The Mexican-American War was fought between the United States and Mexico between 1846 and 1848. In the U.S. it is known as the Mexican War or Mr. Polk's War; in Mexico, it is known as the U.S. Intervention, the U.S. Invasion of Mexico, or the United States War Against Mexico.
| Mexican-American War | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
| United States | Mexico | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
|
Zachary Taylor Winfield Scott Stephen W. Kearney | Antonio López de Santa Anna | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 60,000 | 40,000 | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
|
KIA: 1,733 Total dead: 13,283 Wounded: 4,152 | 25,000 (Mexican government estimate) | ||||||
Background
The Mexican-American War grew out of unresolved conflicts between Mexico and Republic of Texas and from the desires of U.S. expansionism, an idea known as "Manifest Destiny". After the 1836 Texas Revolution, Mexico refused to recognize the existence of the Republic of Texas, and declared its intention of recapturing the breakaway province. Officials in the Republic of Texas expressed interest in being annexed to the United States, though Mexican officials warned that annexation would mean war. For years, the United States declined to annex Texas, but in 1845, lame duck President John Tyler—on his last day in office—sent an offer of annexation to Texas. Texas accepted, and soon became the 28th state of the United States.
The Mexican government complained 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 United Kingdom and the United States.
After the annexation of Texas, newly elected President James K. Polk set out to acquire the Mexican province of California. 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 1845, Polk sent diplomat John Slidell to Mexico to purchase California and New Mexico for up to $30 million.
Meanwhile, to increase pressure on Mexico to sell, in, January 1846, Polk sent 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 south to the Rio Grande, where he began to build Fort Brown.
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. The Mexicans refused to receive Slidell, citing a problem with his credentials. Slidell returned to Washington, D.C. in May 1846. Polk regarded this treatment of his diplomat as an insult and an "ample cause of war", and prepared to ask Congress for a declaration of war.
Hostilities and declaration of war
Mere days before Polk intended to make his request to Congress, he received word that Mexican forces had crossed the Rio Grande and killed eleven American soldiers. On April 24, 1846, Mexican cavalry had attacked and captured one of the American detachments near the Rio Grande. After the border clash, battles between Mexican and American troops followed at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma.
Polk now made this the casus belli, and in a message to Congress on 11 May 1846 stated that Mexico had "invaded our territory and shed American blood upon the American soil." He did not point out that the territory in question was disputed, and did not unequivocally belong to the United States. A number of U.S. Congressmen expressed doubts about Polk's version of events, but 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. Mexico declared war on May 23.
Even after war was declared, many Whigs disputed Polk's claim that Mexico had "shed American blood on American soil," believing instead that American forces had crossed the Rio Grande in order to deliberately provoke a war with Mexico. Voicing this argument after the war was nearly over, Abraham Lincoln, then a Whig freshman in the House of Representatives, introduced the "Spot Resolutions", which demanded that President Polk give the exact ___location where American blood had been spilled. Because American soldiers had been killed, however, these objections were largely ignored. Historians have since debated whether or not Polk deliberately provoked the war, or whether his brinkmanship policy had escalated beyond his control.
Campaign
After the declaration of war, U.S. forces invaded Mexican territory on several fronts. In the Pacific, the U.S. Navy sent John D. Sloat to occupy California and claim it for the U.S. because of concerns that Britain might also attempt to occupy the area. He linked up with Anglo colonists in Northern California who had previously declared an independent California Republic and occupied some key cities. Meanwhile, U.S. army troops under Stephen W. Kearny occupied Santa Fe, New Mexico. Kearny led a small force to California where, after some initial reverses, he united with naval reinforcements under Robert F. Stockton to occupy San Diego and Los Angeles. A major dispute broke out between Kearny and Stockton over control of California. Stockton appointed John C. Fremont governor of California, while Kearny named himself to that position. The dispute was primarily caused by conflicting directives from Washington. Kearny eventually prevailed, and Fremont was arrested and court-martialed for his loyalty to Stockton in the dispute.
The main force led by Taylor continued across the Rio Grande, winning the Battle of Monterrey in September 1846. President Antonio López de Santa Anna personally marched north to fight Taylor but was defeated at the battle of Buena Vista on February 22, 1847. 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. Scott won the Siege of Veracruz and marched toward Mexico City, winning the battles of Cerro Gordo and Chapultepec, and occupying the capital.
The Treaty of Cahuenga, signed on January 13, 1847, ended the fighting in California. 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 $627,482,629 in mid-2000s dollars, for the cost of the war.
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.
During the War, many important battles were fought, including the Battle of Churubusco and the Battle of Padierna. The Mexican leader at the time was Pedro María Anaya, who defended the convent of Santa María Churubusco. He uttered what would later be considered the most famous words of the War when General Twiggs entered the convent: "If we had ammunition, you wouldn't be here."
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.
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.
In the United States, in turn, 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.
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.
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, George Meade, and Robert E. Lee, as well as the future Confederate president, Jefferson Davis.
See also
References
- 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. ed, by Allan Nevins (1929).
- Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant from Project Gutenberg
- Grant, Ulysses S., Memoirs and Selected Letters, The Library of America (1990)
- 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)
- Smith, Justin Harvey. The War with Mexico. 2 vol (1919). Pulitzer Prize winner.
Military
- Bauer K. Jack. Zachary Taylor: Soldier, Planter, Statesman of the Old Southwest. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1985.
- Meed, Douglas. The Mexican War, 1846-1848 (2003). A short survey.
- De Voto, Bernard, Year of Decision 1846 (1942)
- 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 (New York, 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, Little & Brown (Boston, 1950)
- Winders, Richard Price. Mr. Polk's Army Texas A&M Press (College Station, 1997)
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 April 2005 - Vol. 29 Issue 2 Page 223-254.
- 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)