Mexican-American War

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{{Warbox |conflict=Mexican-American War |partof= |campaign= |image= |caption= |date=1846–1848 |place=Southwestern United States; Northern, Central and Eastern Mexico |result=US victory; Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexican Cession |combatant1=United States |combatant2=Mexico |commander1=Zachary Taylor
Winfield Scott
Stephen W. Kearney |commander2=Antonio López de Santa Anna
Mariano Arista
Pedro de Ampudia |strength1=60,000 |strength2=40,000 |casualties1=KIA: 1,733
Total dead: 13,283
Wounded: 4,152 |casualties2=25,000 (Mexican government estimate)}}

The Mexican-American War was fought between the United States and Mexico between 1846 and 1848. It is sometimes also known as Mr. Polk's War or the U.S. Invasion of Mexico. Its most important consequence was the Mexican Cession, or the resulting sale of the Mexican territories of California and New Mexico to the U.S. and the recognition of the annexation of Republic of Texas. The war coincided with a period of political turmoil in Mexico, and would lead to the American Civil War.

Contents

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Background

The Mexican-American War grew out of an American expansionist policy known as Manifest Destiny and Mexico's refusal to recognize Texas as a legitimate state after the 1836 Texas Revolution. Mexico had long declared its intention to recapture what it considered to be a breakaway province of Texas, however nearly a decade had passed and Texas had solidified its position by establishing diplomatic ties with Great Britain and the United States. Officials in the Republic of Texas had for most of its short existence expressed interest in being annexed to the United States, however this had been blocked in Congress because of ongoing difficulties regarding admission of slave states. Finally in 1845, in his last days in office, President John Tyler used the fear of a British encroachment to swing the offer of annexation to Texas. Texas accepted, and became the 28th state of the United States.

The Mexican government, in the throes of its own volatile changes in power, reacted to this development with complaints that the United States, by annexing its rebel province, was intervening in Mexico's internal affairs and had unjustly seized sovereign Mexican territory. British envoys had repeatedly attempted to dissuade Mexico from declaring war, but British efforts to mediate were fruitless as additional political disputes (particularly the Oregon boundary dispute) arose between the Britain and the United States.

After the annexation of Texas, newly elected President James K. Polk set out to acquire the Mexican provinces of California and New Mexico (which then covered all of the present-day southwest United States), for up to $30 million. In 1845, Polk sent diplomat John Slidell to negotiate this sale. American expansionists wanted California in order to have a port on the Pacific Ocean, which would allow the United States to participate in the lucrative trade with Asia. Furthermore, Mexico's hold on its distant province was weak, and American expansionists feared that California would eventually be acquired by Great Britain, which, according to the thinking of the Monroe Doctrine, was a threat to U.S. security.

In January 1846, Polk increased pressure on Mexico to sell by sending troops, under General Zachary Taylor, into the area between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande—territory that was claimed by both Texas and Mexico. Taylor ignored Mexican demands that he withdraw, and marched to the bank of the Rio Grande, where he began to build Fort Brown. The Mexican forces on the opposite side of the river, in Matamoros, commanded by General Mariano Arista prepared for war.

Slidell's arrival in Mexico caused political turmoil after word leaked out that he was there to purchase additional territory and not to offer compensation for the loss of Texas. President Mariano Paredes y Arrillaga, who had seized control of Mexico from José Joaquin de Herrera in a bloodless military coup, refused to receive Slidell, citing a problem with his credentials. Slidell returned to Washington, D.C. at the beginning of May, 1846.

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Hostilities and declaration of war

On 24 April 1846, 2,000 Mexican cavalry crossed the Rio Grande, and attacked a American troop of 63 dragoons. This was called, in the USA, the Thornton Affair after the commander of these troops. 11 were killed, and most of the rest were captured, although a few escaped and related what occurred back at Fort Brown.

On May 3, the artillery at Matamoros began to shell Fort Brown, to which they replied sparingly with their own artillery. The bombardment continued for 5 days and expanded as the Mexican forces gradually surrounded the fort. Two soldiers were killed during the bombardment including the eponymous Jacob Brown.

On May 8, Zachery Taylor arrived with 2,400 troop to relieve the fort. However Arista rushed north and intercepted him with a force of 3,400 at Palo Alto. The Americans used a new artillery method named flying artillery - a mobile light artillery that was mounted on horse carriages, with all cannoneers mounted as well. In addition, the shells exploded on impact to a devastating effect on the Mexican Army. The Mexicans responded with cavalry skirmishes and its own reply of artillery. The American flying artillery somewhat demoralized the Mexican side and they felt the need to find a terrain more to their advantage. They relocated to the far side of a dry riverbed (resaca) during the night, which provided a natural fortification, but also scattered their troops so that communication was difficult. During the Battle of Resaca de la Palma the next day, the two sides engaged in vicious hand to hand fighting. The American cavalry managed to capture the Mexican artillery and the effect caused the Mexican side to retreat and then re-rout. Because of the dispersion of his troops and the terrain, Arista found it impossible to rally his troops. Mexican casualties were heavy, and they were forced to abandon their artillery and baggage. Fort Brown inflicted further casualties as the withdrawing troops passed them and swam across the Rio Grande.

By now Polk had received word of the Thorton attack now added this to the rejection of Slidell as the casus belli. In a message to Congress on May 11, 1846 stated that Mexico had “invaded our territory and shed American blood upon the American soil”. A joint session of Congress overwhelmingly approved the declaration of war, with many Whigs fearing that opposition would cost them politically. War was declared on May 13, 1846. Northerners and Whigs generally opposed the war, while Southerners and Democrats tended to support it. Abraham Lincoln contested the causes for the war at that time, and demanded to know the exact spot on which Thornton had been attacked. Mexico declared war in response on 23 May.

After the declaration of war, U.S. forces invaded Mexican territory on two main fronts. The U.S. war department sent a cavalry force under Stephen W. Kearny to invade western Mexico from Fort Leavenworth, backed up by a Pacific Fleet under John D. Sloat. This was done primarily because of concerns that Britain might also attempt to occupy the area. Two more forces, one under John E. Wool, the other under Taylor, were ordered to occupy Mexico as far south as the city of Monterrey.

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War in California

At that time all western Mexican territories, the present-day California and south-west United States, were very thinly populated, with small and scattered settlements of both Spanish and English speaking people. Mexico's claim to the territories was inherited from centuries-old Spanish claims after its independence in 1821. The U.S. claim to the territories came alternately from Filibuster (military) and the concept of manifest destiny.

On June 14, 1846 English-speaking colonists in Sonoma, arrested and imprisoned the Mexican governor and declared an independent California Republic. On the Pacific coast, Sloat claimed Monterey (a town on the Californian coast, not to be confused with Monterrey, Nuevo León). He took control of the California Republic in July of that year. Subsequently he transferred his command to Robert F. Stockton under orders from congress.

Meanwhile, 1,700 U.S. army troops under Kearny marched to Santa Fe, New Mexico and took control. Kearny then proceeded onward with a detachment of 300 dragoons along the Gila river valley, and across the deserts to California. After some initial reverses, he united with naval reinforcements and won the Battles of San Gabriel and La Mesa taking control of San Diego and Los Angeles. The Treaty of Cahuenga was signed on January 13, 1847 by General Andrés Pico in what is now North Hollywood, to end the conflict in California.

A major dispute then broke out between Kearny and Stockton over control of California. Stockton appointed John C. Frémont governor of California, while Kearny named himself, as the highest ranking officer, to that position. The dispute was primarily caused by conflicting directives from Washington. Kearny eventually prevailed, and Frémont was arrested and court-martialed for his loyalty to Stockton in the dispute (and later pardoned by Polk).

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War in Central Mexico

In Mexico, the loss at Resaca da la Palma caused political turmoil in Mexico which Antonio López de Santa Anna used to return from self-imposed exile in Cuba. He promised a peaceful conclusion to the war and sale of territory to the Americans so as to pass through their blockades. He then, after his arrival, reneged on these promises and offered his military skills to the Mexican government. After he had been appointed general, he reneged again, this time to his own government, and seized the presidency.

A large force led by Taylor crossed the Rio Grande (Rio Bravo) after some initial difficulties in obtaining river transport. He occupied the city of Matamoros, then Camargo (where while waiting the soldiery suffered the first of many problems with disease) and then proceeded south and besieged the city of Monterrey. This was a hard fought battle during which both sides suffered serious losses. The Americans light artillery was ineffective against the stone fortifications of the city. The Mexican forces under General Pedro de Ampudia and Catholic-American defectors Batallón de San Patricio made the American troops life difficult. However an infantry division and the Texas Rangers captured four hills to the west of the town and with them heavy cannon. That lent the Americans the strength to storm the city from the west and east. Once in the city, Americans fought house to house: each was cleared by throwing lighted shells, which worked like primitive grenades. 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 8-week armistice in return for the surrender of the city. Under pressure from Washington, Taylor broke the armistice and occupied the city of Saltillo, south of Monterrey. Santa Anna blamed the loss of Monterrey and Saltillo on Ampudia and demoted him to command a small artillery batallion.

On February 22, 1847, Santa Anna personally marched north to fight Taylor with 20,000 men. Taylor had dug in at a mountain pass near a hacienda called Buena Vista with 4,600 men. Santa Anna suffered desertions on the way north and arrived with 15,000 men in a tired state. He demanded and was refused surrender of the Americans the night he arrived, then attacked in the next morning. Santa Anna flanked the American 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 along the road leading to Buena Vista. Furious fighting ensued during which the Americans were almost routed, but were saved by artillery fire against a Mexican advance at close range by Captain Braxton Bragg, and a charge by the mounted Mississippi Riflemen under Jefferson Davis. Having suffered discouraging losses, Santa Anna withdrew that night, leaving Taylor in control of Northern Mexico. Taylor later used the Battle of Buena Vista as the centerpiece of his successful 1848 presidential campaign.

Meanwhile, rather than reinforce Taylor's army for a continued advance, President Polk sent a second army under U.S. general Winfield Scott in March, which was transported to the port of Veracruz by sea, to begin an invasion of the Mexican heartland. Polk distrusted Taylor, who he felt had shown incompetence in the Battle of Monterrey by agreeing to the armistice, and may have considered him a political rival for the White House.

Scott performed the first major amphibious landing in the history of the United States in preparation for the Siege of Veracruz. A group of 12,000 volunteer and regular soldiers successfully offloaded supplies, weapons and horses near the walled city. Included in the group was Robert E. Lee and George Meade. The city 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 city replied as best it could with its own artillery. The effect of the extended barrage destroyed the will of the Mexican side to fight against a numerically superior foe, and they surrendered the city after 12 days under siege. Americans suffered 80 casualties, while the Mexican side had around 180 killed and wounded, about half of whom were civilian. During the siege, the American side began to fall victim to Yellow Fever.

Scott then marched westward toward Mexico City with 8,500 healthy troops, while Santa Anna set up a defensive position in a canyon around the main road at the halfway mark to Mexico city, near the hamlet of Cerro Gordo. Santa Anna had entrenched with 12,000 troops and artillery that were trained on the the road, along which he expected Scott to appear. However, Scott had sent 2,600 dragoons ahead and the Mexican artillery prematurely fired on them and revealed their positions. 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 American positions, Santa Anna and his troops were unprepared for the onslaught that followed. The Mexican army was routed. The Americans suffer 400 casualties, while the Mexicans suffered over 1,000 casualties and 3,000 were taken prisoner.

In May, Scott pushed on to Puebla, then the second largest city in Mexico. Because of the citizens' hostility to Santa Ana, the city capitulated without resistance on May 15. Mexico City was laid open in the Battle of Chapultepec, and occupied.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed on February 2, 1848, ended the war and gave the U.S undisputed control of Texas as well as California, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Wyoming. In return, Mexico received $18,250,000, the equivalent of $627,500,000 in mid-2000s dollars.

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Combatants

Throughout the course of the war, approximately 13,000 American soldiers died. Of these, only about 1,700 were from actual combat; the other casualties stemmed from disease and unsanitary conditions during the war. Mexican casualties remain somewhat of a mystery, and are estimated at 25,000.

One of the contributing factors to loss of the war by Mexico was the inferiority of their weapons. The Mexican army was using British firearms from the Napoleonic War, while American troops had the latest American manufactured weapons. Furthermore, Mexican troops were trained to fire with their rifle held loosely at hip-level, while Americans used the much more accurate method of butting the rifle up to the shoulder and taking aim along the barrel.

The Saint Patrick's Battalion (San Patricios), was a group of several hundred Irish immigrant soldiers who deserted the U.S. Army and joined the Mexican army. Most were killed in the Battle of Churubusco; about 100 were captured and hanged as deserters. The last surviving US veteran of the conflict, Owen Thomas Edgar, died on September 3, 1929 at the age of 98.

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Political implications of the war

Mexico lost half of its territory in the war, leaving it with a lasting bitterness towards the United States. However, the war also elicited the sense of national unity in Mexico, which had been lacking since the Independence movement dissolved in 1821.

The war also provoked the emergence of a new class of politicians in Mexico. They finally got rid of Santa Anna's grip over Mexico and eventually proclaimed a liberal republic in 1857. One of the first acts of the liberal republic was the enactment of several laws that facilitated and propelled the colonization of the vast and depopulated northern Mexican States. Behind the colonization laws was precisely the idea to avoid further territorial losses.

On the other hand, the annexed territories contained thousands of Mexican families. Some opted to return to Mexico and others chose to remain in the U.S. given that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo contained guarantees (granting citizenship and recognizing property) for them. The United States and Mexico eventually (1889) formed the International Boundary and Water Commission, in order to settle boundary disputes. See the case of El Chamizal. For years after the war, various rebellions against the American occupation and what many called injustices would continue to flare up in the border states, in areas that had a heavy Mexican pre-war population. See Cortina Troubles and Joaquin Murrieta.


Among many Americans, victory in the war brought a surge in patriotism as the acquisition of new western lands—the country had also acquired the southern half of the Oregon Country in 1846—seemed to fulfill citizens' belief in their country's Manifest Destiny. While Ralph Waldo Emerson rejected war "as a means of achieving America's destiny," he accepted that "most of the great results of history are brought about by discreditable means." The war made a national hero of Zachary Taylor, who was elected president in the election of 1848.

However, this period of national euphoria would not last long. The war had been widely supported in the Southern states, but largely opposed in the Northern states. This division largely developed from expectations of how the expansion of the United States would affect the issue of slavery. At the time, Texas recognized the institution of slavery, but Mexico did not. Many Northern abolitionists viewed the war as an attempt by the slave-owners to expand slavery and assure their continued influence in the Federal government. Henry David Thoreau wrote his essay Civil Disobedience and refused to pay taxes because of this war. Former president John Quincy Adams also expressed his belief that the war was an effort to expand slavery. There were some in the South who favored further Southern expansions to expand their region and its political power, to establish a slave empire throughout the hemisphere, a variant on Manifest Destiny called the "Purple Dream".

In 1846, Congressman David Wilmot introduced the Wilmot Proviso to prohibit slavery in any new territory acquired from Mexico. Wilmot's proposal did not pass, but it sparked further hostility between the sections. Banning slavery from the conquered territories was a key plank of the 1860 Republican platform of Abraham Lincoln, whose election ignited the Civil War.

Ulysses S. Grant, who served in the war under Scott's command, would later describe the conflict as a war of conquest for the expansion of slavery and thus the prelude to 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." [1] Many of the generals of the latter war had fought in the former, including Grant, George B. McClellan, Ambrose Burnside, Stonewall Jackson, James Longstreet, George Meade, and Robert E. Lee, as well as the future Confederate president, Jefferson Davis.

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See also

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References

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Primary sources

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Secondary sources

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Surveys

  • Bauer K. Jack. The Mexican War, 1846-1848. New York: Macmillan, 1974.
  • Crawford, Mark; Heidler, Jeanne T.; Heidler, David Stephen , eds. Encyclopedia of the Mexican-American War (1999) (ISBN 157607059X)
  • De Voto, Bernard, Year of Decision 1846 (1942)
  • Mayers, David; Fernández Bravo, Sergio A., "La Guerra Con Mexico Y Los Disidentes Estadunidenses, 1846-1848" Transl/info: [The War with Mexico and US Dissenters, 1846-48]. Secuencia [Mexico] 2004 (59): 32-70. Issn: 0186-0348
  • Meed, Douglas. The Mexican War, 1846-1848 (2003). A short survey.
  • 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
  • Smith, Justin Harvey. The War with Mexico. 2 vol (1919). Pulitzer Prize winner.
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Military

  • Bauer K. Jack. Zachary Taylor: Soldier, Planter, Statesman of the Old Southwest. Louisiana State University Press, 1985.
  • Eisenhower, John. So Far From God: The U.S. War with Mexico, Random House (New York; 1989)
  • Frazier, Donald S. The U.S. and Mexico at War, Macmillan (1998)
  • Hamilton, Holman, Zachary Taylor: Soldier of the Republic , (1941)
  • Johnson, Timothy D. Winfield Scott: The Quest for Military Glory, University Press of Kansas (1998)
  • Foos, Paul. A Short, Offhand, Killing Affair: Soldiers and Social Conflict during the Mexican-American War (2002)
  • Lewis, Lloyd. Captain Sam Grant (1950)
  • Winders, Richard Price. Mr. Polk's Army Texas A&M Press (College Station, 1997)
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Political and diplomatic

  • Brack, Gene M. Mexico Views Manifest Destiny, 1821-1846:

An Essay on the Origins of the Mexican War (1975),

  • Fowler, Will. Tornel and Santa Anna: The Writer and the Caudillo, Mexico, 1795-1853 (2000)
  • 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. New York: Ronald Press, 1955.
  • Graebner, Norman A. "Lessons of the Mexican War." Pacific Historical Review 47 (1978): 325-42.
  • Graebner, Norman A. "The Mexican War: A Study in Causation." Pacific Historical Review 49 (1980): 405-26.
  • Krauze, Enrique. Mexico: Biography of Power, Harpers (New York, 1997)
  • Pletcher David M. The Diplomacy of Annexation: Texas, Oregon, and the Mexican War. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1973.
  • Robinson, Cecil, The View From Chapultepec: Mexican Writers on the Mexican-American War, University of Arizona Press (Tucson, 1989)
  • Ruiz, Ramon Eduardo. Triumph and Tragedy: A History of the Mexican People, Norton (New York, 1992)
  • Schroeder John H. Mr. Polk's War: American Opposition and Dissent, 1846-1848. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1973.
  • Sellers Charles G. James K. Polk: Continentalist, 1843-1846. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966.
  • Smith, Justin Harvey. The War with Mexico. 2 vol (1919). Pulitzer Prize winner.
  • Weinberg Albert K. Manifest Destiny: A Study of Nationalist Expansionism in American History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1935.
  • Yanez, Agustin. Santa Anna: Espectro de una sociedad (1996)
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External links

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