a makeshift fort (later known as Fort Brown/Fort Texas) on the banks of the Rio Grande opposite the city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas.[14]
The Mexican forces prepared for war. On April 25, 1846, a
2,000-man Mexican cavalry detachment attacked a 70-man U.S. patrol
commanded by Captain Seth Thornton, which had been sent into the
contested territory north of the Rio Grande and south of the Nueces
River. In the Thornton Affair, the Mexican cavalry routed the patrol, killing 11 American soldiers and capturing 52.[13]
Siege of Fort Texas
A few days after the Thornton Affair, the siege of Fort Texas
began on May 3, 1846. Mexican artillery at Matamoros opened fire on
Fort Texas, which replied with its own guns. The bombardment continued
for 160 hours[92]
and expanded as Mexican forces gradually surrounded the fort. Thirteen
U.S. soldiers were injured during the bombardment, and two were killed.[92] Among the dead was Jacob Brown, after whom the fort was later named.[93]
Battle of Palo Alto
On May 8, 1846, Zachary Taylor and 2,400 troops arrived to relieve the fort.[94]
However, General Arista rushed north with a force of 3,400 and
intercepted him about 5 miles (8 km) north of the Rio Grande River, near
modern-day Brownsville, Texas. The U.S. Army employed "flying artillery", their term for horse artillery,
a mobile light artillery mounted on horse carriages with the entire
crew riding horses into battle. The fast-firing artillery and highly
mobile fire support had a devastating effect on the Mexican army. In
contrast to the "flying artillery" of the Americans, the Mexican cannons
at the Battle of Palo Alto
had lower-quality gunpowder that fired at velocities slow enough to
make it possible for American soldiers to dodge artillery rounds.[95]
The Mexicans replied with cavalry skirmishes and their own artillery.
The U.S. flying artillery somewhat demoralized the Mexican side, and
seeking terrain more to their advantage, the Mexicans retreated to the
far side of a dry riverbed (resaca)
during the night and prepared for the next battle. It provided a
natural fortification, but during the retreat, Mexican troops were
scattered, making communication difficult.[92]
Battle of Resaca de la Palma
During the Battle of Resaca de la Palma on May 9, 1846, the two sides engaged in fierce hand-to-hand combat. The U.S. Cavalry managed to capture the Mexican artillery, causing the Mexican side to retreat, which then became a rout.[92]
Fighting on unfamiliar terrain, his troops fleeing in retreat, Arista
found it impossible to rally his forces. Mexican casualties were
significant, and the Mexicans were forced to abandon their artillery and
baggage. Fort Brown inflicted additional casualties as the withdrawing
troops passed by the fort, and additional Mexican soldiers drowned
trying to swim across the Rio Grande.[96] Taylor crossed the Rio Grande and began his series of battles in Mexican territory.
Declarations of war, May 1846
Overview map of the war
Disputed territory
United States territory, 1848
Mexican territory, 1848
After treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
Polk received word of the Thornton Affair, which, added to the
Mexican government's rejection of Slidell, Polk believed, constituted a casus belli.[97][98]
Polk said in a message to Congress: "The cup of forbearance had been
exhausted even before the recent information from the frontier of the
Del Norte. But now, after reiterated menaces, Mexico has passed the
boundary of the United States, has invaded our territory and shed
American blood upon the American soil. She has proclaimed that
hostilities have commenced, and that the two nations are now at war."[99][100]
The U.S. Congress approved the declaration of war on May 13,
1846, after a few hours of debate, with southern Democrats in strong
support. Sixty-seven Whigs voted against the war on a key slavery
amendment,[101] but on the final passage only fourteen Whigs voted no,[101] including John Quincy Adams. Later, a freshman Whig Congressman from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, challenged Polk's assertion that American blood had been shed on American soil, calling it "a bold falsification of history."[102][103]
Regarding the beginning of the war, Ulysses S. Grant, who had opposed
the war but served as an army lieutenant in Taylor's army, claims in his
Personal Memoirs
(1885) that the main goal of the U.S. Army's advance from Nueces River
to the Rio Grande was to provoke the outbreak of war without attacking
first, to debilitate any political opposition to the war.
The
presence of United States troops on the edge of the disputed territory
farthest from the Mexican settlements, was not sufficient to provoke
hostilities. We were sent to provoke a fight, but it was essential that
Mexico should commence it. It was very doubtful whether Congress would
declare war; but if Mexico should attack our troops, the Executive could
announce, "Whereas, war exists by the acts of, etc.", and prosecute the
contest with vigor. Once initiated there were, but few public men who
would have the courage to oppose it. ... Mexico showing no willingness
to come to the Nueces to drive the invaders from her soil, it became
necessary for the "invaders" to approach to within a convenient distance
to be struck. Accordingly, preparations were begun for moving the army
to the Rio Grande, to a point near Matamoras [sic]. It was desirable to
occupy a position near the largest centre of population possible to
reach, without absolutely invading territory to which we set up no claim
whatever.[104]
In Mexico, although Paredes issued a manifesto on May 23, 1846, and a
declaration of a defensive war on April 23, both of which are
considered by some[who?] the de facto start of the war, the Mexican Congress officially declared war on July 7, 1846.[105]: 148
General Santa Anna's return
Mexico's defeats at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma precipitated the
return of Santa Anna. In exile in Cuba at the outbreak of the war, he
wrote to the government in Mexico City, stating he did not want to
return to the presidency, but was prepared to end his exile and use his
military experience to reclaim Texas for Mexico. President Farías was
driven to desperation. He accepted the offer and allowed Santa Anna to
return. Unbeknownst to Farías, Santa Anna had secretly been dealing with
U.S. representatives to discuss a sale of all contested territory to
the U.S. at a reasonable price, on the condition that he be allowed back
in Mexico through the U.S. naval blockades. Polk sent his own
representative to Cuba, Alexander Slidell MacKenzie,
to negotiate directly with Santa Anna. The negotiations were secret and
there are no written records of the meetings, but there was some
understanding that came out of the meetings. Polk asked Congress for
$2 million to be used in negotiating a treaty with Mexico. The U.S.
allowed Santa Anna to return to Mexico, lifting the Gulf Coast naval
blockade. However, in Mexico, Santa Anna denied all knowledge of meeting
with the U.S. representative or any offers or transactions. Rather than
being Polk's ally, he pocketed any money given him and began to plan
the defense of Mexico. The Americans were dismayed, including General
Scott, as this was an unexpected result. "Santa Anna gloated over his
enemies' naïveté: 'The United States was deceived in believing that I
would be capable of betraying my mother country.'"[106]
Santa Anna avoided getting involved in politics, dedicating himself to
Mexico's military defense. While politicians attempted to reset the
governing framework to a federal republic, Santa Anna left for the front
to retake lost northern territory. Although Santa Anna was elected
president in 1846, he refused to govern, leaving that to his vice
president, while he sought to engage with Taylor's forces. With the
restored federal republic, some states refused to support the national
military campaign led by Santa Anna, who had fought with them directly
in the previous decade. Santa Anna urged Vice President Gómez Farías to
act as a dictator to get the men and materiel needed for the war. Gómez
Farías forced a loan from the Catholic Church, but the funds were not
available in time to support Santa Anna's army.[107]
Reaction in the United States
Opposition to the war
Abraham Lincoln in his late 30s as a Whig member of the U.S. House of Representatives, when he opposed the Mexican–American War. The photo was taken by one of Lincoln's law students around 1846.Ex-slave and prominent anti-slavery advocate Frederick Douglass opposed the Mexican–American War.
In the United States, increasingly divided by sectional rivalry, the war was a partisan issue and an essential element in the origins of the American Civil War. Most Whigs in the North and South opposed it;[108] most Democrats supported it.[109]Southern Democrats,
animated by a popular belief in Manifest Destiny, supported it in the
hope of adding slave-owning territory to the South and avoiding being
outnumbered by the faster-growing North. O'Sullivan, editor of the Democratic Review,
coined this phrase in its context, stating that it must be "our
manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for
the free development of our yearly multiplying millions."[110]
Northern antislavery elements feared the expansion of the Southern Slave Power;
Whigs generally wanted to strengthen the economy with
industrialization, not expand it with more land. Among the most vocal in
opposition to the war in the House of Representatives was former U.S.
President Adams of Massachusetts. He had first voiced concerns about
expanding into Mexican territory in 1836 when he opposed Texas's
annexation following its de facto independence from Mexico. He continued
this argument in 1846 for the same reason. War with Mexico would add
new slavery territory to the nation. When the question of going to war
with Mexico came to a vote on May 13, 1846, Adams spoke a resounding
"No!" in the chamber. Only 13 others followed his lead. Despite that
opposition, he later voted for war appropriations.[46]: 151
Ex-slave Frederick Douglass
opposed the war and was dismayed by the weakness of the anti-war
movement. "The determination of our slave-holding president, and the
probability of his success in wringing from the people, men, and money
to carry it on, is made evident by the puny opposition arrayed against
him. None seem willing to take their stand for peace at all risks."[111]
Polk was generally able to manipulate Whigs into supporting
appropriations for the war but only once it had already started and then
"clouding the situation with a number of false statements about Mexican
actions."[112] Not everyone went along. Joshua Giddings
led a group of dissenters in Washington D.C. He called the war with
Mexico "an aggressive, unholy, and unjust war" and voted against
supplying soldiers and weapons. He said: "In the murder of Mexicans upon
their own soil, or in robbing them of their country, I can take no part
either now or hereafter. The guilt of these crimes must rest on others.
I will not participate in them."[113]
Fellow Whig Lincoln contested Polk's causes for the war. Polk had
said that Mexico had "shed American blood upon American soil". Lincoln
submitted eight "Spot Resolutions",
demanding that Polk state the exact spot where Thornton had been
attacked and American blood was shed, and to clarify whether that
location was American soil or if it had been claimed by Spain and
Mexico. Lincoln, too, did not actually stop money for men or supplies in
the war effort.[46]: 151
Whig Senator Thomas Corwin of Ohio gave a long speech indicting the presidential war in 1847. In the Senate on February 11, 1847, Whig leader Robert Toombs
of Georgia declared: "This war is nondescript ... We charge the
President with usurping the war-making power ... with seizing a
country ... which had been for centuries, and was then in the possession
of the Mexicans. ... Let us put a check upon this lust of dominion. We
had territory enough, Heaven knew."[114] Democratic Representative David Wilmot introduced the Wilmot Proviso, which would prohibit slavery in new territory acquired from Mexico. Wilmot's proposal passed the House but not the Senate.[115][116]
Northern abolitionists attacked the war as an attempt by slave
owners to strengthen the grip of slavery and thus ensure their continued
influence in the federal government. Prominent artists and writers
opposed the war, including James Russell Lowell, whose works on the subject "The Present Crisis"[117] and the satirical The Biglow Papers were immediately popular.[118]Transcendentalist writers Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson
also criticized the war. Thoreau, who served jail time for refusing to
pay a tax that would support the war effort, turned a lecture into an
essay now known as Civil Disobedience.
Emerson was succinct, predicting that, "The United States will conquer
Mexico, but it will be as a man who swallowed the arsenic which brings
him down in turn. Mexico will poison us." Events proved him right, in a
fashion, as arguments over the expansion of slavery in the lands seized
from Mexico would fuel the drift to civil war just a dozen years later.[119] The New England Workingmen's Association condemned the war, and some Irish and German immigrants defected from the U.S. Army and formed the Saint Patrick's Battalion to fight for Mexico.[46]: 152–157
Support for the war
Volunteers leaving for the Mexican War, Exeter, New Hampshire, daguerreotype by E. Punderson, ca.1846
Besides alleging that the actions of Mexican military forces within
the disputed boundary lands north of the Rio Grande constituted an
attack on American soil, the war's advocates viewed the territories of
New Mexico and California as only nominally Mexican possessions with
very tenuous ties to Mexico. They saw the territories as unsettled,
ungoverned, and unprotected frontier lands, whose non-aboriginal
population represented a substantial American component. Moreover, the
territories were feared by Americans to be under imminent threat of
acquisition by America's rival on the continent, the British.
President Polk reprised these arguments in his Third Annual Message to Congress on December 7, 1847.[120]
He scrupulously detailed his administration's position on the origins
of the conflict, the measures the U.S. had taken to avoid hostilities,
and the justification for declaring war. He also elaborated upon the
many outstanding financial claims by American citizens against Mexico
and argued that, in view of the country's insolvency, the cession of
some large portion of its northern territories was the only indemnity
realistically available as compensation. This helped to rally
congressional Democrats to his side, ensuring passage of his war
measures and bolstering support for the war in the U.S.
U.S. journalism during the war
War News from Mexico (1848)
The Mexican–American War was the first U.S. war that was covered by mass media, primarily the penny press, and was the first foreign war covered primarily by U.S. correspondents.[121]
Press coverage in the United States was characterized by support for
the war and widespread public interest and demand for coverage of the
conflict. Mexican coverage of the war (both written by Mexicans and
Americans based in Mexico) was affected by press censorship, first by
the Mexican government and later by the American military.
Walt Whitman
enthusiastically endorsed the war in 1846 and showed his disdainful
attitude toward Mexico and boosterism for Manifest Destiny: "What has
miserable, inefficient Mexico—with her superstition, her burlesque upon
freedom, her actual tyranny by the few over the many—what has she to do
with the great mission of peopling the new world with a noble race? Be
it ours, to achieve that mission!"[122]
The coverage of the war was an important development in the U.S.,
with journalists as well as letter-writing soldiers giving the public
in the U.S. "their first-ever independent news coverage of warfare from
home or abroad".[123]
During the war, inventions such as the telegraph created new means of
communication that updated people with the latest news from the
reporters on the scene. The most important of these was George Wilkins Kendall, a Northerner who wrote for the New Orleans Picayune, and whose collected Dispatches from the Mexican War constitute an important primary source for the conflict.[124]
With more than a decade's experience reporting urban crime, the "penny
press" realized the public's voracious demand for astounding war news.
Moreover, Shelley Streetby demonstrates that the print revolution, which
preceded the U.S.–Mexican War, made it possible for the distribution of
cheap newspapers throughout the country.[125]
This was the first time in U.S. history that accounts by journalists
instead of opinions of politicians had great influence in shaping
people's opinions about and attitudes toward war. Along with written
accounts of the war, war artists provided a visual dimension to the war
at the time and immediately afterward. Carl Nebel's visual depictions of the war are well known.[126]
By getting constant reports from the battlefield, Americans
became emotionally united as a community. News about the war caused
extraordinary popular excitement. In the spring of 1846, news about
Taylor's victory at Palo Alto brought up a large crowd that met in the
cotton textile town of Lowell, Massachusetts. In Chicago, a large concourse of citizens gathered in April 1847 to celebrate the victory of Buena Vista.[127]
New York celebrated the twin victories at Veracruz and Buena Vista in
May 1847. Generals Taylor and Scott became heroes for their people and
later became presidential candidates. Polk had pledged to be a one-term
president, but his last official act was to attend Taylor's inauguration
as president.[128]
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After the declaration of war on May 13, 1846, United States Army General Stephen W. Kearny moved southwest from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in June 1846 with about 1,700 men in his Army of the West. Kearny's orders were to secure the territories Nuevo México and Alta California.[129]
In Santa Fe, Governor Manuel Armijo wanted to avoid battle, but on August 9, Colonel Diego Archuleta and militia officers Manuel Chaves and Miguel Pino forced him to muster a defense.[130] Armijo set up a position in Apache Canyon, a narrow pass about 10 miles (16 km) southeast of the city.[131]
However, on August 14, before the American army was even in view, he
decided not to fight. An American named James Magoffin claimed he had
convinced Armijo and Archuleta to follow this course;[132] an unverified story says he bribed Armijo.[133] When Pino, Chaves, and some of the militiamen insisted on fighting, Armijo ordered the cannon pointed at them.[130] The New Mexican army retreated to Santa Fe, and Armijo fled to Chihuahua.
Kearny and his troops encountered no Mexican forces when they
arrived on August 15. Kearny and his force entered Santa Fe and claimed
the New Mexico Territory for the United States without a shot fired.
Kearny declared himself the military governor of the New Mexico Territory on August 18 and established a civilian government. American officers drew up a temporary legal system for the territory called the Kearny Code.[134]
Kearny then took the remainder of his army west to Alta California;[129] he left Colonel Sterling Price in command of U.S. forces in New Mexico. He appointed Charles Bent
as New Mexico's first territorial governor. Following Kearny's
departure, dissenters in Santa Fe plotted a Christmas uprising. When the
plans were discovered by the U.S. authorities, the dissenters postponed
the uprising. They attracted numerous Native allies, including Puebloans,
who also wanted to push the Americans from the territory. On the
morning of January 19, 1847, the insurrectionists began the revolt in
Don Fernando de Taos, present-day Taos, New Mexico, which later gave it the name the Taos Revolt. They were led by Pablo Montoya, a New Mexican, and Tomás Romero, a Taos pueblo Native also known as Tomasito (Little Thomas).
Romero led a Native American force to Bent's house, where they
broke down the door, shot Bent with arrows, and scalped him in front of
his family. They moved on, leaving Bent still alive. With his wife
Ignacia and children, and the wives of friends Kit Carson and Thomas Boggs,
the group escaped by digging through the adobe walls of their house
into the one next door. When the insurgents discovered the party, they
killed Bent but left the women and children unharmed.
The next day a large armed force of approximately 500 New
Mexicans and Pueblo attacked and laid siege to Simeon Turley's mill in Arroyo Hondo, several miles outside of Taos. Charles Autobees, an employee at the mill, saw the men coming. He rode to Santa Fe for help from the occupying U.S. forces. Eight to ten mountain men were left at the mill for defense. After a day-long battle, only two of the mountain men survived, John David Albert and Thomas Tate Tobin,
Autobees' half-brother. Both escaped separately on foot during the
night. The same day New Mexican insurgents killed seven American traders
passing through the village of Mora. At most, 15 Americans were killed in both actions on January 20.
The U.S. military moved quickly to quash the revolt; Colonel
Price led more than 300 U.S. troops from Santa Fe to Taos, together with
65 volunteers, including a few New Mexicans, organized by Ceran St. Vrain,
the business partner of William and Charles Bent. Along the way, the
combined forces beat back a force of some 1,500 New Mexicans and Pueblo
at Santa Cruz de la Cañada and at Embudo Pass. The insurgents retreated to Taos Pueblo, where they took refuge in the thick-walled adobe church. During the ensuing battle,
the U.S. breached a wall of the church and directed cannon fire into
the interior, inflicting many casualties and killing about 150 rebels.
They captured 400 more men after close hand-to-hand fighting. Only seven
Americans died in the battle.[135]
A separate force of U.S. troops under captains Israel R. Hendley and Jesse I. Morin campaigned against the rebels in Mora. The First Battle of Mora ended in a New Mexican victory. The Americans attacked again in the Second Battle of Mora
and won, which ended their operations against Mora. New Mexican rebels
engaged U.S. forces three more times in the following months. The
actions are known as the Battle of Red River Canyon, the Battle of Las Vegas, and the Battle of Cienega Creek.
Word of Congress' declaration of war reached California by August 1846.[136] American consul Thomas O. Larkin, stationed in Monterey,
worked successfully during the events in that vicinity to avoid
bloodshed between Americans and the Mexican military garrison commanded
by General José Castro, the senior military officer in California.[137]
Frémont, leading a U.S. Army topographical expedition to survey the Great Basin, entered Sacramento Valley in December 1845.[138] Frémont's party was at Upper Klamath Lake in the Oregon Territory when it received word that war between Mexico and the U.S. was imminent;[139] the party then returned to California.[140]
Mexico had issued a proclamation that non-naturalized foreigners
were no longer permitted to own land in California and were subject to
expulsion.[141]
With rumors swirling that General Castro was massing an army against
them, American settlers in the Sacramento Valley banded together to meet
the threat.[142] On June 14, 1846, 34 American settlers seized control of the undefended Mexican government outpost of Sonoma to forestall Castro's plans.[143] One settler created the Bear Flag and raised it over Sonoma Plaza. Within a week, 70 more volunteers joined the rebels' force,[144] which grew to nearly 300 in early July.[145] This event, led by William B. Ide, became known as the Bear Flag Revolt.
On June 25, Frémont's party arrived to assist in an expected military confrontation.[146]San Francisco, then called Yerba Buena, was occupied by the Bear Flaggers on July 2.[147] On July 5, Frémont's California Battalion was formed by combining his forces with many of the rebels.[148]
Commodore John D. Sloat, commander of the U.S. Navy's Pacific Squadron, near Mazatlan, Mexico, had received orders to seize San Francisco Bay and blockade California ports when he was positive that war had begun.[149] Sloat set sail for Monterey, reaching it on July 1.[150]
Sloat, upon hearing of the events in Sonoma and Frémont's involvement,
erroneously believed Frémont to be acting on orders from Washington and
ordered his forces to occupy Monterey on July 7 and raise the U.S. flag.[151] On July 9, 70 sailors and Marines
landed at Yerba Buena and raised the American flag. Later that day in
Sonoma, the Bear Flag was lowered, and the American flag was raised in
its place.[152]
On Sloat's orders, Frémont brought 160 volunteers to Monterey, in addition to the California Battalion.[153] On July 15, Sloat transferred his command of the Pacific Squadron to Commodore Robert F. Stockton, who was more militarily aggressive.[154] He mustered the willing members of the California Battalion into military service with Frémont in command.[154] Stockton ordered Frémont to San Diego to prepare to move northward to Los Angeles.[155] As Frémont landed, Stockton's 360 men arrived in San Pedro.[156] Castro and Pico wrote farewells and fled separately to the Mexican state of Sonora.[157]
The Battle of La Mesa was the last battle fought between the Americans and Californio forces.
Stockton's army entered Los Angeles unopposed on August 13, whereupon
he sent a report to the secretary of state that "California is entirely
free from Mexican dominion."[158] Stockton, however, left a tyrannical officer in charge of Los Angeles with a small force.[159] The Californios under the leadership of José María Flores, acting on their own and without federal help from Mexico, in the Siege of Los Angeles, forced the American garrison to retreat on September 29.[160] They also forced small U.S. garrisons in San Diego and Santa Barbara to flee.[161]
Captain William Mervine landed 350 sailors and Marines at San Pedro on October 7.[162] They were ambushed and repulsed at the Battle of Dominguez Rancho by Flores' forces in less than an hour.[163]
Four Americans died, with 8 severely injured. Stockton arrived with
reinforcements at San Pedro, which increased the American forces there
to 800.[164] He and Mervine then set up a base of operations at San Diego.[165]
Meanwhile, Kearny and his force of about 115 men, who had performed a grueling march across the Sonoran Desert, crossed the Colorado River in late November 1846.[166] Stockton sent a 35-man patrol from San Diego to meet them.[167] On December 7,100 lancers under General Andrés Pico (brother of the governor), tipped off and lying in wait, fought Kearny's army of about 150 at the Battle of San Pasqual, where 22 of Kearny's men (one of whom later died of wounds), including three officers, were killed in 30 minutes of fighting.[168] The wounded Kearny and his bloodied force pushed on until they had to establish a defensive position on "Mule Hill".[169] However, General Pico kept the hill under siege for four days until a 215-man American relief force arrived.[170]
Frémont and the 428-man California Battalion arrived in San Luis Obispo on December 14[171] and Santa Barbara on December 27.[172] On December 28, a 600-man American force under Kearny began a 150-mile march to Los Angeles.[173][174] Flores then moved his ill-equipped 500-man force to a 50-foot-high bluff above the San Gabriel River.[175] On January 8, 1847, the Stockton-Kearny army defeated the Californio force in the two-hour Battle of Río San Gabriel.[176][177] That same day, Frémont's force arrived at San Fernando.[178] The next day, January 9, the Stockton-Kearny forces fought and won the Battle of La Mesa.[179] On January 10, the U.S. Army entered Los Angeles to no resistance.[180]
On January 12, Frémont and two of Pico's officers agreed to terms for a surrender.[181] Articles of Capitulation were signed on January 13 by Frémont, Andrés Pico and six others at a ranch at Cahuenga Pass (modern-day North Hollywood).[181] This became known as the Treaty of Cahuenga, which marked the end of armed resistance in California.[181]
Reenactors in U.S. (left) and Mexican (right) uniforms of the period
Entering the Gulf of California, Independence, Congress, and Cyaneseized La Paz, then captured and burned the small Mexican fleet at Guaymas
on October 19, 1847. Within a month, they cleared the gulf of hostile
ships, destroying or capturing 30 vessels. Later, their sailors and
Marines captured the port of Mazatlán
on November 11, 1847. After upper California was secure, most of the
Pacific Squadron proceeded down the California coast, capturing all
major cities of the Baja California Territory and capturing or destroying nearly all Mexican vessels in the Gulf of California.
A Mexican campaign under Manuel Pineda Muñoz
to retake the various captured ports resulted in several small clashes
and two sieges in which the Pacific Squadron ships provided artillery
support. U.S. garrisons remained in control of the ports. Following
reinforcement, Lt. Col. Henry S. Burton
marched out. His forces rescued captured Americans, captured Pineda,
and on March 31 defeated and dispersed remaining Mexican forces at the Skirmish of Todos Santos,
unaware that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo had been signed in
February 1848 and a truce agreed to on March 6. When the U.S. garrisons
were evacuated to Monterey following the treaty ratification, many
Mexicans went with them: those who had supported the U.S. cause and had
thought Lower California would also be annexed along with Upper
California.
Led by Zachary Taylor, 2,300 U.S. troops crossed the Rio Grande after
some initial difficulties in obtaining river transport. His soldiers
occupied Matamoros, then Camargo (where the soldiery suffered the first of many problems with disease) and then proceeded south and besieged the city of Monterrey, Nuevo León. The hard-fought Battle of Monterrey
resulted in serious losses on both sides. The U.S. light artillery was
ineffective against the stone fortifications of the city, as the
American forces attacked in frontal assaults. The Mexican forces under
General Pedro de Ampudia repulsed Taylor's best infantry division at Fort Teneria.[182]
American soldiers, including many West Point graduates, had never engaged in urban warfare
before, and they marched straight down the open streets, where they
were annihilated by Mexican defenders well-hidden in Monterrey's thick
adobe homes.[182]
They quickly learned, and two days later, they changed their urban
warfare tactics. Texan soldiers had fought in a Mexican city before (the
Siege of Béxar in December 1835) and advised Taylor's generals that the Americans needed to "mouse hole"
through the city's homes. They needed to punch holes in the side or
roofs of the homes and fight hand to hand inside the structures.
Mexicans called the Texas soldiers the Diabólicos Tejanos (the Devil Texans).[183] This method proved successful.[184]
Eventually, these actions drove and trapped Ampudia's men into the
city's central plaza, where howitzer shelling forced Ampudia to
negotiate. Taylor agreed to allow the Mexican Army to evacuate and to an
eight-week armistice in return for the surrender of the city. Taylor
broke the armistice and occupied the city of Saltillo,
southwest of Monterrey. Santa Anna blamed the loss of Monterrey and
Saltillo on Ampudia and demoted him to command a small artillery
battalion. Similarly, Polk blamed Taylor both for suffering heavy losses
and failing to imprison Ampudia's entire force. Taylor's army was
subsequently stripped of most of its troops in order to support the
coming coastal operations by Scott against Veracruz and the Mexican
heartland.
Battle of Buena Vista
On February 22, 1847, having heard of this weakness from the written
orders found on an ambushed U.S. scout, Santa Anna seized the initiative
and marched Mexico's entire army north to fight Taylor with 20,000 men,
hoping to win a smashing victory before Scott could invade from the
sea. The two armies met and fought the largest battle of the war at the Battle of Buena Vista.
Taylor, with 4,600 men, had entrenched at a mountain pass called La
Angostura, or "the narrows", several miles south of Buena Vista ranch.
Santa Anna, having little logistics to supply his army, suffered
desertions all the long march north and arrived with only 15,000 men in a
tired state.[185]
Having demanded and been refused the surrender of the U.S. Army,
Santa Anna's army attacked the next morning, using a ruse in the battle
with the U.S forces. Santa Anna flanked the U.S. positions by sending
his cavalry and some of his infantry up the steep terrain that made up
one side of the pass, while a division of infantry attacked frontally to
distract and draw out the U.S. forces along the road leading to Buena
Vista. Furious fighting ensued, during which the U.S. troops were nearly
routed, but managed to cling to their entrenched position, thanks to
the Mississippi Rifles, a volunteer regiment led by Jefferson Davis, who formed them into a defensive V formation.[186]
The Mexicans had nearly broken the American lines at several points,
but their infantry columns, navigating the narrow pass, suffered heavily
from the American horse artillery, which fired point-blank canister
shots to break up the attacks.
Initial reports of the battle, as well as propaganda from the
Santanistas, credited the victory to the Mexicans, much to the joy of
the Mexican populace, but rather than attack the next day and finish the
battle, Santa Anna retreated, losing men along the way, having heard
word of rebellion and upheaval in Mexico City. Taylor was left in
control of part of northern Mexico, and Santa Anna later faced criticism
for his withdrawal. Mexican and American military historians[who?] alike agree that the U.S. Army could likely have been defeated if Santa Anna had fought the battle to its finish.[187]
Polk mistrusted Taylor, who he felt had shown incompetence in the
Battle of Monterrey by agreeing to the armistice. Taylor later used the
Battle of Buena Vista as the centerpiece of his successful 1848
presidential campaign.
Northwestern Mexico
Northwestern Mexico was essentially tribal Native territory, but on November 21, 1846, the Bear Springs Treaty was signed, ending a large-scale insurrection by the Ute, Zuni, Moquis, and Navajo tribes.[188]
In December 1846, after the successful conquest of New Mexico, part of
Kearney's Army of the West, the First Missouri Mounted Volunteers, moved
into modern-day northwest Mexico. They were led by Alexander W. Doniphan, continuing what ended up being a year-long 5,500 mile campaign. It was described as rivaling Xenophon's march across Anatolia during the Greco-Persian Wars.[189][190][191]
On Christmas day, they won the Battle of El Brazito, outside the modern-day El Paso, Texas.[192] On March 1, 1847, Doniphan occupied Chihuahua City.
British consul John Potts did not want to allow Doniphan to search
Governor Trías's mansion and unsuccessfully asserted it was under
British protection. American merchants in Chihuahua wanted the American
force to stay in order to protect their business. Major William Gilpin
advocated a march on Mexico City and convinced a majority of officers,
but Doniphan subverted this plan. Then in late April, Taylor ordered the
First Missouri Mounted Volunteers to leave Chihuahua and join him at
Saltillo. The American merchants either followed or returned to Santa
Fe. Along the way, the townspeople of Parras enlisted Doniphan's aid against a Native raiding party that had taken children, horses, mules, and money.[193] The Missouri Volunteers finally made their way to Matamoros, from which they returned to Missouri by water.[190]
The civilian population of northern Mexico offered little
resistance to the American invasion, possibly because the country had
already been devastated by Comanche and Apache Native raids. Josiah Gregg,
who was with the American army in northern Mexico, said "the whole
country from New Mexico to the borders of Durango is almost entirely
depopulated. The haciendas and ranchos have been mostly abandoned, and
the people chiefly confined to the towns and cities."[194]
Southern Mexico
Southern Mexico had a large indigenous population and was
geographically distant from the capital, over which the central
government had weak control. Yucatán in particular had closer ties to
Cuba and to the United States than it did to central Mexico. On a number
of occasions in the early era of the Mexican Republic, Yucatán seceded
from the federation. There were also rivalries between regional elites,
with one faction based in Mérida and the other in Campeche. These issues
factored into the Mexican–American War, as the U. S. had designs on
this part of the coast.[195]
The U.S. Navy contributed to the war by controlling the coast and
clearing the way for U.S. troops and supplies, especially to Mexico's
main port of Veracruz. Even before hostilities began in the disputed
northern region, the U.S. Navy created a blockade. Given the shallow
waters of that portion of the coast, the U.S. Navy needed ships with a
shallow draft rather than large frigates. Since the Mexican Navy was
almost non-existent, the U.S. Navy could operate unimpeded in gulf
waters.[196] The U.S. fought two battles in Tabasco in October 1846 and in June 1847.
In 1847, the Maya revolted against the Mexican elites of the peninsula in a caste war known as the Caste War of Yucatán.
Jefferson Davis, then a senator from Mississippi, argued in Congress
that the president needed no further powers to intervene in Yucatan
since the war with Mexico was underway. Davis's concern was strategic
and part of his vision of Manifest Destiny, considering that the Gulf of
Mexico "a basin of water belonging to the United States" and that "the
cape of Yucatan and the island of Cuba must be ours".[197] These views were later supported by the Knights of the Golden Circle,
of which Davis was allegedly a member. In the end, the U.S. did not
intervene in Yucatán, but it had figured in congressional debates about
the Mexican–American War. At one point, the government of Yucatán
petitioned the U.S. for protection during the Caste War,[198] but the U.S. did not respond.
Rather than reinforce Taylor's army for a continued advance,
President Polk sent a second army under General Winfield Scott. Polk had
decided that the way to bring the war to an end was to invade the
Mexican heartland from the coast. General Scott's army was transported
to the port of Veracruz by sea to begin an invasion to take the Mexican
capital, Mexico City.[199] On March 9, 1847, Scott performed the first major amphibious landing in U.S. history in preparation for a siege.[200]
A group of 12,000 volunteer and regular soldiers successfully offloaded
supplies, weapons, and horses near the walled city using specially
designed landing crafts. Included in the invading force were several
future generals: Robert E. Lee, George Meade, Ulysses S. Grant, James Longstreet, and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson.
Veracruz was defended by Mexican General Juan Morales with 3,400 men. Mortars and naval guns under Commodore Matthew C. Perry
were used to reduce the city walls and harass defenders. The
bombardment on March 24, 1847, opened in the walls of Veracruz a
thirty-foot gap.[201]
The defenders in the city replied with their own artillery, but the
extended barrage broke the will of the Mexicans, who faced a numerically
superior force, and they surrendered the city after 12 days under
siege. U.S. troops suffered 80 casualties, while the Mexicans had around
180 killed and wounded, with hundreds of civilians killed.[202] During the siege, the U.S. soldiers began to fall victim to yellow fever.
Santa Anna allowed Scott's army to march inland, counting on yellow
fever and other tropical diseases to take their toll before Santa Anna
chose a place to engage the enemy. Mexico had used this tactic before,
including when Spain attempted to reconquer Mexico in 1829. Disease
could be a decisive factor in the war. Santa Anna was from Veracruz, so
he was on his home territory, knew the terrain, and had a network of
allies. He could draw on local resources to feed his hungry army and
gain intelligence on the enemy's movements. From his experience in the
northern battles on open terrain, Santa Anna sought to negate the U.S.
Army's primary advantage, its use of artillery.
Santa Anna chose Cerro Gordo as the place to engage the U.S.
troops, calculating the terrain would offer the maximum advantage for
the Mexican forces.[203]
Scott marched westward on April 2, 1847, toward Mexico City with 8,500
initially healthy troops, while Santa Anna set up a defensive position
in a canyon around the main road and prepared fortifications. Santa Anna
had entrenched with what the U.S. Army believed were 12,000 troops but
in fact was around 9,000.[204]
He had artillery trained on the road where he expected Scott to appear.
However, Scott had sent 2,600 mounted dragoons ahead, and they reached
the pass on April 12. The Mexican artillery prematurely fired on them
and therefore revealed their positions, beginning the skirmish.
Instead of taking the main road, Scott's troops trekked through
the rough terrain to the north, setting up his artillery on the high
ground and quietly flanking the Mexicans. Although by then aware of the
positions of U.S. troops, Santa Anna and his troops were unprepared for
the onslaught that followed. In the battle fought on April 18, the
Mexican army was routed. The U.S. Army suffered 400 casualties, while
the Mexicans suffered over 1,000 casualties with 3,000 taken prisoner.
In August 1847, Captain Kirby Smith, of Scott's 3rd Infantry, reflected on the resistance of the Mexican army:
They can do nothing and their
continued defeats should convince them of it. They have lost six great
battles; we have captured six hundred and eight cannon, nearly one
hundred thousand stands of arms, made twenty thousand prisoners, have
the greatest portion of their country and are fast advancing on their
Capital which must be ours,—yet they refuse to treat [i.e., negotiate
terms]![205]
The U.S. Army had expected a quick collapse of the Mexican forces.
Santa Anna, however, was determined to fight to the end, and Mexican
soldiers continued to regroup after battles to fight yet again.
On May 1, 1847, Scott pushed on to Puebla,
the second-largest city in Mexico. The city capitulated without
resistance. The Mexican defeat at Cerro Gordo had demoralized Puebla's
inhabitants, and they worried about harm to their city and inhabitants.
It was standard practice in warfare for victorious soldiers to be let
loose to inflict horrors on civilian populations if they resisted; the
threat of this was often used as a bargaining tool to secure surrender
without a fight. Scott had orders which aimed to prevent his troops from
such violence and atrocities. Puebla's ruling elite also sought to
prevent violence, as did the Catholic Church, but Puebla's poor and
working-class wanted to defend the city. U.S. Army troops who strayed
outside at night were often killed. Enough Mexicans were willing to sell
supplies to the U.S. Army to make local provisioning possible.[206]
During the following months, Scott gathered supplies and reinforcements
at Puebla and sent back units whose enlistments had expired. Scott also
made strong efforts to keep his troops disciplined and treat the
Mexican people under occupation justly, to keep good order and prevent
any popular uprising against his army.
With guerrillas harassing his line of communications back to
Veracruz, Scott decided not to weaken his army to defend Puebla but,
leaving only a garrison at Puebla to protect the sick and injured
recovering there, advanced on Mexico City on August 7 with his remaining
force. The capital was laid open in a series of battles around the
right flank of the city defenses, the Battle of Contreras and Battle of Churubusco.
After Churubusco, fighting halted for an armistice and peace
negotiations, which broke down on September 6, 1847. With the subsequent
battles of Molino del Rey and of Chapultepec, and the storming of the city gates,
the capital was occupied. Scott became military governor of occupied
Mexico City. His victories in this campaign made him an American
national hero.
The Battle of Chapultepec in September 1847 was a siege on the castle of Chapultepec,
built on a hill in Mexico City in the colonial era. At this time, this
castle was a renowned military school in the capital. After the battle,
which ended in a victory for the U.S., the legend of Los Niños Héroes
was born. Although not confirmed by historians, six military cadets
between the ages of 13 and 17 stayed in the school instead of
evacuating.[207] They decided to stay and fight for Mexico. These Niños Héroes
(boy heroes) became icons in Mexico's patriotic pantheon. Rather than
surrender to the U.S. Army, some military cadets leaped from the castle
walls. A cadet named Juan Escutia wrapped himself in the Mexican flag
and jumped to his death.[207][208][209]
Santa Anna's last campaign
In late September 1847, Santa Anna made one last attempt to defeat the U.S. Army, by cutting them off from the coast. General Joaquín Rea began the Siege of Puebla,
soon joined by Santa Anna. Scott had left some 2,400 soldiers in
Puebla, of whom around 400 were fit. After the fall of Mexico City,
Santa Anna hoped to rally Puebla's civilian population against the U.S.
soldiers under siege and subject to guerrilla attacks. Before the
Mexican army could wipe out the Americans in Puebla, more troops landed
in Veracruz under the command of Brigadier General Joseph Lane.
At Puebla, they sacked the town. Santa Anna was not able to provision
his troops, who effectively dissolved as a fighting force to forage for
food.[210] Puebla was relieved by Lane on October 12, following his defeat of Santa Anna at the Battle of Huamantla on October 9. The battle was Santa Anna's last.
Occupation of Mexico City
U.S. Army occupation of Mexico City in 1847. The U.S. flag flying over the National Palace, the seat of the Mexican government. Carl Nebel.
Following the capture of the capital, the Mexican government moved to the temporary capital at Querétaro.[211] In Mexico City, U.S. forces became an army of occupation and subject to stealth attacks from the urban population.[211]
Conventional warfare gave way to guerrilla warfare by Mexicans
defending their homeland. They inflicted significant casualties on the
U.S. Army, particularly on soldiers slow to keep up.[212]
General Scott sent about a quarter of his strength to secure his
line of communications to Veracruz from the Light Corps of General Rea
and other Mexican guerrilla forces that had made stealth attacks since
May. Mexican guerrillas often tortured and mutilated the bodies of the
U.S. troops, as revenge and warning.[211]
Scott viewed guerrilla attacks as contrary to the "laws of war"
and threatened the property of populations that appeared to harbor the
guerrillas. Captured guerrillas were to be shot, including helpless
prisoners, with the reasoning that the Mexicans did the same. Historian
Peter Guardino contends that the U.S. Army command was complicit in the
attacks against Mexican civilians. By threatening the civilian
populations' homes, property, and families with burning whole villages,
looting, and raping women, the U.S. Army separated guerrillas from their
base. "Guerrillas cost the Americans dearly, but indirectly cost
Mexican civilians more."[213]
Scott strengthened the garrison of Puebla and by November had added a 1,200-man garrison at Jalapa,
established 750-man posts along the main route between the port of
Veracruz and the capital, at the pass between Mexico City and Puebla at Rio Frio, at Perote and San Juan on the road between Jalapa and Puebla, and at Puente Nacional between Jalapa and Veracruz.[214]
He had also detailed an anti-guerrilla brigade under Lane to carry the
war to the Light Corps and other guerrillas. He ordered that convoys
would travel with at least 1,300-man escorts. Victories by Lane over the
Light Corps at Atlixco (October 18, 1847), at Izúcar de Matamoros (November 23, 1847), and at Galaxara Pass (November 24, 1847) weakened General Rea's forces.[citation needed]
Later a raid against the guerrillas of Padre Jarauta at Zacualtipan
(February 25, 1848) further reduced guerrilla raids on the American
line of communications. After the two governments concluded a truce to
await ratification of the peace treaty, on March 6, 1848, formal
hostilities ceased. However, some bands continued in defiance of the
Mexican government until the U.S. Army's evacuation in August.[215] Some were suppressed by the Mexican Army or, like Padre Jarauta, executed.[216]
Desertion was a major problem for both armies. In the Mexican Army,
desertions depleted forces on the eve of battle. Most soldiers were
peasants who had a loyalty to their village and family but not to the
generals who had conscripted them. Often hungry and ill, underequipped,
only partially trained, and under-paid, the soldiers were held in
contempt by their officers and had little reason to fight the Americans.
Looking for their opportunity, many slipped away from camp to find
their way back to their home village.[217]
The desertion rate in the U.S. Army was 8.3% (9,200 out of
111,000), compared to 12.7% during the War of 1812 and usual peacetime
rates of about 14.8% per year.[218]
Many men deserted to join another U.S. unit and get a second enlistment
bonus. Some deserted because of the miserable conditions in camp. It
has been suggested that others used the army to get free transportation
to California, where they deserted to join the gold rush;[219]
this, however, is unlikely as gold was only discovered in California on
January 24, 1848, less than two weeks before the war concluded. By the
time word reached the eastern U.S. that gold had been discovered, word
also reached it that the war was over.
Hundreds of U.S. deserters went over to the Mexican side. Nearly
all were recent immigrants from Europe with weak ties to the U.S. The
Mexicans issued broadsides and leaflets enticing U.S. soldiers with
promises of money, land bounties, and officers' commissions. Mexican
guerrillas shadowed the U.S. Army and captured men who took unauthorized
leave or fell out of the ranks. The guerrillas sometimes coerced these
men to join the Mexican ranks.[citation needed]
Thousands of other U.S. soldiers simply deserted.[220][221]
San Patricios
The mass hanging of Irish Catholic soldiers who joined the Mexican side, forming the Saint Patrick's Battalion
The most famous group of deserters from the U. S. Army, was the Saint Patrick's Battalion or San Patricios, composed primarily of several hundred immigrant soldiers, the majority Catholic Irish and German
immigrants, who deserted the U.S. Army because of reasons such as
discrimination from their superiors, resentment of harsh living
conditions during the war as well as feeling allegiance to Mexico, which
is a predominantly Roman-Catholic nation.[222] The battalion included Canadians, English, French, Italians, Poles, Scots, Spaniards, Swiss, and Mexican people, many of whom were members of the Catholic Church.[223]
Most of the battalion were killed in the Battle of Churubusco; about 100 were captured by the U.S., and roughly half of the San Patricios were tried and were hanged as deserters following their capture at Churubusco in August 1847.[219] The leader, John Riley, was branded.[224]
A bust of John Riley and a plaque on the façade of a building in Plaza
San Jacinto, San Angel commemorates the place where they were hanged.[225]
Outnumbered militarily and with many large cities of the Mexican
heartland including its capital occupied, Mexico could not defend itself
in conventional warfare. Mexico faced many continuing internal
divisions between factions so that bringing the war to a formal end was
not straightforward. Although there were complications with negotiating
peace on both ends, peace came in Alta California in January 1847 with
the Treaty of Cahuenga, with the Californios (Mexican residents of Alta
California) capitulating to the American forces.[226] A more comprehensive peace treaty was needed to end the conflict.
The U.S. forces had gone from being an army of conquest on the
periphery for territory it desired to incorporate, to an invading force
in central Mexico, potentially making it an army of long-term
occupation. Mexico did not necessarily have to sign a peace treaty but
could have continued with long-term guerrilla warfare against the U.S.
Army. However, it could not expel the invaders, so negotiating a treaty
became more necessary.[227]
Polk's wish for a short war of conquest against a perceived weak enemy
with no will to fight had turned into a long and bloody conflict in
Mexico's heartland. Negotiating a treaty was in the best interest of the
United States. It was not easy to achieve. Polk lost confidence in his
negotiator Nicholas Trist
and dismissed him as peace negotiations dragged on. Trist ignored the
fact that he no longer had the authorization to act for the United
States. When Trist managed to get yet another Mexican government to sign
the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Polk was presented with an
accomplished fact and decided to take it to Congress for ratification.
Ratification was a daunting task, since the Democrats had lost the
elections of 1846, and Whigs opposed to the war were now in ascendance.
Having won a decisive victory, the U.S. was divided on what the peace
should entail. Now that the U.S. had gone far beyond the territorial
gains it initially envisioned by invading central Mexico with its dense
population, the question was raised whether to annex the entirety of
Mexico. After the Wilmot Proviso, there was a lessening of fervor for the idea, but the taking of Mexico City had revived enthusiasm.[228] There were fierce objections in Congress to that on racial grounds. South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun
argued that absorbing Mexico would threaten U.S. institutions and the
character of the country. "We have never dreamt of incorporating into
our Union any but the Caucasian race—the
free white race. To incorporate Mexico, would be the first instance of
the kind of incorporating an Indian race; for more than half of the
Mexicans are Indians, and the other is composed chiefly of mixed tribes.
I protest against such a union as that! Ours, sir, is the Government of
a white race.... We are anxious to force free government on all; and I
see that it has been urged ... that it is the mission of this country to
spread civil and religious liberty over all the world, and especially
over this continent. It is a great mistake."[citation needed]
Beyond the racial argument, Calhoun contended that the U.S. could
not be both an empire and a republic, and he argued that being an
empire would strengthen the central government and be detrimental to
individual states.[229][230] Rhode Island Whig Senator John Clarke
also objected to annexing all of Mexico. "To incorporate such a
disjointed and degraded mass into even a limited participation with our
social and political rights, would be fatally destructive to the
institutions of our country. There is a moral pestilence to such a
people which is contagious – a leprosy that will destroy [us]."[231][232]
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed on February 2, 1848, by diplomat Nicholas Trist and Mexican plenipotentiary
representatives Luis G. Cuevas, Bernardo Couto, and Miguel Atristain,
ended the war. The treaty gave the U.S. undisputed control of Texas,
established the U.S.–Mexican border along the Rio Grande, and ceded to
the United States the present-day states of California, Nevada, and Utah, most of New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming. In return, Mexico received $15 million[233]
($545 million today) – less than half the amount the U.S. had attempted
to offer Mexico for the land before the opening of hostilities[234] – and the U.S. agreed to assume $3.25 million ($118 million today) in debts that the Mexican government owed to U.S. citizens.[235]
The area of domain acquired was given by the Federal Interagency
Committee as 338,680,960 acres (529,189 square miles). The cost was
$16,295,149 or approximately five cents per acre.[236] The area amounted to one-third of Mexico's original territory from its 1821 independence.
The treaty was ratified by the U.S. Senate by a vote of 38 to 14
on March 10 and by Mexico through a legislative vote of 51–34 and a
Senate vote of 33–4, on May 19. News that New Mexico's legislative
assembly had passed an act for the organization of a U.S. territorial
government helped ease Mexican concern about abandoning the people of
New Mexico.[237]
The acquisition was a source of controversy, especially among U.S.
politicians who had opposed the war from the start. A leading anti-war
U.S. newspaper, the Whig National Intelligencer, sardonically concluded that "We take nothing by conquest ... Thank God."[238][239]
The acquired lands west of the Rio Grande are traditionally called the Mexican Cession in the U.S., as opposed to the Texas Annexation
two years earlier, though the division of New Mexico down the middle at
the Rio Grande never had any basis either in control or Mexican
boundaries. Mexico never recognized the independence of Texas[240] before the war and did not cede its claim to territory north of the Rio Grande or Gila River until this treaty.
Before ratifying the treaty, the U.S. Senate made two
modifications: changing the wording of Article IX (which guaranteed
Mexicans living in the purchased territories the right to become U.S.
citizens) and striking out Article X (which conceded the legitimacy of
land grants made by the Mexican government). On May 26, 1848, when the
two countries exchanged ratifications of the treaty, they further agreed
to a three-article protocol (known as the Protocol of Querétaro) to
explain the amendments. The first article claimed that the original
Article IX of the treaty, although replaced by Article III of the Treaty
of Louisiana, would still confer the rights delineated in Article IX.
The second article confirmed the legitimacy of land grants under Mexican
law.[241] The protocol was signed in the city of Querétaro by A. H. Sevier, Nathan Clifford, and Luis de la Rosa.[241]
Article XI offered a potential benefit to Mexico, in that the
U.S. pledged to suppress the Comanche and Apache raids that had ravaged
the region and pay restitution to the victims of raids it could not
prevent.[242] However, the Native raids did not cease for several decades after the treaty, although a cholera epidemic in 1849 greatly reduced the numbers of the Comanche.[243]Robert Letcher,
U.S. Minister to Mexico in 1850, was certain "that miserable 11th
article" would lead to the financial ruin of the U.S. if it could not be
released from its obligations.[244] The U.S. was released from all obligations of Article XI five years later by Article II of the Gadsden Purchase of 1853.[245]
Writing many years later, Trist's wife Virginia claimed that her
husband had related to her his feelings at the time of the signing of
the treaty:
Could those Mexicans have seen into
my heart at that moment, they would have known that my feeling of shame
as an American was far stronger than theirs could be as Mexicans. For
though it would not have done for me to say so there, that was a thing
for every right-minded American to be ashamed of, and I was ashamed of
it, most cordially and intensely ashamed of it.[246]
Before the secession of Texas, Mexico's claimed territory comprised almost 1,700,000 sq mi (4,400,000 km2), but by 1849 it covered just under 800,000 square miles (2,100,000 km2). Another 30,000 square miles (78,000 km2)
were sold to the U.S. in the Gadsden Purchase of 1853, a total
reduction in Mexican claimed territory of more than 55%, or 900,000
square miles (2,300,000 km2).[247]
Although the annexed territory was about the size of Western Europe, it
was sparsely populated. The land contained about 14,000 non-indigenous
people in Alta California[248] and about 60,000 in Nuevo México,[249] as well as large Native nations, such as the Papago, Pima,
Puebloan, Navajo, Apache and many others. Although some native people
relocated farther south in Mexico, the great majority remained in the
U.S. territory.
The U.S. settlers surging into the newly conquered Southwest replaced Mexican law (a civil law system based on the law of Spain), which, in the Law of April 6, 1830,
forbade any further immigration. However, they recognized the value of a
few aspects of Mexican law and carried them over into their new legal
systems. For example, most of the Southwestern states adopted community property marital property systems, as well as water law.[citation needed]
Many Mexicans, including mestizos, Afro-Mexicans,
and indigenous peoples in the annexed territories, experienced a loss
of civil and political rights. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo promised
U.S. citizenship to all former Mexican citizens living in the
territories. However, the United States gave ceded states the authority
to establish citizenship policy, and within a year, states were passing
laws that banned all Mexicans in Arizona, California, New Mexico and
Texas from U.S. citizenship, except white male Mexicans. Furthermore,
non-white Mexicans lost certain citizenship rights, such as the right to
practice law, vote or hold certain government positions. Indigenous
peoples lost land rights and were exterminated as in the California genocide or forced into reservations.
Mexico lost part of its northern territories in Nevada, Utah, Colorado,
Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming that included few if any Mexicans, and
many indigenous groups.[250]
Furthermore, the U.S. government did not grant full citizenship
to Native Americans in the Southwest until the 1930s, even though they
were Mexican citizens.[251] The California Constitution of 1849
conferred voting rights only to white male citizens (Article II,
Section 1), and the number of senators was proportioned only "according
to the number of white inhabitants" (Article IV, Section 29).[252]
Effect on the United States
In much of the United States, victory and the acquisition of new land
brought a surge of patriotism. Victory seemed to fulfill Democrats'
belief in their country's Manifest Destiny. Although the Whigs had
opposed the war, they made Zachary Taylor their presidential candidate
in the election of 1848, praising his military performance while muting their criticism of the war.
Has the Mexican War terminated yet,
and how? Are we beaten? Do you know of any nation about to besiege
South Hadley [Massachusetts]? If so, do inform me of it, for I would be
glad of a chance to escape, if we are to be stormed. I suppose [our
teacher] Miss [Mary] Lyon [founder of Mount Holyoke College] would furnish us all with daggers and order us to fight for our lives ...
A month before the end of the war, Polk was criticized in a United States House of Representatives
amendment to a bill praising Taylor for "a war unnecessarily and
unconstitutionally begun by the President of the United States." This
criticism, in which Congressman Abraham Lincoln played an important role
with his Spot Resolutions, followed congressional scrutiny of the war's
beginnings, including factual challenges to claims made by President
Polk.[254][255]
The vote followed party lines, with all Whigs supporting the amendment.
Lincoln's attack won lukewarm support from fellow Whigs in Illinois but
was harshly counter attacked by Democrats, who rallied pro-war
sentiments in Illinois; Lincoln's Spot Resolutions haunted his future
campaigns in the heavily Democratic state of Illinois and were cited by
his rivals well into his presidency.[256]
While the Whig Emerson rejected war "as a means of achieving
America's destiny," toward the end of the war he wrote: "The United
States will conquer Mexico, but it will be as the man swallows the
arsenic, which brings him down in turn. Mexico will poison us."[257] He later accepted that "most of the great results of history are brought about by discreditable means."[258] Civil War historian James M. McPherson
dedicates an entire chapter of his Pulitzer winning Civil War history
to the Mexican–American war, entitled "Mexico Will Poison Us". McPherson
argues that the Mexican–American War and its aftermath was a key
territorial event in the leadup to the Civil War.[259]
Veterans of the war were often broken men. "As the sick and
wounded from Taylor's and Scott's campaigns made their way back from
Mexico to the United States, their condition shocked the folks at home.
Husbands, sons, and brothers returned in broken health, some with
missing limbs."[260] The 1880 "Republican Campaign Textbook" by the Republican Congressional Committee[261]
describes the war as "Feculent, reeking Corruption" and "one of the
darkest scenes in our history—a war forced upon our and the Mexican
people by the high-handed usurpations of Pres't Polk in pursuit of
territorial aggrandizement of the slave oligarchy."
Following the signing of the 1848 treaty, Polk sought to send
troops to Yucatan, where there was a civil war between secessionists and
those supporting the Mexican government. The U.S. Congress refused his
request. The Mexican War was supposed to be short and nearly bloodless.
It was neither. Congress did not support more foreign conflict.[262]
For Grant, who went on to lead Union forces in the Civil War and
later was elected president, "it also tutored him in the manifold ways
wars are shot through with political calculations."[263]
Grant had served in Mexico under General Zachary Taylor and was
appointed acting assistant quartermaster for Taylor's army, a post he
tried to decline since it took him away from the battlefield. However,
"The appointment was actually a godsend for Grant, turning him into a
complete soldier, adept at every facet of army life, especially
logistics... This provided invaluable training for the Civil War when
Grant would need to sustain gigantic armies in the field, distant from
northern supply depots."[264]
Grant saw considerable combat and demonstrated his coolness under fire.
In the Battle of Chapultepec, he and his men hoisted a howitzer into a
church belfry that had a commanding view of the San Cosme gate. The
action brought him the honorary rank of brevet captain, for "gallant and
meritorious conduct in the battle of Chapultepec."[265]
Grant later recalled in his Memoirs, published in 1885,
that "Generally, the officers of the army were indifferent whether the
annexation [of Texas] was consummated or not; but not so all of them.
For myself, I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day
regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a
stronger against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic
following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering
justice in their desire to acquire additional territory."[266]
Grant also expressed the view that the war against Mexico had brought
punishment on the United States in the form of the American Civil War.
"The Southern rebellion was largely the outgrowth of the Mexican war.
Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions. We got
our punishment in the most sanguinary and expensive war of modern
times."[267]
Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate forces through the
end of the Civil War, began building his reputation as a military
officer in America's war against Mexico. At the start of the
Mexican–American War, Captain Lee invaded Mexico with General Wool's
engineering department from the North. By early 1847, he helped take the
Mexican cities of Vera Cruz, Cerro Gordo, Contreras, Churubusco, Molino
del Rey, and Chapultepec. Lee was wounded in Chapultepec. General Scott
described Robert E. Lee as "gallant and indefatigable", saying that Lee
had displayed the "greatest feat of physical and moral courage
performed by any individual in [his] knowledge during the campaign".[268]
Grant gained insight into Robert E. Lee, as his memoir states, "I had
known him personally, and knew that he was mortal; and it was just as
well that I felt this."[269]
"An
Available Candidate: The One Qualification for a Whig President."
Political cartoon about the 1848 presidential election, referring to Zachary Taylor or Winfield Scott, the two leading contenders for the Whig Party nomination in the aftermath of the Mexican–American War. Published by Nathaniel Currier in 1848, digitally restored.
In 1861, General Scott advised Abraham Lincoln to ask Lee to command
U.S. forces. Lee declined and later recounted "I declined the offer he
made me to take command of the army that was brought into the field,
stating candidly and as courteously as I could that though opposed to
secession and deprecating war, I could take no part in the invasion of
the southern states."[270]
Social and political context
Despite initial objections from the Whigs and from abolitionists, the
Mexican war nevertheless united the U.S. in a common cause and was
fought almost entirely by volunteers. The United States Army swelled
from just over 6,000 to more than 115,000. The majority of 12-month
volunteers in Scott's army decided that a year's fighting was enough and
returned to the U.S.[271]
Anti-slavery elements fought for the exclusion of slavery from any territory absorbed by the U.S.[272]
In 1847, the House of Representatives passed the Wilmot Proviso,
stipulating that none of the territory acquired should be open to
slavery. If successful, the Wilmot Proviso would have effectively
cancelled out the 1820 Missouri Compromise, since it would have prohibited slavery in an area below the parallel 36°30′ north.
The Senate avoided the issue, and a late attempt to add it to the
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was defeated because Southern Senators had
the votes to prevent its addition. The House of Representatives is
apportioned by population, and the North's was growing, allowing it to
win the majority of the House in the 1846 elections; but the Senate
representation is two per state and Southerners had enough votes to
block the addition.
Politically the war shaped many viewpoints from American racial
and gender superiority. The war linked masculinity and citizenship and
encouraged violence and control over those considered inferior whilst
white Americans gained more rights. Racism became more prominent against
immigrant groups as they made up regiments and were often looked down
upon.[273]
Racial prejudice became prevalent within and after the war with
Mexican's alongside Native Americans being looked down upon and unable
to work within an American democracy or as citizens, this caused
anti-imperialism within the United States to rise with some even viewing
the war as shameful.[274] Debate was waged over the war and it's conduct with some authors supporting it whilst others covering its lack of morality.[275]
The consequences of the war would remain and would lead to political
settlements between slavery and non-slavery states with the South
pushing to expand slavery overseas and this would lead to American civil
war and influence the Union's diplomacy with European states.[276]
The war proved a decisive event for the U.S., marking a
significant turning point for the nation as a growing military power. It
is also a milestone in the U.S. narrative of Manifest Destiny. The war
did not resolve the issue of slavery in the U.S. but rather in many ways
inflamed it, as potential westward expansion of the institution became
an increasingly central and heated theme in national debates.[277]
By extending the territory of the United States to the Pacific Ocean,
the end of the Mexican–American War marked a new step in the huge
migrations of Americans to the West.[278]
Veterans of the war
Following the Civil War, veterans of the Mexican war began to
organize themselves as veterans regardless of rank and lobbied for their
service.[279]
Initially they sought to create a soldiers' home for aged and ailing
veterans, but then began pushing for pensions in 1874. There was
resistance in Congress since veterans had received warrants for up to
160 acres of land for their service; pensions would have put a fiscal
strain on the government.[280]
The politics were complicated since so many veterans of the Mexican war
fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War. Republican Congressmen
accused them of attempting to give federal aid to former Confederates.
This led to a thirteen-year Congressional debate over the loyalty of the
veterans and their worthiness to receive federal assistance in their
declining years.[281]
In 1887, the Mexican Veteran Pension Law went into effect, making
veterans eligible for a pension for their service. Surviving officers
and enlisted men were placed on a pension roll, which included
volunteers, militias, and marines who had served at least 60 days and
were at least 62 years old. Widows of veterans who had not remarried
were eligible for their late husband's pension. Excluded was "any person
while under the political disabilities imposed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution", that is, veterans who had fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War.[282]
Incidents, civilian deaths, and massacres
Burial site of Lieutenant Colonel Henry Clay, Jr., taken by an unknown photographer during the Mexican–American war, c. 1847
At the beginning of the war, U.S. troops under Taylor's command
adhered to the rules of war for the most part, under the watchful eye of
Taylor, and almost exclusively engaged with enemy soldiers. This gained
them some popularity with Mexican civilians, who held the occupying
Americans in a degree of high regard compared to the Mexican Army who
left their wounded to be captured by the enemy as they retreated from
the area. In June 1846, the situation changed when American
reinforcements entered the area and began raiding local farms.[283]
Many soldiers on garrison duty began committing crimes against
civilians, such as robbery, rape and murder in order to alleviate their
boredom. This wave of wanton crime resulted in American soldiers
murdering at least 20 civilians during the first month of occupation.
Taylor initially showed little concern with the crimes the soldiers were
committing and failed to discipline the soldiers responsible for them
or devise ways to prevent crimes. This led to public opinion turning
against the U.S. troops and resulted in many Mexicans taking up arms and
forming guerrilla bands which attacked patrols of U.S soldiers. The
attacks continued to get more prevalent, especially after the Battle of
Monterrey.[283]
During this time, anti-Catholic
sentiment and racism fueled further attacks against Mexican civilians.
It was estimated that U.S. troops killed at least 100 civilians, with
the majority of them being killed by the 1st Texas Mounted Volunteers
commanded by Colonel John C. Hays.
U.S. troops under the command of Capt. Mabry B. "Mustang" Gray
responded to the killing of an American soldier outside of Monterrey by
Mexicans, by abducting and summarily executing 24 unarmed Mexican
civilians. In November 1846, a detachment from the 1st Kentucky regiment
murdered a young Mexican boy, ostensibly as a form of sport.
Afterwards, Taylor failed to bring charges against any of the soldiers
involved.[284]
The most infamous incident occurred on October 9, 1847, after Captain Samuel Hamilton Walker and 12 others were killed in a skirmish, Joseph Lane ordered his men to avenge the dead Texas Rangers by sacking the town of Huamantla.
The soldiers quickly became drunk after raiding a liquor store and
began targeting the townspeople, raping and killing dozens of Mexican
civilians while indiscriminately burning their homes.[284][3]
However, these reports of an American rampage were overshadowed by the
news of Santa Anna's resignation after the Huamantla attack, leading to
no repercussions against Lane or any of the soldiers involved in the
atrocities.[285]
Effects on Mexico
For Mexico, the war had remained a painful historical event for the
country, losing territory and highlighting the domestic political
conflicts that were to continue for another 20 years. The Reform War between liberals and conservatives in 1857 was followed by the Second French Intervention in 1861, which set up the Second Mexican Empire.
The war caused Mexico to enter "a period of self-examination ... as its
leaders sought to identify and address the reasons that had led to such
a debacle."[286] In the immediate aftermath of the war, a group of Mexican writers including Ignacio Ramírez, Guillermo Prieto, José María Iglesias, and Francisco Urquidi compiled a self-serving assessment of the reasons for the war and Mexico's defeat, edited by Mexican army officer Ramón Alcaraz.
Denying that Mexican claims to Texas had anything to do with the war,
they instead wrote that for "the true origin of the war, it is
sufficient to say that the insatiable ambition of the United States,
favored by our weakness, caused it."[287] The work was noticed and translated to English by Colonel Albert Ramsey, a veteran of the Mexican–American War, and published in the United States in 1850 as a curiosity.[288]
Despite his being denounced and held to account for Mexico's loss
in the war, Santa Anna came to power for one last term as president.
After he sold the Mesilla Valley in 1853 to the U.S. in the Gadsden
Purchase, he began construction of a transcontinental railway
on a better route, but he was ousted and went into a lengthy exile. In
exile he drafted his version of events, which were not published until
much later.
Legacy
Obelisk to the Niños Héroes, Mexico City, 1881Memorial to the Mexican cadets killed in the Battle of Chapultepec, 1952
Mexico
Once the French were expelled in 1867 and the liberal republic was
re-established, Mexico began reckoning with the legacy of the
Mexican–American war. The story of the Niños Héroes became the narrative that helped Mexicans to come to terms with the war. Boy cadets sacrificing themselves for their patria
("fatherland") as martyrs in the Battle of Chapultepec was inspiring,
but their sacrifice was not commemorated until 1881, when surviving
cadets formed an organization to support the Military Academy of Mexico. One of the cadets taken prisoner designed the monument, a small cenotaph was erected at the base of Chapultepec hill on which the castle is built.
Annual commemorations at the cenotaph were attended by General Porfirio Díaz, who saw the opportunity to build his relationship with the Federal Army. Even during the Mexican Revolution
(1910–1920), the commemoration was continued and attended by
contemporary presidents. After the end of the military phase, the
Mexican government renewed the narrative of the boy heroes as the
embodiment of sacrifice for the patria. Plans were drawn up for a much
larger commemoration of their sacrifice, which was built at the entrance
to Mexico City's Chapultepec Park.
The Monument to the Heroic Cadets was inaugurated in 1952. By then, the
relations between the U.S. and Mexico had improved so much that they
had been allies in World War II and their postwar economies became
increasingly intertwined. Some war trophies taken by the U.S., such as
Mexican battle flags, were returned to Mexico with considerable
ceremony, but captured U.S. flags remain in Mexico.
In 1981, the Mexican government established the Museo Nacional de las Intervenciones
(National Museum of Interventions) in a former convent that was the
site of the Battle of Churubusco. It chronicles the attempts by the
Spanish to reconquer Mexico after its independence as well as the French
interventions. The museum has an exhibition on the Intervención norteamericana de 1846–1848,
which chronicles the Anglo–American settlement of Texas and their
rebellion after characterizing themselves as victims of Mexican
oppression. It goes on to blame the war on Polk and Santa Anna. "The
[museum's] interpretation concedes U.S. military superiority in arms and
commanders while disparaging General Santa Anna's costly mistakes and
retreat from the capital city."[289]
In the U.S. the war was almost forgotten after the cataclysm of the Civil War.[290] However, one of the first monuments was erected on the State House grounds in South Carolina in 1858, celebrating the Palmetto Regiment.
As veterans of the Civil War saw the scale of commemorations of that
war, Mexican war veterans sought remembrance for their service. In 1885,
a tableau of the U.S. Army's entry into Mexico City was painted in the U.S. Capitol Building by Filippo Constaggini. The Marine Corps Hymn,
which includes the phrase "From the Halls of Montezuma", is an
acknowledgment of the war, but there are no major monuments or
memorials.
Mexico City is the site of a cemetery created in 1851, still maintained by the American Battle Monuments Commission.
It holds the remains of 1,563 U.S. soldiers who mainly died in the
conflict and were placed in a mass grave. Many more U.S. soldiers died
in Mexico, but to transfer bodies there from shallow graves was
expensive. A few of those interred died in Mexico City long after the
war. The Mexico City military cemetery "signaled a transition in what
the United States understood to be its obligations to its war dead", a
pressing issue with the dead of the Civil War.[291]
The Mormon Battalion,
the only faith-based unit in the war, raised several monuments
commemorating their contributions to the war. At the time of the war,
most Mormons had been forced out of the jurisdiction of the U.S. and had
relocated to Utah. The Mormon leadership realized that stressing their
contributions to the war and to realizing manifest destiny was a way to
be included in the nation's narrative. A monument to the battalion was
dedicated in 1927 on the grounds of the Utah State Capitol grounds in
1927 and one erected in Los Angeles in 1950.[292]
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