Mexican-American War

The Mexican-American War (1846-48) was fought over control of Texas. Mexico lost all the battles and in the peace treaty gave up northern territories in exchange for $15 million.

US army route to Mexico City 1847

Battle of Buena Vista 1847

Causes

Perceptions of each side

Delay (2007) explains the American need to suppress Indian raids originating from Mexican territory. During the 1830s and 1840s, northern Mexico experienced a terrifying increase in interethnic violence as Comanches, Kiowas, Apaches, and other Indians attacked Mexican settlements across nine states in northern Mexico. Raids claimed thousands of lives, ruined the ranching and mining industries, and forced most Hispanics to flee the border region. Just as importantly, the violence shaped how Americans and Mexicans came to view each other in advance of the war. US observers saw Indians driving Mexicans backward, with the government there uninterested and incapable of defending the territory it had seized from Spain. With the Mexican army being used primarily to wage political battles for control of the government, Hispanic residents of the affected areas despaired that their government would help them; they increasingly welcomed American intervention, which they correctly expected would end the Indian raids. Mexican politicians compained Washington was fomenting Indian raids in order to acquire territory.

Start of war

Shortly after the U.S. Congress by joint resolution annexed Texas in 1845, the Mexican government recalled its minister from Washington and broke off diplomatic relations. Government newspapers in Mexico City acted as if war already existed. On June 15, 1845, Brevet Brigadier General Zachary Taylor, commanding American troops in the southwest, received orders to move forward into some disputed territory "on or near the Rio Grande." In August he encamped on the west bank of the Nueces River, Texas. President Polk then sent John Slidell of New Orleans to Mexico City with a proposal to adjust the boundary dispute, and to purchase Upper California and New Mexico.

Mexico was in no position to negotiate with Slidell because of its instability. In 1846 alone the presidency changed hands 4 times, the war minister changed 6 times, the finance minister changed 16 times. As one Mexican historian explains:

"Mexican public opinion and all the various political factions that aspired to or that actually shared in power at that time, had to—willingly or unwillingly—participate in a very hawkish attitude toward the war. Anyone who tried to avoid open conflict with the United States was treated as a traitor. That was precisely the case of President José Joaquin de Herrera. At one time he, at least, seriously considered receiving the American special envoy, John Slidell, in order to negotiate the problem of Texas annexation peacefully. But as soon as he assumed that position, the president was accused of favoring the handing over of a part of national territory; he was accused of treason and was overthrown."

When the Mexican government refused to negotiate with Slidell, Polk on Jan. 3, 1846, instructed Taylor to advance. Within a month Taylor's forces were at the Rio Grande. On April 12 General Pedro Ampudia demanded that Taylor retreat beyond the Nueces. Taylor held his position, and on April 24 a Mexican force ambushed a party of American dragoons on the Texas side of the Rio Grande. Polk already had decided to recommend a declaration of war. On May 11 his message went to Congress. A war appropriation bill providing for enlistments passed both houses by overwhelming margins. Its preamble declared that the war existed by the act of Mexico.

U.S. Politics

Volunteer army

As regimental commanders, volunteer colonels were vital to American military efforts, raising units of volunteer soldiers who agreed to serve outside US boundaries. Of the 63 volunteer colonels on active duty in 1846, 14 belonged to the Whig Party, indicating that Whigs were not monolithic in their opposition to the war. The colonels accumulated a mixed wartime record of leadership, and their backgrounds varied greatly. Some had no military experience prior to 1846, but others had graduated from West Point, served in the regular army, seen combat in war or on the frontier, or held rank in a state militia. The colonels also varied widely in holding political office before and after the war. Several of them were experienced politicians before 1846 who also held important offices after the war, showing that most colonels were recognized figures in their home states.

See also

• Guadalupe-Hidalgo, Treaty of
• James K. Polk
• Winfield Scott
• Zachary Taylor

Bibliography

Surveys

• Bancroft, H.H. History of Califroniaonline edition
• Bauer K. Jack. The Mexican War, 1846-1848. Macmillan, 1974.
• Crawford, Mark; Heidler, Jeanne T.; Heidler, David Stephen, eds. Encyclopedia of the Mexican War (1999) (ISBN 157607059X)
• De Voto, Bernard, Year of Decision 1846 (1942), very well written popular history
• Frazier, Donald S. ed. The U.S. and Mexico at War, (1998), 584; an encyclopedia with 600 articles by 200 scholars
• Meed, Douglas. The Mexican War, 1846-1848 (2003). 96pp by British scholar excerpt and text search
• Smith, Justin H. The War with Mexico 2 vol (1919); Pulitzer Prize; 2:233-52; online vol 1; online vol 2 Pulitzer Prize winner.

Military

• Bauer, K. Jack. Zachary Taylor: Soldier, Planter, Statesman of the Old Southwest. (1985).
• Eisenhower, John. So Far From God: The U.S. War with Mexico, (1989) excerpt and text search
• Hamilton, Holman, Zachary Taylor: Soldier of the Republic , (1941)
• Johnson, Timothy D. Winfield Scott: The Quest for Military Glory (1998)
• Foos, Paul. A Short, Offhand, Killing Affair: Soldiers and Social Conflict during the Mexican War (2002) excerpt and text search
• Lewis, Lloyd. Captain Sam Grant (1950)
• Winders, Richard Price. Mr. Polk's Army (1997) excerpt and text search

Political and Diplomatic

• Beveridge, Albert J. Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1858. Volume: 1. 1928. online edition
• Gleijeses, Piero. "A Brush with Mexico" Diplomatic History 2005 29(2): 223-254. Issn: 0145-2096 debates in Washington before war
• Graebner, Norman A. Empire on the Pacific: A Study in American Continental Expansion. (1955).
• Graebner, Norman A. "Lessons of the Mexican War." Pacific Historical Review 47 (1978): 325-42. in JSTOR
• Graebner, Norman A. "The Mexican War: A Study in Causation." Pacific Historical Review 49 (1980): 405-26. in JSTOR
• Pletcher David M. The Diplomacy of Annexation: Texas, Oregon, and the Mexican War (1973).
• Schroeder John H. Mr. Polk's War: American Opposition and Dissent, 1846-1848. 1973.
• Sellers Charles G. James K. Polk: Continentalist, 1843-1846 (1966), the standard biography
• Smith, Justin H. The War with Mexico 2 vol (1919); Pulitzer Prize; 2:233-52; online vol 1; online vol 2 Pulitzer Prize winner.
• Weinberg Albert K. Manifest Destiny: A Study of Nationalist Expansionism in American History (1935). ACLS e-book

Hispanic perspectives

• Brack, Gene M. Mexico Views Manifest Destiny, 1821-1846: An Essay on the Origins of the Mexican War (1975).
• Delay, Brian. "Independent Indians and the U.S.-Mexican War." American Historical Review 2007 112(1): 35-68. Issn: 0002-8762 Fulltext: History Cooperative
• Fowler, Will. Santa Anna of Mexico (2007) 527pp; the major scholarly study
• Fowler, Will. Tornel and Santa Anna: The Writer and the Caudillo, Mexico, 1795-1853 (2000)
• Krauze, Enrique. Mexico: Biography of Power, (1997)
• Mayers, David; Fernández Bravo, Sergio A., "La Guerra Con Mexico Y Los Disidentes Estadunidenses, 1846-1848" [The War with Mexico and US Dissenters, 1846-48]. Secuencia [Mexico] 2004 (59): 32-70. Issn: 0186-0348
• Robinson, Cecil, The View From Chapultepec: Mexican Writers on the Mexican War, (1989)
• Rodríguez Díaz, María Del Rosario. "Mexico's Vision of Manifest Destiny During the 1847 War" Journal of Popular Culture 2001 35(2): 41-50. Issn: 0022-3840
• Reséndez, Andrés. Changing National Identities at the Frontier: Texas and New Mexico, 1800-1850 (2004) excerpt and text search
• Ruiz, Ramon Eduardo. Triumph and Tragedy: A History of the Mexican People, (1992)
• Ruiz, Vicki L. "Nuestra America: Latino History as United States History." Journal of American History 2006 93(3): 655-672. Issn: 0021-8723 Fulltext: [History Cooperative]]
• Yanez, Agustin. Santa Anna: Espectro de una sociedad (1996)

Primary Sources

• Polk, James. Polk: The Diary of a President, 1845-1849, Covering the Mexican War, the Acquisition of Oregon, and the Conquest of California and the Southwest. edited by Allan Nevins (1929)
• Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant

External links

• Handbook of Texas (2004), with many detailed scholarly articles
  • Alamo
• Texas War for Independence 1832-36
• PBS on Mexican-American War
• West Point Atlas
• US Army textbook
• "The San Jacinto Campaign" 1901 article by leading scholar Eugene C. Barker
• Alamo images
• images of war
• Samuel Chamberlain memoirs and drawings
• Scott at Vera Cruz 1851 essay
• Edward D. Mansfield. The Mexican war: a history of its origin, and a detailed account of the victories which terminated in the surrender of the capital; with the official despatches of the generals. To which is added, the treaty of peace, and valuable tables of the strength and losses of the United States Army.(1860 ed.)
• "Pack Mules and Surf Boats: Logistics in the Mexican War" by Robert D. Paulus from Army Logistician 1997

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