*The Mexican government never accepted Santa Anna’s treaties with Texas at the end of the Texan Revolution, but neither did they make any effort to try to regain control of Texas.  The only debate was over where the border of Texas lay.  The Republic of Texas insisted that it was on the Rio Grande, while Mexico said it was at the Rio Nueces (flowing into the Gulf of Mexico at Corpus Christi).

*Another controversy was whether Texas might join the United States.  Many Texans and quite a few Americans wanted it to.  However, as slavery became more controversial in the United States, the fact that most of Texas lay below the Missouri Compromise line of 36º 30’ North Latitiude meant that it would become a new slave state (or perhaps several), which aroused opposition from anti-slavery activists and from people who simply did not want national politics disrupted by the slavery debate.  Furthermore, annexing Texas might well provoke a war with Mexico, which no-one wanted in the 1830s.

*So, for nine years, Texas was an independent republic.  Americans continued to move there, though, and into the Oregon Country (which the US shared with Great Britain), and a few even moved into Upper California.  Many more considered moving there, and by the mid-1840s began to feel that the United States should expand to encompass all its people, even if many politicians were unwilling to deal with the potential controversies.  Expanding from sea to shining sea came to be seen as America’s Manifest Destiny.

*By 1844, the issue of Manifest Destiny would split the Democratic Party.  Many Democrats wanted to annex Texas, Oregon, and California (or at least one or two of them), but the leading candidate for the nomination, former president Martin van Buren was opposed to immediate annexation.  Those who supported it (or otherwise disliked van Buren) split their votes among many candidates, until turning on the 9th ballot to James K. Polk, former Speaker of the House of Representatives and Governor of Tennessee.  George Dallas was chosen as his Vice-Presidential candidate.

*Polk promised to annex Texas, annex Oregon (with the promise of 54º 40’ or Fight!), lower the tariff, and create an independent treasury (where federal funds could be stored without influencing or being influenced by the banking system).  He also hoped to acquire California.  Furthermore, as a friend of Andrew Jackson (who publicly supported him), he presented himself as Young Hickory.  This exciting programme propelled him to a narrow victory over Henry Clay in 1844.

*This victory was taken by a mandate by outgoing president John Tyler to do what he had long wanted to do, and he proposed annexation of Texas to Congress, and this time it was accepted in a joint resolution on 26 February, 1845, just before Tyler left office.  Texas officially became the 28th state in December, 1845.

*To settle once and for all the dispute over the Texan border, Polk sent an army under the command of Old Rough and Ready Zachary Taylor into the disputed area between the Rio Nueces and the Rio Grande.  He also told the Pacific squadron to attack the west coast of Mexico if the army was attacked and sent a message through an American consul that the US would like to buy California (while he also sent armed men there and into New Mexico) and to buy Texas.

*Around dusk on 25 April, 1846, an American scouting party of 70 dragoons under the command of Captain Seth Thornton was attacked by 2,000 Mexicans between the Rio Nueces and the Rio Grande.  By morning, all but one of the dragoons had been killed or captured, but the survivor brought news of the skirmish back to Taylor’s army.

*Polk declared that American blood had been shed on American soil.  On 13 May, 1846, Congress declared war (although a few Whigs, including John Quincy Adams) voted against it.  Later, in 1847, anti-war Whig Congressman from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln demanded to see the spot of American soil where American blood had been shed.

*The Mexican Congress declared war in return on 7 July, 1846, and Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna (who had already been president twice before) offered to return to Mexico to lead the army against the Americans, and swore he did not want to be president again.  He also contacted the United States and offered to go to Mexico, take over, and sell all the disputed land to the US.  Mexico invited him to return, the US Navy allowed him to go, and once in command of the Mexican army he declared himself president and moved north to fight Taylor.

*By this point Taylor had already defeated a Mexican army larger than his own at Palo Alto (8 May, 1846) and Resaca de Palma (9 May, 1846) near Brownsville (named for Major Jacob Brown who fought and died there).  The US had an advantage in highly mobile light artillery called ‘Flying Artillery.’  (Resaca is a Spanish word for a dry river bed.)

*Taylor then crossed the Rio Grande, and marched to the city of Monterrey, where the new commander of the Mexican army, Pedro de Ampudia, had decided to stand and fight with over 10,000 men to defend the city against Taylor’s 6,000.  The subsequent battle lasted from 21-24 September, 1846.

*Among the defenders of Monterrey was the San Patricio Battalion, made up of Americans (mostly Irish Catholics) who had deserted an army where they were often persecuted for their religion in order to join the Mexican army where they would not have to shoot fellow Catholics.  They fought bravely at Monterrey and several other major battles, partly because they knew they would be executed if captured.

*It looked to be a hard fight.  A large citadel (called the Black Fort by Americans) protected the main road into the city; a river and several hills (most of them defended) protected its southern side.  However, these defences were too far from the city and from each other—it was possible to move around or between them in some places without being in any field of fire.

*Taylor’s plan was to send General William Worth around Monterrey and capture Independence Hill and the Bishop’s Palace that served as a fortification above the city.  Worth went one step further, capturing Federation Hill and the two forts on it, then taking Independence Hill and then attacking the city itself.

*Taylor sent the rest of his army to attack the city from the east end, again bypassing the Black Fort.  Soon the battle turned into house-by-house street fighting, much of it brutal hand-to-hand combat.  Eventually, Ampudia agreed to negotiate, and because he still had a larger army (even if most of it was trapped in the city plaza), Taylor agreed to let him and his men march South with honour.  There would then be a two month armistice.  This infuriated Polk.

*Polk began planning attacks on the Mexican coast, and withdrew some of Taylor’s army for this new campaign.  When Santa Anna learned of this, he marched north to meet Taylor, but Taylor did not wait for him at Monterrey.  He marched south with what remained of his army until he found a pass through the hills south of a little town called Buena Vista and prepared to defend it with about 4,800 men (of whom only about 700 had seen combat).  Santa Anna arrived with 12,000 and soon 4,000 more came to join him.

*There was a small skirmish on 22 February, 1847, and on the 23rd Santa Anna attacked Taylor’s lines in earnest, but Taylor was ready for him.  The main road to Buena Vista had gullies on one side and a steep ridge on the other; Taylor placed artillery here to block the road.  He placed most of his men on a large plateau above the road, but left one route to his left unguarded, because it was such a long, difficult, and circuitous route that he was not worried about it.

*Santa Anna’s first attack was up the road to Buena Vista, and the first wave of men was slaughtered by artillery on the road.  On the main plateau, though, many new recruits broke and ran, exposing the entire left flank of Taylor’s army.  One of his subordinates said, ‘General, we are whipped,’ but Taylor replied, ‘That is for me to determine’ and he sent Jefferson Davis to hold the line. 

*They did so, first by holding their fire to lure the Mexicans into an inverted V they formed by pulling their centre back, then firing a devastating volley into the Mexicans in their midst, then pulling out their Bowie knives for hand-to-hand fighting.

*Some Mexican cavalry did manage to slip around Taylor’s flank and ride for Buena Vista.  However, Taylor sent some of his own cavalry to intercept them, which they did, driving them away from the town.

*By this point, Taylor (despite being badly outnumbered) was ready to charge.  Santa Anna tried to prevent or delay this by sending an officer with an offer to negotiate peace terms, but Taylor recognised this as a trick (because the Mexicans kept shooting) and ordered the charge.  Many of his men were killed, and the survivors retreated back up to the plateau, where they were saved by a man who had already taken his ‘flying artillery’ all over the battlefield that day, Braxton Bragg.

*As the Mexicans charged Taylor’s position while his own men fled, Taylor approached Bragg and asked him what he was firing.  He said he was firing single shot, and Taylor told him to ‘double-shot your guns and give them hell, Bragg.’ Later this order became famous in reports of the battle, although it was often misquoted as ‘give them a little more grape, Captain Bragg.’  Other artillery joined him, and tore the Mexicans apart.

*After this attack failed, Santa Anna pulled his men back to their camp, and during the night retreated under cover of darkness and began to move back towards Mexico City.  For the moment he had given up on Northern Mexico, partly because Mexico City itself was in danger.

*Winfield Scott was the Commanding General of the US Army when the war began (and held that post from 1841 to 1861, longer than any other officer).  He was a military genius, but arrogant and inclined to say the wrong thing in public.  His troops thought he was pompous and called him ‘Old Fuss and Feathers’ because he loved fancy uniforms, but Polk distrusted him (and Taylor, for that matter) because he was a Whig, and he feared he had political ambitions.  By October, 1846, though, Polk had agreed to let him plan at attack on the Mexican port of Vera Cruz.

*Fortunately, Scott already had a plan prepared, and by March, 1847, was prepared to land on the shores of Mexico.  He had 12,000 men, while the Mexicans under Juan Morales had 3,400 in the city of Vera Cruz, but the Mexicans were in a highly fortified city, while Scott’s had to pass a fortified island just to land on the coast.

*Scott’s men landed in three waves on 9 March, 1847, without taking a single casualty.  They landed well south of the city, bypassing the island fort of San Juan de Ulúa completely.  This was fortunate, as Scott, most of his staff, most of the other generals, and the commander of the fleet were all on one ship and might have all been killed by one lucky shot.

*Scott intended to reduce the city by siege, even though many of his officers wanted to make a direct assault.  It took nearly two weeks to set up his artillery as he wanted them.  This was hard because they had to create earthworks in sand, which was hard to dig in effectively, although the high dunes hid much of the American effort from the Mexicans.  Scott even borrowed some heavy guns from the Navy, designed for bombarding fort walls, and accepted the Navy’s offer to fire on the City from the sea.

*Scott gave the Mexican commander the chance to surrender on 22 March, but he refused, and despite Scott’s warning, foreigners in Vera Cruz chose not to leave.  That evening, Scott’s batteries opened fire. 

*The bombardment lasted three days, until the city finally stopped fighting on 25 March, when resident foreigners asked Scott to let them leave, he refused, and they helped convince Morales to surrender, which he had his second-in-command do on the 29th. 

*This was fortunate, as Scott had been considering an infantry assault, because he wanted to be able move inland as soon as possible to avoid the vomito, the deadly yellow fever that hit the coast near Vera Cruz in the spring of every year.  Furthermore, Santa Anna was moving south after his defeat at Buena Vista (which he claimed as a victory).

*Scott marched inland towards Mexico City following the path of Hernando Cortez’s conquistadores after leaving a small force to garrison Vera Cruz and keep it open to resupply from America.  Santa Anna blocked Scott’s march at Cerro Gordo (Fat Hill) near the city of Jalapa. 

*Scott had about 8,500 men and Santa Anna had 10,000-18,000.  Santa Anna had set up batteries to fire upon the main highway to Jalapa, which went around several ridges and below the hill of Cerro Gordo.  He did not, however, place many defenders atop Cerro Gordo or behind the hill, counting on Scott to come down the highway because all the terrain around it was so rough. 

*Scott’s engineers, though, had scouted ahead.  Lieutenant PGT Beauregard and Captain Robert E. Lee discovered a route around Cerro Gordo, and Scott planned to take advantage of it.  During one of their scouting missions, Lee was nearly surprised by a group of Mexican soldiers, and only survived by hiding under a log motionless for hours while the Mexicans relaxed by a cool stream.

*There were several skirmishes around Cerro Gordo in the second and third weeks of April, which made the Mexicans confident that they had beaten the American army, or soon would.

*On 18 April, 1847, Scott sent General Gideon Pillow, a political appointee and close friend of Polk, to provide a distraction to Santa Anna’s foremost batteries.  Pillow, however, wanted glory, and took the orders to mean that he should make a major assault.  He got a late start and took the wrong route, and was exposed to flanking fire for his entire march—Pillow was shot in the right arm.  His men eventually reached the Mexican batteries guarding the National Highway, but were not able to capture them.

*At 7.00 General Davy Twiggs, who had been led to Cerro Gordo by Lee and already fought a small skirmish with the Mexicans, ordered an attack up the hill, with the help of artillery they had brought forward, while he sent other forces around the hill to attack from the rear.  Soon they captured the guns atop the hill and turned them on the retreating Mexicans.

*At first, Santa Anna sent reinforcements to Cerro Gordo, but as more and more of his men retreated, he fled the field as well.  He had to abandon his carriage, leaving behind one of his artificial legs (now in a museum in Springfield, Illinois), food, wine, and $6,000.

*This was a great victory for the US army and a great embarrassment for Santa Anna.  He lost 1,000 killed and wounded and 3,000 captured, compared to 400 American killed and wounded.  One of the biggest problems was what to do with all the muskets and cannon captured, because Scott did not have enough men to use them, so many were destroyed.  Scott occupied the city of Jalapa, then began marching towards Mexico City again. 

*In every place he captured Scott made a point of treating the locals with the greatest possible respect, paying good prices for any produce they would sell and punishing soldiers who mistreated the locals.  He even attended Catholic Church services, and encouraged his officers to do the same.  He knew that he had 10,000 men in the middle of ten million Mexicans, and could only win a peace by befriending the locals (many of whom did not trust or like Santa Anna, especially after his retreat from Cerro Gordon and his later theft of a $10,000 bribe meant to pay Scott to leave Mexico).  For the most part, Scott succeeded in this policy, eventually to the point that he cut off his supply lines to the coast, mostly because he could not spare the men needed to occupy every town and village on the route, but also because he was able to trust that the Mexicans would not cut him off.

*In August, after receiving reinforcements (including a regiment commanded by Franklin Pierce), Scott’s army descended into the Valley of Mexico.  By now he had about 10,700 men ready to fight, while Santa Anna had gathered about 35,000 men to defend Mexico City.

*On 20 August, 1847, Scott’s men defeated Mexican forces at Contreras and Churubusco, two towns south of Mexico City.  The battle of Contreras was notable because the US Army flanked the Mexicans by cutting through a rough field of volcanic rock called the Pedregal that was thought to be impassable.  During this battle, Franklin Pierce was also badly wounded when his horse fell on him after stumbling on the loose rocks of the Pedregal.  At Churubusco the Mexicans had to surrender partly because they ran out of ammunition.

*The way was now open to attack Mexico City itself.  Scott offered Santa Anna the opportunity to surrender, which was declined.  On 8 September, 1847, Scott began to attack the defences around Mexico City.  The first battle (and one of the bloodiest in the war) was led by General Worth at Molino del Rey, where about 1,600 Mexicans were killed, wounded, or captured, and about 800 Americans were killed or wounded.  This opened the way for the assault on Chapultepec.

*Chapultepec was a castle guarding two of the main roads into Mexico City, and also served as the Mexican Military Academy.  However, it was relatively lightly defended (less than a thousand men, including military academy cadets), and Scott and his officers decided to capture it to protect their attacks on the gates of Mexico City. 

*At first they bombarded it with artillery on 12 September, 1847.  On 13 September, a picked group of 250 of Pillow’s men, followed by more soldiers.  Pillow was shot in the left foot, and ordered his men onwards.  Soon they had to stop to wait for ladders. 

*Eventually, so many ladders arrived that fifty men could climb the castle walls at a time, and the first man to the top of the walls was Second Lieutenant George Pickett.  The wounded Lieutenant James Longstreet handed him an American flag, which he unfurled on the walls.

*The Mexican commander ordered a retreat, but six cadets of the Military Academy refused to go, and were killed by American soldiers until the last one, Juan Escutia, wrapped himself in the Mexican flag and leapt off the walls.  These cadets are now known as the Niños Héroes (Boy Heroes) and there is a monument to them at Chapultepec in Mexico City.

*Among the Americans at Chapultepec were a few Marines, who remember the battle by another name for Chapultepec, near the ancient home of the Aztec Emperors:  the Halls of Montezuma.

*As the American flag was raised over Chapultepec, thirty men looking on it were hanged:  Scott had ordered that a group of San Patricios captured at Churubusco be hanged in sight of the American flag flying over Chapultepec.

*After capturing Chapultepec, the US Army attacked the Belén Gate and the San Cosme Gate and broke into Mexico City and spent the day taking possession of its strong points (a difficult task, because Santa Anna had released 30,000 prisoners into the streets to slow the Americans down). 

*At 8 AM on 14 September, 1847, Scott rode into the centre of Mexico City in his best dress uniform.  On 15 September, Santa Anna resigned as President but continued to lead part of the army, soon his soldiers refused to follow him.  In 1851 he went into exile in Jamaica, but returned for another term as president in 1853 (before being forced out in 1854).

*In the months that followed, Nicholas Trist negotiated the Treaty of Guadeloupe Hidalgo, which the Mexican government signed on 2 March, 1848 (official ratifications were exchanged on 30 May, 1848).  In exchange for $15 million in cash and the assumption of $3.25 million in Mexican debts to American citizens, Mexico ceded over half the territory it had claimed before the war.  It not only recognised the American annexation of Texas (with its border at the Rio Grande), but also ceded Upper California and New Mexico, which had also been taken over by the United States during the War.

*Even before Taylor moved across the Rio Nueces, Army Captain John C. Frémont had led about 60 armed men into California and slowly marched towards Oregon.  When rumours of war reached California, some American settlers in Sonoma declared their independence from Mexico as the Bear Flag Republic on 14 June, 1846.  Local Mexican officials agreed that American annexation was inevitable (although the same general had once built a fort to keep the Russians out), and did nothing to stop the revolt.  Frémont soon arrived and declared the Republic of California to be annexed by the United States on 9 July, 1846.  Although there were a few skirmishes, Frémont, with the help of local Americans, some Mexicans, and the US Navy, had California firmly under American control by 1847.

*Stephen Kearny had done the same thing in New Mexico.  As soon as the war had begun, he marched along the Santa Fe Trail to the capital of New Mexico with 1,700 men.  He captured it with no fighting, declared it part of the US on 15 August, 1846, and was named military governor on 18 August, 1846.  In September he marched towards California, and eventually replaced Frémont as military governor there.

*The United States had also gained Oregon during the War, but not by violence (although the threat of violence hung over the entire Oregon Country.  Many Canadians thought the border ought to be at the Columbia River.  Many Americans (particularly in the North) demanded the all of Oregon:  Fifty-four Forty or Fight!  Polk officially took this view in public and with the British ambassador, but both Polk and the British were realistic, and decided to simply continue to existing border at 49º North all the way to the Pacific, with only Vancouver Island jutting south of it while remaining fully Canadian.

*Not only did Polk add Texas, New Mexico, California, and Oregon to the United States, he lowered the tariff and built an independent treasury (which helped make the economy more stable).  He then fulfilled another promise—he would only serve one term.  On his way home, he fell sick with cholera, and already weak from working 16-hour days, he died three months after leaving office.

*The Mexican War was a great victory for America, but it caused great problems as well.  Just as the War was ending, gold was discovered in California, and soon a quarter-million men rushed west to find it.  California was ready to become a state by 1850, and President Taylor was eager to admit it.  However, it wanted to forbid slavery in the entire state, even though half of it lay below the old Missouri Compromise Line. 

*The Compromise of 1850 that allowed California into the Union gave free states a majority in the Senate without giving the South much in exchange. 

*In 1854, President Pierce (who beat Scott for the presidency in 1852) would oversee the beginning of the policy of Popular Sovereignty in the Kansas and Nebraska Territories, where pro- and anti-slavery forces fought a brutal war known as Bleeding Kansas.

*These disagreements over the spread of slavery into the new territories and the nature of the national government’s relationship with the states would form the basis for the Civil War, a war in which many of the officers on both sides had learned how to fight in Mexico.

---