The Mexican-American War "Pobre Mexico! Tan lejos de Dios, y tan cerca de los Estados Unidos." ("Poor Mexico! So far from God, and so close to the United States.") - General Porfirio Diaz, President of Mexico
The Mexican-American war, in 1846, was bloody, costly, and controversial: stemming from the United States’ westward push to the Pacific Ocean, and Texas’ long trek to join the Union. Of arguable import is the stubbornness of an old man whose refusal to wear a hat and coat led to his untimely death, setting in motion a series of events leading to the start of hostilities in what would be the United States’ first international border dispute. Thursday March 4,1841 was cold and dreary. The ninth President of the United States was already an hour into his wordy inaugural address and the inclement weather was still not letting up. William Henry Harrison, the former general known to the public as “Old Tippecanoe” for his exploits on the battlefield during the Indian campaign, was not known for brevity. His speech became the longest inaugural address on record; the first of two distinctions that set Harrison’s presidency apart from any other before or since. As the winds blew bitter and heavy, Chief Justice Roger Taney administered the oath of office on the East Portico of the Capitol. The 68-year-old President stood outside for the entire proceeding, without a coat or hat, before fifty thousand attendees in the freezing weather. He wanted to show the public that he was, indeed, the stalwart hero of Tippecanoe that he had campaigned as. Ignoring pleas from aides to go inside, and worse, ignoring the onslaught of the cold front, President Harrison followed up his meandering speech by personally greeting throngs of well-wishers at the White House later that day. The election of 1840 had been one of the most exciting in the young nation’s history. The Whig Party had won handily with its team of Harrison and John Tyler; "Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too." The Whigs were ecstatic. The Party, which started as an accumulation of political groups, was opposed to President Andrew Jackson’s Democrats. They quickly realized that they could defeat Jackson only by banding together. The result, however, was that this collection of various groups comprising the Whig Party didn't really agree on anything. In spite of this, by the 1840 election they had agreed on several basic principles; support for another Bank of the United States, high protective tariffs and internal improvements at federal expense. Tyler’s inclusion on the ticket as the Vice-Presidential candidate had been a mere afterthought. The party needed someone and he seemed good enough. True, some thought, he had been a democrat but Tyler switched over to the Whigs because he didn't like Andrew Jackson and so, he was placed on the Whig ticket to attract anti-Jacksonian Democrats. Other than helping Harrison get elected, no one had given any thought to John Tyler. 1
As Harrison made the social rounds, and attended several celebrations that evening, he did his best to avoid the hundreds of hungry office-seekers. They hounded him wherever he went and he was besieged constantly for positions in his new Administration. Many quietly began remarking after the celebrations ebbed that the sixty-eight-year-old president-elect was looking frail. Whether out of spite at being passed over for a cabinet position or out of genuine concern, the observations were deadly accurate. Over the next few days and weeks, the remarks grew beyond quiet whispers as Harrison grew more ill by the day. Unfortunately, the medical practices of the period, involving prescriptions such as heated suction cups and live snakes, hurt more than they helped. Exactly one month into his term America’s new chief executive died of pneumonia, guaranteeing Harrison his second place in history; the shortest presidency on record. Virtually given the cold shoulder by the inaugural throng on that March day, VicePresident John Tyler left Washington for his Virginia home shortly after the speeches. Harrison had sought almost none of Tyler’s counsel, and none had been offered. In the pre-dawn morning of April 5, exactly one month and one day after the inaugural, the son of Secretary of State Daniel Webster pounded on Tyler's door after an all-night journey. Harrison was dead. John Tyler was now President. He was fifty-one, the youngest man yet to become chief executive. Born in Virginia in 1790, he was raised believing that the Constitution must be strictly adhered to, and never wavered from his conviction. Serving in the House of Representatives from 1816 to 1821, Tyler voted against most nationalist legislation and opposed the Missouri Compromise. After leaving the House he served twice as Governor of Virginia. As a Senator he reluctantly supported Jackson for President as being the lesser of two evils, but soon joined the states' rights Southerners in Congress who banded with Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and their newly formed Whig party opposing President Jackson. The Whigs nominated Tyler for Vice President in 1840, hoping for support from southern states'-righters who could not stomach Jacksonian Democracy. The slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too" implied flag-waving nationalism plus a dash of southern sectionalism. Tyler, dressed quickly and, after rushing back to Washington, found near anarchy. Whig insiders were fighting over offices and appointments. No President had ever died in office before, and no one knew what to do. Was Tyler President for the rest of Harrison's term? Or was he merely an “acting president” until a new one could be elected? The Constitution was not clear on this. It was a politically defining moment for the country, and for the Whigs who had not given much thought to this Vice-President with deeply held Democratic beliefs, many of which were in opposition to the Party that nominated him. Now, with Harrison's death they suddenly realized that they had made John Tyler next in line. The first and most important decision John Tyler made as President involved his becoming President.
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At the first cabinet meeting that Tyler chaired, Webster asked whether Tyler would continue Harrison's policy that votes in the cabinet be based solely on majority rule. It was a policy in which the President had only one vote. Tyler refused, and stated, “I can never consent to being dictated to ... I, as President, shall be responsible for my administration.” Tyler firmly asserted that the Constitution did, in fact, give him full and unqualified powers of office, and had himself sworn in immediately as the 10th President of the United States thereby setting a critical precedent for an orderly transfer of power following a President's death. Fearing that he would alienate Harrison's supporters, Tyler decided to keep the dead President's entire cabinet even though several members were openly hostile to him and resented his assumption of the office. His Constitutional interpretation, decisive action and elevation did not sit well with his detractors who nicknamed Tyler “His Ascendancy.” Further acerbating the rift was Tyler’s fortitude in making his decision to take over the presidency, in fact as well as in name, which only irritated his enemies even further. “His Ascendancy” went so far as to return mail addressed to him as “Acting President” or “Vice-President Acting as President” with the marking “addressee unknown.” Eventually, Tyler's view was generally accepted even though as president, he very quickly became a man without a party. Navigating through unchartered political waters, Tyler set an independent course as chief executive. As President, Tyler became involved in a major battle with Congress, led by Senator Henry Clay, over the issue of national banking. Tyler refused to agree to his Party’s view of the need to create the Third National Bank, and he twice vetoed attempts that would have created it. As a result Tyler's complete cabinet resigned in protest, with the notable exception of Secretary of State Webster who shared many of the same political philosophies as the President. Additionally, Webster was in the midst of sensitive negotiations with Great Britain that resulted in the Webster-Ashburton treaty, which settled the long-simmering territorial dispute along the Canadian border. Other land issues facing the United States were not so easily settled through negotiation. By the 1840’s, America’s need for more land was increasing at the same time that the western frontier was expanding. Britain, perhaps still smarting from losing her ‘colonies,’ was acting more like a disaffected lover; looking for any way it could to meddle in America’s westward push to the Pacific Ocean. Mexico owed Britain a lot of money, and the British were maintaining close ties with Mexico. Britain and France favored making Texas a wedge between the United States and Latin America. To many Americans it seemed inevitable that lands to the west of the Mississippi, claimed by Mexico, England, and a host of Indian tribes, should eventually be settled by the U.S. In 1845, John O'Sullivan, editor of the influential Democratic Review, coined the 3
phrase “Manifest Destiny” in an editorial to describe this vision of a United States stretching from Atlantic to Pacific: “It was the nation's manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us.” Manifest destiny was never a specific policy or ideology; it was a nineteenth century belief that the United States had a God-given right to expand, particularly across the western frontier towards the Pacific Ocean. Yet anti-slavery activists and Democrats, whose belief in federal power was threatened by the South, were opposed to any expansionist move that would add new slave-holding states to the Union and thereby upset the fragile balance of power between North and South. With the guidance and collaboration of Webster, Tyler pursued several bold land grab initiatives and, in 1842, put together an audacious plan to partition Mexico. Anticipating Great Britain's support for the plan, both men proposed that in return for dropping two million dollars in American claims against their neighbor to the south, the Mexican government would cede all of California north of the 32nd parallel, which included the harbors of San Francisco and Monterey, to the United States. The next step would include Mexico's recognition of Texan independence, followed by a joint Mexican-American agreement guaranteeing an independent Texas republic. Tyler and Webster counted on diplomatic pressure from Great Britain to convince the Mexicans to accept America’s manifest destiny. To cement British backing for the scheme, Tyler and Webster offered a settlement of the disputed Oregon territory at the Columbia River, which meant that Britain would receive territory between the Columbia and the 49th parallel to which it had little legitimate claim. Finally, to seal the entire California-Texas-Oregon package, the Tyler Administration proposed a tripartite treaty among the United States, Great Britain, and Mexico approving these territorial exchanges. Neither Mexico nor Britain signed on to Tyler and Webster’s plan, guaranteeing its immediate failure. President Tyler faced other set backs at home. During his second year in office, the Whigs, led by Clay, expelled him from the party and tried to have him impeached, the first such move against a president. They failed, but the resulting friction destroyed the Whig program. The Mexican government, having won its independence from Spain in 1821, was facing internal problems of its own, not the least of which was a feisty group of American settlers. After ceding from Spain, the New Mexican government offered land grants to anyone, including Americans, who would be willing to inhabit the thinly populated land to its northeast. It was a move designed to encourage development. In return, the settlers promised to obey Mexican law and observe Roman Catholicism.
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Among the first Americans to receive a land grant was Moses Austin, originally of Connecticut, who planned to establish a colony in Texas. Austin died before his dream could be fulfilled, so the task of leading the people to Texas fell to his son, Stephen. In 1823, the younger Austin led 300 families to the banks of the Brazos River, where each family received about 200 acres of fertile farmland and more than 4000 acres of range land. Under Austin's extraordinary organizational skills, the colony prospered. Soon, thousands of Americans were flowing into the territory, attracted by the rich farm soil and the generous land grant policy of the Mexican government. Some settlers brought slaves and started up cotton plantations. By 1830, the number of Americans living in Texas greatly outnumbered the Mexicans, a fact that deeply concerned Mexican authorities. In an attempt to curtail American influence in Texas, Mexico closed the border to immigration from the U.S., imposed taxes on the importation of American goods, and restated that slavery on Mexican lands was prohibited. The Mexican government then sent troops into the Texas province to enforce its laws. The Americans in Texas protested against what they perceived to be a violation of their individual rights and tensions escalated over the next several years. Mexico responded each time by sending in troops until, in 1835, violence broke out, prompting the Texans to reject Mexican rule and declare their desire for self rule. In late 1835, General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, the latest in a series of Mexican military dictators, decided to crush the rebellion. With an army of 6000 men, Santa Anna crossed the Rio Grande and headed north to take care of the Texans once and for all. On February 23, 1836, Santa Anna's army began a siege against 187 men garrisoned at a fortified former mission called the Alamo, in San Antonio. Commanded by Lieutenant Colonel William B. Travis, the brave defenders of the Alamo refused to surrender, despite overwhelming odds. Serving under Travis in the Alamo included a group of volunteers from Tennessee, led there by the famous backwoodsman Davy Crockett. On March 6, the Mexicans stormed the Alamo by scaling the walls and killing every last man inside, but at a cost to Santa Anna of about 1600 troops. While Santa Anna was preoccupied at the Alamo, Texas formally declared its independence from Mexico on March 2. While the heroic standoff at the Alamo continued, Sam Houston, born in Virginia, raised in Tennessee by the Cherokees who nicknamed him Colonneh, or “the Raven,� put together an army of Texans to carry the fight onward. Houston had already served in the U.S. House of Representatives, and as governor of Tennessee when he moved to Texas in 1832. At the time he arrived, tensions and violent disturbances between Mexican authorities and American settlers were increasing. Voicing his support for a separate state of Texas, Houston quickly emerged as a leader 5
among the settlers. When Texans formed a provisional government they chose Houston to be commander in chief of the new army. Houston's forces led the charge in what was to become one of the most significant battles in American history. Shouting, “Remember the Alamo!” Houston’s army of 800 soldiers surprised Santa Anna at San Jacinto on April 21, 1836, sweeping through the encampment during the Mexican’s siesta. In a battle that lasted just 18 minutes, Santa Anna's army was routed and he was taken prisoner. The Texans forced the defeated leader to sign a treaty acknowledging the independence of Texas. Upon his return to Mexico, Santa Anna reneged on his pledge to recognize Texas independence, but made no further attempts to corral the feisty Texans. The Republic of Texas, also called the Lone Star Republic, was born. Not surprisingly, Sam Houston was elected as its first president. By the 1844 election year, Tyler decided to gamble that his country was firmly behind him even if his party was not. Realizing his unpopularity with both major political parties, President Tyler continued to press onward and fulfill the nation’s manifest destiny. He saw the annexation of Texas as his ticket to a second term. If he could only make the American people identify the name Tyler with American expansion, maybe he could overcome the disdain of both the Democrats and the Whigs. The British were opposed to annexation at all cost and even contemplated the use of force to prevent it. Their motives were multi-purposed. While they did not wish to add Texas to the British Empire they most certainly wanted to prevent the United States’ westward expansion. In so doing, the British theorized that they would reap commercial advantages from Texas trade, tamper with the American tariff system and interfere with the institution of slavery. While President Tyler concluded that Texas must not become a satellite of Great Britain, it was clear that the politics of Texas orbited largely around Houston, who was twice elected as president of the Republic in 1836 and again 1841. Houston played along with the political game being played out between the U.S. and Great Britain. After the United States spurned annexation in 1837, Houston publicly courted England and France in highly visible negotiations, hoping either that American anxieties over European encroachment would encourage annexation or that Europe would guarantee Texas independence. If the United States would not annex Texas, Houston warned, Texas would seek the support of “some other friend.” Privately, however, Houston supported annexation, stating so in an April 9, 1845 letter to Major A. J. Donelson, United States chargé d'affaires in Texas: “I am in favor of annexation, if it can take place on terms mutually beneficial to both countries. I have on all occasions evinced the most anxious solicitude touching the matter, and have withheld 6
no means in my power towards its completion.” Tyler felt more compelled than ever to pursue annexation, even though the United States Senate had already rejected the deal. Subsequently, the Tyler administration entered into secret negotiations with Houston and his successor, Anson Jones. Tyler assured the Texans that he had the necessary two-thirds vote in the Senate to approve a treaty of annexation. Houston and Jones were dubious of Tyler's claim, and were concerned about the continuing border raids and threats of all-out war from Mexico. Since annexation would torpedo the peace negotiations, what guarantees could Tyler provide for protecting Texas from Mexican invasion? And if the treaty failed to win approval, would the United States still stand by Texas and guarantee its independence? Tyler was willing to go for broke. He sent the U.S. Navy to the Gulf of Mexico and the U.S. Army to the Southwest to protect the Texas border. On April 12, 1844, the negotiations were completed and Texas signed an annexation treaty with the U.S. Ten days later, Tyler submitted the treaty to the Senate, along with hundreds of pages of supporting documents explaining the commercial and pro-slavery benefits of the move. The proposed annexation set off an election-year political firestorm. As Jones had privately feared, Tyler had badly overplayed his hand. The treaty was rejected by a large margin. Predictably, northern senators voted against it. Worse, fifteen southern senators also voted the treaty down, denouncing Tyler's actions as unconstitutional and an election-year stunt. Jones was disgusted, saying Texas had been “shabbily used.” With renewed vigor, he and Houston turned back to the idea of European protection. If all went well, Texas could end up as an independent nation, at peace with Mexico and poised to build a prosperous economy based on trade with Britain, France, and the United States too. Jones was set to succeed Houston as Texas president later in the year. He played a dangerous game, giving private assurances to both the Europeans and the Americans that he was really on their side. Despite Tyler's bungling, the annexation issue was far from dead in the United States. The Democrats had seized upon annexation as a campaign issue, nominating James Polk on a pro-Texas platform. Henry Clay headed up the Whig ticket, opposing annexation unless it could be accomplished without war. Fearing that he and Polk might split the vote, handing the election to Clay, Tyler voluntarily withdrew, consoling himself that at least he took Clay down with him. In one of the closest elections in U.S. history, Polk was victorious. Texas had a new champion. Premonitions of the Mexican-American War can be found in the lame duck days of President Tyler's Administration. Feeling the pressure to take action before his term was over if British designs were to be circumvented, Tyler suggested that annexation be accomplished by a joint resolution offering Texas statehood on certain conditions, the 7
acceptance of which by Texas would complete the merger. Events in the United States now moved quickly. Desperate, Tyler was running out of time; he had to make use of a joint resolution of Congress for the annexation rather than a treaty, which would have required a two-thirds majority that he did not have. Congress again took up the matter of annexing Texas. This time, the resolution passed the Senate by a narrow margin on February 27, 1845. The next day, it passed the House of Representatives by an overwhelming margin. On the last day of his term, Tyler sent messengers to Texas with the news that the United States government had annexed the area. For Texans this was welcome news indeed. For the Republic of Mexico, this constituted an act of aggression against what they regarded as their sovereign territory. Incoming President Polk could have recalled the messengers and agreed to negotiate a new treaty, thereby placating Mexico. But he did no such thing, and Mexico declared that the annexation was an act of war. The offer of annexation reached Texas too late for Jones, now installed as the area’s new president. In a mistake that would prove fatal to his political career, Jones had already agreed to a British and French proposal to delay the meeting of the Texas Congress by 90 days, in order to give the Europeans time to negotiate a final peace treaty and independence from Mexico. For years, Jones had promised to lay before Texans an austere choice: annexation or independence, and could not turn away from the possibility. But his years in the diplomatic world had left him grossly out of touch with public sentiment among ordinary Texans. As President Polk's envoy Charles Wickliffe observed, news of Jones's negotiations with Mexico came upon Texas “like a peal of thunder in a clear sky.” Texans recognized that Jones's actions could derail the annexation, and few Texans had any faith in the goodwill of the European powers or the Mexican government. Jones became wildly unpopular, to the point of being burned in effigy and threatened with lynching. Jones's attempts to backpedal only added to the scorn and contempt heaped upon him by the newspapers and ordinary Texans. In June 1845, Jones finally achieved his long-sought offer of recognition and peace from Mexico, and called the Texas Congress into session to consider the choice. In short order, Congress quickly rejected the Mexican offer, accepted annexation, and voted to censure Jones. The next month, a special convention wrote a state constitution. The U.S. Congress approved the Texas constitution, and on December 29, 1845, President Polk made it official, signing the annexation resolution that admitted Texas as one of the United States of America. The last official act of Jones as president was to attend the ceremony on February 19, 1846, in which the American flag was raised over the Texas Capitol. In Jones's words, 8
“The Republic of Texas is no more.” As predicted, Mexico regarded the annexation as an act of war and moved to retake Texas. That same year the United States government further offended the Mexicans by offering to purchase California and New Mexico from them. The British, however, were not to be outdone and still hoped to prevent annexation by having Texas decline the American offer. On British advice, the government of Mexico agreed to acknowledge the independence of Texas on condition that she not annex herself to any country. Public opinion in Texas demanded acceptance of the American offer. U.S. President Polk had come into office with an expansionist agenda that almost immediately led to an increasing number of disputes with Mexico over regions in the Southwest. He remained focused on the ideals of manifest destiny, as opposed to merely acquiring land for its own sake, and rejected suggestions that the U.S. seize parts of Canada up to Alaska or the entire nation of Mexico. Polk reasoned that those acquisitions simply weren't needed to serve the legitimate purpose of securing the nation and its noble purposes. As the westward spread of U.S. citizens continued, intense conflict with both the Native Americans and Mexico appeared to be inevitable. Polk made it clear in his diaries that he had every intention of seizing Mexican territory that fell into U.S. hands. Native American Indians were unable to put up any kind of sustainable resistance since they were already heavily depopulated due to diseases, not to mention the force of the military that accompanied the settlers. Conflict with Mexico would prove more formal. What was clear was that the two neighbors could not have been more alike and, at the same time, so different. While the U.S. was putting into motion a quest for its manifest destiny, Mexico was facing quite a set of different circumstances as a newly independent country. Mexico was suffering terribly; the struggle for autonomy had come with a huge cost and recovery was difficult. When Santa Anna returned to Mexico from his 1836 defeat in Texas, he found it common knowledge that he had been willing to trade Texas for his personal freedom. Deeply affected, he exiled himself to his estate where he remained in retirement. Santa Anna, who had established himself as a dictator in Mexico, actually began his long career by fighting for Spain against the Mexicans when the Mexicans started their armed struggle for independence. He would be president no less than 11 times, often ruling as dictator; his reign ending each time when he was overthrown. Unlike the United States, which had a strong foundation of organization and structure, Mexico suffered from unrest and political instability, almost from the very beginning. Class, or caste divided it, about as much as it had been when ruled by Spain, and Mexico was still divided by regional loyalties. The country’s wealthy whites saw themselves as racially superior, and the majority of Mexicans, the Mestizos and Indians, were outside of 9
any peaceful political process. The nation was deeply in debt and the government had little or no money. The production of corn, a staple food for common people, had doubled, but Mexicans were still barely surviving. Mestizos working on plantations and for haciendas were usually in debt, their meager earnings hardly enough for bare subsistence. Indians were raiding white settlements in response to being deprived of land that had been theirs. Local warlords, or caudillos, were talking about independence. Mexico's liberals wanted reforms, including doing away with Church privileges, domination of education and right to tax, and conservatives and the church were fighting for the status quo. Many of Mexico’s internal problems can be traced back to the consequences of war and deals made on the battlefield. During Mexico’s War of Independence in 1821, Santa Anna deserted the Spaniards joining forces with Mexican leader Agustin de Iturbide. After Mexico won its freedom from Spain and Iturbide became emperor, Santa Anna expected to be made governor of Veracruz. When Iturbide failed to do so, Santa Anna led a revolt against him and drove him from power. When Spain attempted to re-conquer Mexico in 1829, they faced Santa Anna, who as commander in chief of the Mexican Army, won several victories, ultimately defeating the invasion. In 1833, Santa Anna was overwhelmingly elected President of Mexico. Unfortunately, what began as a promise to unite the nation soon deteriorated into chaos. From 1833 to 1855 Mexico had no fewer than thirty-six changes in presidency; one third of which were Santa Anna’s Administration. He soon became bored in his first presidency, leaving the real work to his vice-president, who soon launched an ambitious reform of church, state and army. Santa Anna won the presidency in 1833 but he had little interest in governing. He pretended to be ill and, once again, dropped out of public view. In 1835, when the proposed reforms infuriated vested interests in the army and church, Santa Anna seized the opportunity to reassert his authority, and led a military coup against his own government. Then in 1834, Santa Anna returned to the Presidency only to drop out again the following year. But his retirement was short lived. In 1835, when Texas, then part of Mexico, revolted against Santa Anna’s government, the great leader mounted his horse, organized the army and rushed north to put down the insurgents. Mexico had refused to recognize Texas' independence from the outset, and continued to raid the border. Rebuffed initially by the United States, Texans went about the business of slowly forming a stable government and independent nation. Despite many difficulties and continued fighting both with Mexico and with Indian tribes, the Texas frontier continued to attract thousands of American settlers each year. In fact, the continued stability and growth of not just the U.S. but also Texas stood in stark contrast to Mexico, whose instability seemed to know no boundaries. In 1838 when the French attacked Veracruz, Mexicans again looked to Santa Anna, who again took 10
command of the defending troops and beat back the attackers. The victory once again reinstated him as president of Mexico. In December 1844 a coalition of moderates and Federalists forced Santa Anna into exile and installed Jose Joaquin Herrera as acting president of Mexico. The victory was uneasy and short-lived. While Santa Anna retreated to Cuba other Centralists began planning the overthrow of Herrera, and the U.S. annexation of Texas in 1845 provided them with a patriotic cause. As early as August 1843, Santa Anna's government had informed the United States that it would “consider equivalent to a declaration of war . . . the passage of an act for the incorporation of Texas.” By the following year, the government of Herrera did not take well to this militant position and initiated steps, encouraged by the British, to recognize the independence of the Republic of Texas. Not only was the Herrera government prepared to accept the loss of Texas, but it also hoped to put an end to the claims question that had plagued U.S.-Mexican affairs since 1825. Britain and France had used force, or the threat of it, to induce the Mexican government to pay their claims on behalf of their citizens. The United States, however, preferred to negotiate, and the negotiations had dragged on interminably. Fearing that American patience was running short, Herrera seemed determined to settle the issue. He requested that the United States send a negotiator invested with complete authority to Mexico, and President Polk appointed John Slidell, an inexperienced diplomat to fulfill this important position. Slidell's authority, however, may have exceeded Herrera's intentions. In addition to settling the Texas boundary, which was a source of dispute even with Mexican moderates, Slidell was authorized as well to purchase California and New Mexico from Mexico. While the Republic of Texas had claimed the Rio Grande as its boundary, the adjacent Mexican state of Tamaulipas claimed the area north of the Rio Grande to the Nueces River. By the time Slidell arrived in Mexico in December 1845, the Herrera government was under intense fire from the Centralists for its moderate foreign policies. The Centralist strategy was to appeal to Mexican national pride as a means of ousting Herrera. During August 1845 their leader, Mariano Parades y Arrillaga, began to demand an attack on the United States. Herrera, in an effort to save his government, refused to meet with Slidell. A few days later, Parades issued a revolutionary manifesto; he entered Mexico City at the head of an army on January 2, 1846. Herrera fled, and Parades, who assumed the presidency on January 4, ordered Slidell out of Mexico. After the failure of the Slidell mission, Polk ordered General Zachary Taylor to move his forces from Fort Jesup on the Louisiana border to a point “on or near” the Rio Grande to 11
repel any invasion from Mexico. Negotiations with the Mexican Government had broken down. The march of more than a hundred miles down the coast was led by Major Samuel Ringgold's battery of “flying artillery,” organized in late 1838 on orders from Secretary of War Joel R. Poinsett. Taylor’s supply train of three hundred wagons, drawn by oxen, brought up the rear. On March 23 the columns came to a road that forked left to Point Isabel, ten miles away on the coast, where Taylor's supply ships were waiting, and led on the right to his destination on the Rio Grande opposite the Mexican town of Matamoros. Sending the bulk of his army ahead, Taylor went to Point Isabel to set up his supply base, fill his wagons, and bring forward four 18-pounder siege guns from his ships. Taylor selected a wide sandy plain at the mouth of the Nueces River near the hamlet of Corpus Christi. Only his cavalry moved overland through San Antonio. By mid-October, as shipments of regulars continued to come in from all over the country, his forces had swollen to nearly 4,000, including some volunteers from New Orleans. A company of Texas Rangers served as the eyes and ears of the Army. At the boiling brown waters of the Rio Grande opposite Matamoros Taylor built a strong fort, which he called Fort Texas, mounting his siege guns. At the same time, General Mariano Arista arrived on the opposite bank with nearly three thousand soldiers. Both commanders fired messages of threats and warnings back and forth. As the sun prepared to set on April 25, the Mexicans crossed the river in force and attacked a reconnoitering detachment of sixty cavalrymen under Captain Seth B. Thornton. The company of seventy U.S. Dragoons under Thornton’s command was acting on the advice of a local guide. The military unit, while investigating an abandoned hacienda, stepped into a veritable hornet’s nest; two thousand Mexican soldiers under the command of Colonel Anastasio Torrejón were encamped in and around the hacienda, and a firefight occurred. Both sides fought ferociously, but the greatly outnumbered U.S. force was forced to surrender by sunrise the next day. During the skirmish, approximately sixteen U.S. soldiers were killed. Thornton and many of his officers were taken prisoner, and held as prisoners of war. When word reached General Taylor, he sent a message to President Polk that hostilities had started. The President, with a pre-drafted declaration of war, announced to Congress that the Mexicans had “invaded our territory and shed American blood upon American soil.” Congress declared war on May 13, 1846. Northerners and Whigs generally opposed the war while Southerners and Democrats tended to support it. Mexico, in turn, officially declared war on the United States ten days later. Taylor called on Texas and Louisiana for about 5,000 militiamen. His immediate concern was that his supply base might be captured. Leaving an infantry regiment and a small detachment of artillery at Fort Texas, he set off with the bulk of his forces for Point 12
Isabel, where he stayed nearly a week strengthening his fortifications. After loading two hundred supply wagons and acquiring two more ox-drawn 18-pounders, he began the return march to Fort Texas with his army of about 2,300 men on the afternoon of May 7. At about noon on the following day near a clump of tall trees at a spot called Palo Alto, he saw across the open prairie a long dark line with bayonets and lances glistening in the sun. It was the Mexican Army. Abolitionists in the United States, who had opposed the annexation of Texas as a slave state, claimed that the move to the Rio Grande was a hostile and aggressive act by Polk to provoke a war with Mexico to add new slave territory to the United States. For the Centralists in Mexico, the annexation of Texas had been sufficient cause for war; they saw no disputed boundary because, from their standpoint, Mexico owned all of Texas. Before General Taylor could move to the Rio Grande, Parades had begun mobilizing troops and had reiterated his intention of attacking. On April 4 the new dictator of Mexico ordered the attack on Taylor. When his commander at Matamoros delayed, Parades replaced him, and on April 23, issued a declaration of war, and reordered the attack. The Mexican press reported that the issue of Texas separation and the attempts to bring it back under Mexican sovereignty were used to justify, enhance, tear down or revive the reputations of important figures and political parties, and above all, as an excuse to justify any type of “revolutionary” movement. In the same way, efforts during 1845 and 1846 to seek negotiated solutions to avoid the annexation of Texas to the United States and later, for the war, were denounced by the opposition press as acts of weakness and even treason. Abraham Lincoln, who served one term as a member of the House of Representatives, opposed the War as unnecessary and unconstitutional. His opposition was not endemic of any internationalist sympathy for Mexico; rather, Lincoln thought the war inevitable. He believed that the Democratic president had violated the Constitution. Lincoln had been indifferent about Polk’s passion to annex Texas, which was already a slave territory, but he opposed any expansion that would allow slavery into new areas. As a result Representative Lincoln supported the Wilmot Proviso, which would have barred slavery from any territory gained as a result of the Mexican War. He served in the House until 1849 when, deciding not to run for Congress again, he returned to Springfield, Illinois, and his law practice. The Mexican-American War was largely a conventional conflict fought by traditional armies consisting of infantry, cavalry and artillery using established European-style tactics. As American forces penetrated into the Mexican heartland, some of the defending forces resorted to guerrilla tactics to harass what they regarded as the invaders.
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After the beginning of hostilities, the U.S. military embarked on a three-pronged strategy designed to seize control of northern Mexico and force an early peace. Two American armies moved south from Texas, while a third force under Colonel Stephen Kearny traveled west to Sante Fe and then to California. In a series of battles at Palo Alto and Resaca de Palma, Taylor’s army defeated the Mexican forces and began to move south after inflicting over a thousand casualties. In July and August of 1846, the United States Navy seized Monterey and Los Angeles in California. In September 1846, Taylor's army fought General Ampudia's forces for control of the northern Mexican city of Monterey in a bloody three-day battle. Following the capture of the city by the Americans, a temporary truce ensued which enabled both armies to recover from the exhausting confrontation. With help from supporters in his homeland, and losses on the battlefield, Santa Anna returned to Mexico from exile. He raised and trained a new army of over 20,000 men to oppose the Americans. Despite the losses of huge tracts of land, and defeat in several major battles, the Mexican government refused to make peace. It became apparent to the Polk Administration that only a complete battlefield victory would end the war. Continued fighting in the dry deserts of northern Mexico convinced the United States that an overland expedition to capture the capital city, Mexico City, would be hazardous and difficult. To this end, General Winfield Scott proposed what would become the largest amphibious landing of its day, and a campaign to seize the capital. The Mexican-American War is notable, also, for the brothers in arms who would use the strategies that they learned in the battle against the Mexicans to fight against each other as rivals16 years later; names like Grant, Lee, and McClellan. Robert E. Lee had been sent to the Texas frontier in 1855, after being promoted to Lieutenant Colonel of the Second Cavalry. There he helped protect settlers from attacks by the Apache and the Comanche. His attention to detail quickly distinguished himself, and he was assigned to General Scott, nicknamed “Old Fuss and Feathers” for his insistence of military order and discipline. Lee was instrumental in several American victories through his personal reconnaissance as a member of Scott’s corps of engineers. He was entrusted with the vital duties of mapping out the terrain, dividing the line of advance for the U.S. troops, and in one case leading troops into battle. There in Mexico Lee also met, worked with, and got a chance to evaluate many of those he would later serve with and against 16 years later in the American Civil War; Ulysses S. Grant, U.S. Grant, Captain George B. McClellan, and Lieutenant P.G.T. Beauregard. In April 1847, Santa Anna’s 12,000 soldiers held the fortified stronghold at Cerro Gordo blocking General Scott’s advance toward Mexico City.
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A reconnaissance by Captain Lee showed that the rough country to the right of El Telegrafo, which Santa Ana had considered impassable, could in fact be traversed, enabling the Americans to cut in on the Mexican rear. The troops cut a path through forest and brush, and when they came to ravines, lowered the heavy siege artillery by ropes to the bottom, then hoisted it up the other side. Within five days they were able to occupy a hill to the right of El Telegrafo, where they sited the rocket battery. Early on the morning of April 18 the battle began. Though Santa Ana had been able to plant guns to protect his flank, he could not withstand the American onslaught. The Mexicans broke and fled into the mountains. By noon Scott's army had won a smashing victory at a cost of 417 casualties, including 64 dead. Santa Ana's losses were estimated at more than a thousand; 3,000 were taken prisoner. Santa Anna was so surprised by Lee’s discovery of the undefended routes and the subsequent attack, that he was busy eating roast chicken when the fighting began. The stealth and clockwork precision were so overpowering that he rode away, leaving behind his unfinished dinner and his artificial leg, which was captured and later put on display. Grant, who, with Lee saw action in the Battle of Veracruz, served in the MexicanAmerican War under Scott and Taylor. He was twice brevetted for bravery and meritorious conduct: at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec. The following summer, on July 31, 1854, he resigned from the army. Seven years of civilian life followed, in which he was a farmer, a real estate agent in St. Louis. Grant was working as an assistant in the leather shop owned by his father and brother when the American Civil War broke out. Lee and Grant would not meet face to face again until April 9, 1865, when, as Generals, they discussed surrender terms at the home of a man named Wilmer McLean in the village of Appomattox Court House. Lee’s gaze fell on a man who did not look at all like a great military leader, the chief of all Union armies, and the future President of the United States. Grant was dressed simply; his clothes were the same as those worn by the lowest soldiers in his army. His boots and pants were covered with mud. His blue coat was dirty and wrinkled. But on its shoulders were the three gold stars of the Union's highest general. As the two Generals greeted each other and shook hands, Grant said: “I met you once before, General Lee, while we were serving in Mexico. I have always remembered your appearance. I think I would have recognized you anywhere.” Lee said: “Yes, I know I met you then. And I have often tried to remember how you looked. But I have never been able to remember a single feature.” Grant continued to talk of their service in the Mexican War. He said later that he did so because he was finding it difficult to bring up the question of surrender. Although the Mexican-American war was for one combatant, simply an international border dispute, and for the other a battle over territory, the issue was not clearly defined 15
in the minds and hearts of some of the participants who were forced to make difficult choices about which side they were fighting on and why. Juan Seguin was born among the elite Mexican Aristocracy. His family was one of the first to settle Texas in 1722, which at first was under Spanish rule. Later, when Mexico had thrown asunder Spanish rule to become a nation unto itself, Seguin’s father Erasmo, would become mayor of San Antonio, in1822. He became one of the first to greet and embrace Stephen Austin on his first Journey to Texas, and it would be the helpful use of his authority that helped the Americans in the years preceding the war for Texas Independence. Erasmo handed down these qualities, the art of politics and being a liberal, to his son, Juan. In September of 1835, during the Mexican army’s attack on San Antonio, Juan recruited a large force of Mexican Ranchers, unleashing them against their own countrymen to help the embattled Texans. This conduct and his resulting victory won him an honored commission as a captain of cavalry in the Regular Texas Army. Having committed treasonous acts against the Mexican Government while fighting for Texas Independence, he was offered only two choices by General Santa Anna. He could either rot in jail or join in an expeditionary force in a probing attack on Texas: so it could be regained by Mexico. With so few choices, he chose the latter, writing “and by spilling blood, vindicate myself.” Sequin fought in the campaign that saw Mexican troops retake and briefly hold San Antonio before returning to Mexico. This service gave a man without a country the right to live in Mexico, but he never ceased loving Texas. Finally in 1848, Seguin was allowed to return and live in Texas, whereas he wrote that this was the land he had “embraced at the report of the first cannon which foretold her liberty.” By the 1840’s the idea of liberty was attracting a growing wave of immigrants to leave their homeland for the promise of a better life in America. A significant proportion of the enlisted men in the United States Army were Catholic immigrants from Ireland and Germany. The Mexican government, knowing this, began to wage a different kind of war, initiating a campaign after war broke out to win foreigners and Catholics to its cause. The Mexicans urged English and Irish alike to throw off the burden of fighting for what it termed the “Protestant tyrants” and join the Mexicans in driving the Yankees out of Mexico. Mexican propaganda insinuated that the U.S. intended to destroy Catholicism in Mexico, and if Catholic soldiers fought on the side of the Americans, they would be warring against their own religion. Using this approach, the Mexicans hoped to gain 3,000 soldiers from the United States Army. As the war progressed, the Irish grouped in a battalion under a green banner with St Patrick and the Mexican eagle. They were known as the San Patricios under the leadership of its Irish-American leader, John Riley, formerly a member of Company K of the Fifth United States Infantry. Mexican officers noted the San Patricios bravery and 16
skill, distinguishing themselves as artillery specialists who inflicted heavy casualties on the U.S. army at the battles of Monterey and Buena Vista. But the Mexican forces were being pushed back towards the capital as Santa Anna made a series of tactical blunders. Under the command of General Scott, the U.S. army landed at Veracruz and marched on the capital. The San Patricios fell back with their allies on Mexico City. Those who survived the Churubusco battle and were captured were soon court-martialed for desertion. The punishments inflicted on the Irish deserters went beyond what was allowed by the military code of the day. Thirty of the condemned were forced to wait for hours with the noose around their necks until the final Mexican surrender at Chapultepec Castle. The mass hanging was the largest group execution ever carried out in U.S. military history. The Battle on the beaches near Veracruz, Mexico's most important eastern port city signaled the end of the war; from this strategic point, from March to August, Scott and Santa Anna fought a series of bloody, hard-fought battles from the coast inland toward Mexico City. Finally, on September 14, the American army entered the Mexican capitol. The city's populace offered some resistance to the occupiers, but by mid-October, the disturbances had been quelled and the U.S. Army enjoyed full control. Following the city's occupation, Santa Anna resigned the presidency yet again, but this time he retained command of his army. He attempted to continue military operations against the Americans, but his troops, beaten and disheartened, refused to fight. His government soon asked for his military resignation. Guerrilla operations continued against Scott's lines of supply back to Veracruz, but this resistance proved ineffective. The war required the use of a large number of oceangoing vessels, more than the U.S. government had in its possession and thus turned to the American Merchant Marine, which provided chartered ships in order to defend Texas against Mexico. The Quartermaster General reported that the lack of suitable harbors in Texas necessitated, “the debarkation of troops and heavy stores by the slow and precarious process of lightering, during what is, in the Gulf of Mexico, the dreaded hurricane season.” The wartime and weather risks forced the government to pay high rental fees to the ship’s owners who were doubly compensated for the use of their vessels for this dangerous service. The landing of Scott’s forces at Veracruz required that the Quartermaster General charter or purchase 54 steam vessels, 4 ships, 2 barks, 8 brigs, 34 schooners, and 201 other boats. In addition to these, the Army also chartered several hundred sail and steam vessels for moving troops and supplies to the Texas coast. After the war, the Quartermaster General suggested that it would be a good idea for the Navy to operate all transports for the Army, confessing that during the war he himself was constantly “embarrassed by the want of that practical knowledge which nautical men only possess.”
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Nothing came of his suggestion at the time, although the Army continued to find it necessary to charter ships. In 1850, several steamers were used in the operations against the Seminole Indians in Florida. Until the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, the Army also used commercial water transportation to support the military establishments in California acquired after the Mexican War. Mexico ultimately lost the war because the balance between politics and the military became unhinged, thus destroying any semblance of strategy, resulting in a lack of control on the battlefield. Few Mexican commanders had any idea as to what was happening during most battles. Their tactics were poorly conceived and doomed to failure. The difference between the two sides was the fact the President of Mexico also conducted field operations; a relic of European command structure unsuited for the innovative strategy employed by the Americans. The bravery of the individual Mexican soldier was never in question and goes a long way in explaining the difficulty the U.S. had in easily winning the war. In many of the battles, the superior cannon of the U.S. artillery divisions and the innovative tactics of their officers turned the tide against the Mexicans. In return for a payment by the U.S. of $15 million plus the assumption of Mexican debts, Mexico recognized the Rio Grande boundary of Texas and ceded New Mexico and Upper California to the United States. When the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo reached Washington in February 1848, Polk initially spurned it. On second thought, however, he submitted it to the Senate, where the Whigs would have enough votes to defeat any treaty that sliced off more Mexican territory but might approve one that avoided the appearance of conquest by paying Mexico for California and New Mexico. The strategy worked; the Senate ratified the treaty by a vote of 38 – 14 and the Treaty was signed, officially bringing the war to a close. The war lasted two years. It cost the United States over $100 million, and ended the lives of 13,780 U.S. military personnel. America had defeated its weaker and somewhat disorganized southern neighbor, but not without paying a terrible price. Mexico, bankrupt from the outset of war, agreed to the surrender terms and took the money as payment for the vast land. The Mexican-American War was the first major conflict driven by the idea that America had a God-given right, or destiny, to expand the country's borders from “sea to shining sea.” The war was a pivotal moment in the history of North America and sealed the fates of its two participants. The U.S. had completed its manifest destiny. The war garnered huge amounts of territory and wealth, bootstrapping the fledgling democracy onto the world stage. For Mexico, the War sent the emerging nation into a tailspin that it is still reckoning with today, one hundred fifty years later. The triumph of manifest destiny may have reminded some Americans of Ralph Waldo 18
Emerson’s prophecy that “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.” The poison that Emerson referred to was slavery. Thomas Jefferson’s Empire for Liberty had become mostly an empire for slavery. Territorial acquisitions since the Revolution had added the slave states of Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Florida and Texas to the republic, while only Iowa, admitted in 1846, had increased the ranks of free states. Many northerners feared a similar future for this new southwestern empire. They condemned the war as part of a “slave power conspiracy” to expand slavery. Polk could not understand what the fuss was all about. “In connection with the Mexican War,” he wrote in his diary, slavery was “an abstract question. There is no probability that any territory will every be acquired from Mexico in which slavery would ever exist.”
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