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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. He remained in retirement on his estate. Conservatives dominated the central government in Mexico City, and in December they imposed on Mexico a new constitution, with tough new property qualifications for voting and new legal powers by Mexico City over various states.
Mexico was still suffering from unrest and political instability. It was divided by class, or caste, about as much as it had been when ruled by Spain, and Mexico was still divided by regional loyalties. Mexico's wealthy whites saw themselves as racially superior, and the majority of Mexicans -- the Mestizos and Indians -- were outside of any peaceful political process. Since independence there had been little economic growth. Mexico was deeply in debt and the government without money. The production of corn -- a staple food for common people -- had doubled, but common people were still barely surviving. Mestizos working on plantations and for haciendas were usually in debt -- similar to people in the U.S. who owed money to the company store. And they were living in virtual serfdom. The earnings of workers were hardly enough for bare subsistence. Indians were raiding white settlements in response to being deprived of land that had been theirs, and the Maya of Yucatán were taking that province into virtual independence. Local caudillos (warlords) were talking about independence. Mexico's liberals wanted reforms, including doing away with Church privileges, domination of education and right to tax (the tithe), and conservatives and the Church were fighting for the status quo.
In 1836, Mexico had what is called the Pastry War. Amid social upheaval, French business people in Mexico had suffered property damage, and one of them was a pastry cook who claimed that his shop had been ruined by soldiers. France demanded 600,000 pesos for damages, and, when payments were not forthcoming, France sent a fleet of ships to blockade and bombard ports on Mexico's gulf coast. In December the French raided the coast, landing several hundred marines. The French had aroused Santa Anna from seclusion on his gulf coast estate, and, when the marines were returning to ship, Santa Anna attacked and lost one of his legs to a shot from a French mobile artillery piece. Santa Anna wrote to Mexico's war ministry describing his harassment against a successful withdrawal as a "glorious victory." The war ministry accepted it, as did some others who were happy to see the French punished, and Santa Anna was rehabilitated as a national hero.
In March,1839, Mexico's conservative president, Anastasio Bustamente, a former general, responded to financial crisis and ended the war with France by promising to pay the 600,000 pesos, followed by Mexico granting France most favored nation trading status -- 600,000 pesos perhaps cheaper than a prolonged war. But rather than peace for Bustamente, there came civil war -- a liberal uprising, with fighting for eleven days in the streets of Mexico City. General J. Antonio Mejía sent Bustamente fleeing from Mexico City. Santa Anna intervened and became an interim president as the civil war continued. The revolt against Bustamente was finally crushed. Bustamente returned to his duties, and Santa Anna retired again to his estate.
Bustamente did not fully support the conservative agenda and was toying with moderation, and another general, Mariano Paredes y Arrillaga, commandant at Guadalajara, led another rebellion against him, in 1841. Paredes y Arrillaga proclaimed his "Plan of Political Regeneration." Mexico City was bombarded for a week. Santa Anna acted again as Mexico's savior. He mediated the conflict and sided with Paredes y Arrillaga and other generals who were insisting that Bustamente step down. For the sake of order a special arrangement was made. On October 9, 1841, a body composed of two representatives from each state voted Santa Anna in as provisional president, and Santa Anna assumed dictatorial powers.
With others in Mexico City, Santa Anna continued seeing Texas as a part of Mexico, and, in December, Santa Anna ordered a raid against the Anglos in San Antonio, Texas. On March 5 a Mexican force of 391 men took San Antonio and proclaimed Mexican Law to be in effect. Then they withdrew from Texas. Santa Anna was dissatisfied and ordered another expedition against San Antonio, this one with more than a thousand men, which entered the town in September. Twelve Anglo-Texans were killed. Three were wounded. Fifty-two surrendered and others fled. One Mexican was killed and eighteen wounded. The Mexicans confiscated rifles, muskets and ammunition and then withdrew from Texas.
Santa Anna found his duties as president burdensome, and in October,1842, he abandoned his presidential duties again and made his appointed a substitute president: Nicolás Bravo. On December 25, 308 Anglo-Texans attacked the town of Mier (just across the Rio Grande, 130 miles upriver from the coast) one of several raids by Anglo-Texans into Mexico that, like Mexico's raids, accomplished nothing. Santa Anna resumed office in March, 1843. On March 25, of the 176 Anglo prisoners from the Mier raid, Santa Anna had seventeen selected by lot and executed.
Also in March, Santa Anna's wife of nineteen years died, at the age of 33, and forty-one days later Santa Anna married a fifteen-year-old, the quick remarriage diminishing his popularity. In September he had his leg reburied in Mexico City, with great pomp and ceremony, and a statue of Santa Anna was erected, its arm outstretched in the direction of Texas, which Santa Anna was still promising to liberate. To pay for his extravagances, Santa Anna raised import duties 20 percent, he sold more military commissions and he sold mining concessions to foreigners.
In September, 1844, Santa Anna took another leave of absence, leaving General Valentín Canalizo as acting president. A rebellion against rising taxes turned to General Paredes y Arrillaga, who joined the rebellion in November. A mob in Mexico City tore down Santa Anna's statue, ransacked a theater that bore his name, disinterred his leg and dragged it through the street. Santa Anna marched toward Mexico City, taking money from Mexico's mint and from whomever he could intimidate. His army shrank from desertion and Santa Anna advanced no farther than Puebla. His attempt to bargain with opponents failed. In January, Santa Anna was taken prisoner, charged with embezzlement and sent into exile to Spain's colony, Cuba, where he pursued his passion for cock fighting.
The United States was growing in power -- growing technologically, in wealth and in population. Between 1830 and 1840 its railwaysgrew from 100 miles to 3,500 miles of track. By 1840 the U.S. had 1,200 cotton factories (two-thirds of them in New England). And between 1830 and 1840 the population of the Unites States increased 36 percent -- from 13 million to almost 18 million. City populations in this period had almost doubled -- more people being added to cities than were moving into the frontier. And two more states entered the Union: Arkansas in 1836 and Michigan in 1837.
Wages were considerably higher in the United States than in Western Europe, and had been so since 1800 -- the result of a demand for labor that was high relative to the supply of labor. The high cost of labor motivated manufacturers to invest more in machinery, stimulating the nation's productivity. And the U.S. spent less in military expenditures than did most European nations.
Politics in the United States continued to be quarrelsome, but the Constitution was respected, and military men were uninterested in assuming political power. A political party called the Whigs had been formed as opposition to the Jacksonian Democrats. The Whigs included Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and Davy Crockett - until he lost his seat as congressman from Tennessee in the elections of 1834. Another Whig, in the Illinois state legislature from 1834 to 1836, was a man in his twenties named Abraham Lincoln.
For the elections of 1840 the Whigs nominated an ex-general from Ohio, William Henry Harrison, whose nickname was "Old Tippecanoe." The Whigs stole a line from the Democrats. They presented Harrison as a military hero and a hard-drinking man of the people who had been born in a log cabin. It was a way of presidential campaigning that would continue for generations: with an abundance of meetings, parades. party badges and campaign songs.
Running for re-election, the incumbent Democratic president, Martin Van Buren, was damaged by an economic recession that had begun in 1837 -- a recession that included the closure of hundreds of banks, the failures of many businesses and many people losing their lands. Harrison won the election in a landslide, but he died of pneumonia after only a month in office, elevating Vice-President John Tyler to the presidency.
The issue of Texas and an expanding western frontier arose during the Tyler presidency. The government of the Republic of Texas was burdened by a huge debt, and, militarily vis-à-vis Mexico, Texas was weak -- its 50,000 citizens facing Mexico's population of from 6 to 7 million. The president of the Republic of Texas since December 1838 was Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar, who hoped to annex to the Republic of Texas some states in northern Mexico, in addition to New Mexico and California. In June, 1841, he led an expedition against Santa Fe, which Mexico easily defended, sending Lamar's army back to Texas. Lamar's popularity declined, and Sam Houston, who had not approved of Lamar's plan, was returned to office that year. Mexico's raid's against the Texans at San Antonio in 1842 underscored the need of military help for the Texans by the United States, and Houston looked forward to annexation by the United States.
In 1842 the first wagon train passed along the two thousand mile trail to Oregon. And during the Tyler administration talk erupted of a possible conflict with Britain over Oregon. And there was concern over British involvement in a settlement between the Republic of Texas and Mexico, a settlement that would include the emancipation of the slaves in Texas -- talk that southern plantation owners and politicians disliked. They feared that Texas without slavery could become a refuge for runaway slaves.
Mexico owed Britain much 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, and they were looking to Texas as a source for them for cotton, sugar and tobacco.
Some of the Whig party in the U.S. were opposed to the U.S. annexing Texas. Six state legislatures under Whig control resolved that annexation of Texas would be unconstitutional. Slave states favored annexation, and from South Carolina came a call for southern states to secede from the Union if annexation failed.
The Democrats pursued the elections held in 1844 on a platform calling for the annexation of Texas and control over Oregon. Referring to the parallel 54o 40' (near Alaska) as the northern border for the U.S., Democrats raised the slogan "Fifty-four Forty or Fight." The Whig party's candidate for president, Kentucky's Henry Clay, accepted annexation of Texas if it could be accomplished without a war with Mexico, but during the campaign he dropped his support of annexation. And as a slave owner, Clay lost some appeal among northerners. The slogan for the Whigs was a suggestion that next to Clay the Democratic Party's candidate, James Polk, was a nobody. "Who," they asked "was James Polk?" It was not clever. Polk won the presidency, and the Democrats won a 30 to 24 majority in the Senate and a 144 to 77 majority in the House of Representatives.
At the end of February, 1845, the U.S. Congress approved the annexation of Texas. After Mexico City learned of this in mid-March, Mexico's foreign minister told the ambassador from the U.S. in Mexico that foreign relations between the two nations would be terminated.
Mexico's chief executive was José Joaquín de Herrera, a general who had been appointed by other generals. To prevent war, Herrera wanted conciliation with the United States. Britain advised him to acknowledge the independence of Texas on condition that the Republic of Texas agree not to be annexed by any country. But, in June, Congress in the Republic of Texas met and chose annexation to the United States rather than independence recognized by Mexico. In Mexico the response was a burst of hostility toward the United States and an intense clamor for war.
In July, 1845, President Polk sent an army of 1,500 men to Texas, near the small Hispanic settlement at Corpus Christi, and in August this army was doubled, Polk wanting to help defend Texas. But the U.S. troops in Texas also served as a display of U.S. power as he sent John Slidell to Mexico City to negotiate with the Mexicans, to ask for damages claimed by the U.S. and to offer 40 million dollars for the purchase of California and New Mexico. Herrera knew that any sign of conciliation with the U.S. would end his administration, and his government refused to meet with Slidell.
In December, the Polk administration negotiated with the British regarding Oregon. Neither the U.S. nor the British wanted war and both were willing to compromise. Britain gave up its insistence of a border at the Columbia River, and the two powers agreed to border along the 49th parallel, except at the southern tip of Vancouver Island, all of which was to go to the British. Then, on December 29, 1845, the U.S. Congress accepted Texas as the 28th state.
The Herrera government described the annexation of Texas by the United States as a violation of its 1828 border treaty with the United States and as a violation of international law. Herrera's government spoke of Mexico's sovereignty and dignity, and Mexico's conflict with the United States was portrayed as a conflict against Protestantism. Herrera turned for help to the Catholic Church, and a proposal was made in Congress to authorize the government to mortgage one fourth of clerical property in order to raise four million pesos for defending the nation's territorial integrity.
Herrera was considered an honest man. He wanted to stir the country toward moderation and stable constitutional government, but he was disliked by conservatives and opposed by the liberals and their leader, Valentín Gómez Farías. A lack of unity between the liberals and the center provided opportunity for the conservatives. On January 2, General Paredes y Arrillaga, entered Mexico City with an army and drove Herrera from office. He called some other generals together with whom he formed a junta, which selected him as the country's chief executive. The coup ended work in Congress on the proposal to mortgage clerical property.
In early February, 1846, President Polk ordered General Zachary Taylor and his army of around 3,000, encamped in near Corpus Christi, to advance to the Rio Grande. Taylor waited for the rains to subside, and, between March 11 and 27, Taylor and his army marched the 160 miles to a place eventually called Brownsville, opposite the town of Matamoros on the other side of the Rio Grande. There they began building up a defensive position. The regime of Paredes y Arrillaga saw Taylor's advance to the Rio Grande as an invasion of Mexican territory, and he too was refusing to see Polk's envoy, Slidell, and on March 17 Slidell asked for his passport so he could leave the country.
Paredes y Arrillaga sent an army north to Matamoros, which put 5,000 men across the Rio Grande from Taylor's army. And, on April 23, Paredes y Arrillago proclaimed that Mexico had begun a defensive war against the United States. On April 24 the Mexican commander at Matamoros, General Mariano Arista, had the courtesy to inform Taylor that hostilities had commenced, and on the 25th he sent 1,600 men on patrol across the river. Taylor that day sent a party of 60 mounted infantry (dragoons) on patrol. Taylor had failed to have scouts about maintaining an awareness of enemy positions, and Taylor's men rode into a trap. Sixteen of Taylor's men were killed or wounded before they could withdraw.
Taylor sent a message to Washington that blood had been spilled, that the war had begun, and on the 28ththe Mexicans attacked a patrol of Texas Rangers, with nine Texan-Anglos being killed or taken prisoner.
On May 8, President Polk received Slidell, back from Mexico City. On May 9, Polk received the message about fighting from Taylor. On May 11, President Polk went before Congress to ask for a declaration of war in response to what he said was Mexico's initiation of hostilities. "American blood," he said, "had been spilled on American soil." On the 13th, the U.S. Congress declared war, the Senate voting 40 to 2 in favor, the House voting 174 to14.
U.S. citizens were alarmed, fearing that the men under General Taylor would be overwhelmed by Mexico's larger and more experienced military. Meanwhile on May 8, back in Texas, fighting between the armies of Taylor and Arista had broken out in earnest -- on Taylor's side of the Rio Grande. It was to some extend an artillery duel -- artillery being the weapon with the greatest range. And Taylor's artillery was more effective. The Mexicans fought well in what became known as the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca del la Palma, two battles in two days, about five miles apart, after which the Mexicans withdrew to their side of the Rio Grande, with many killed as they crossed the river. The Mexicans lost approximately 320 killed and 700 wounded. Taylor's army lost 9 killed and 47 wounded.
Two weeks later, on May 23, news of the success of Taylor's men reached the U.S. public, and they were relieved and elated. Celebration spread from town to town. Young men overwhelmed U.S. army recruiters. Recruitment quotas were met and men turned away.
In the U.S., production for war materials began. The government was in good health financially. Debts that had been accumulated during the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 had been paid off thanks to a rise in economic prosperity, and, with a good amount revenue collection, the government had a reasonable income. America's professional army had been small compared to that of some European powers, but popular government and eager volunteers were making it adequate in strength quickly enough. The U.S. navy had been small compared to Britain's, but it was superior enough to Mexico's that it would dominate in the waters off Mexico. Mexico had had a plan to blockade the coast of Texas, but that was not to be. The U.S. was entering its war with Mexico with distinct advantages.
Meanwhile, on May 7, at Mexico's port of Mazatlán (on the Pacific coast), a force that was supposed to go to California, to protect it from the United States, rebelled against the regime of Paredes y Arrillaga. Liberals were involved in the rebellion, and they called for a return of Mexico's military hero, Santa Anna, who was still in Cuba. On May 20, the military commander at Guadalajara joined in the rebellion against Paredes y Arrillaga, and the liberals were organizing rebellion in the states of Guanajuato, Zacatecas, Durango and Puebla.
A minority in the United States were opposed to what they and Whig party members called "Mr. Polk's War." There was talk of the war not being Christian. Whigs and northerners accused Polk and the South of wanting to win Mexican territory for the purpose of spreading and strengthening slavery. Polk refused to concede that slavery had anything to do with his going to war against Mexico or his support of expansion westward. His accusers had no way of proving that their conclusions about Polk's motives were correct and allowed their suspicions to take the form of assumption.
Those opposed to "Polk's War" complained that the war would dangerously extend the power of the presidency, endanger public morality and threaten the fabric of the nation. They spoke of the war contributing to patronage and corruption, and they spoke of the immorality of army life, the horrors and atrocities of battle and the waste of spending wealth on war that could be better spent for peaceful purposes.
Mexico's governor in California, Pío de Jesus Pico (North America's first "black" governor -- actually part Indian, black and European) wrote of California being threatened by "hordes of Yankee emigrants" whose wagons had scaled the Sierra Nevadas. Pico complained of the Yankees "cultivating farms, establishing vineyards, erecting mills, sawing up lumber, building workshops and a thousand and one other things which seem natural to them but which Californians neglect or despise." Mexico was not rushing in settlers of its own, and Pico, speaking for California's Mexicans rather than its Indians, asked whether they were to "become strangers in [their] own land?"
Relations between Mexico and the United States had been tense. After Mexico had broken diplomatic relations with the United States, Navy Commodore John D. Sloat arrived off the coast of California with seven ships and with instructions to seize and blockade California's ports upon learning that war between Mexico and the U.S. had begun.
After the U.S. declared war, news was slow in reaching California, but there was a sense that war was coming. Two months after the declaration a false story spread that a Mexican force was pushing through the Sacramento Valley, destroying the crops, burning the homes and dispersing the cattle of settlers from the United States. In response, on June 14, 1846, a band of thirty-three heavily armed men, led by William B. Ide, revolted against Mexican rule and established the "Bear Flag Republic." They invaded the home of Mexico's General Mariano Vallejo, a man who believed that Mexico's hold on California was hopeless. He had been hoping that the U.S. would annex California, and he offered his services to the revolt, and eventually he would be one of California's state senators.
On July 2, Commodore Sloat entered Monterey Bay. He had heard of the battle by the Rio Grande but he had not been informed yet by his government of any declaration of war. Afraid of not acting as he had been ordered or of acting before a declaration of war he chose to err on the side of action, and on July 6 he landed 225 sailors and Marines from three of his warships. They raised the U.S. flag over the customs house, and Sloat read a proclamation declaring the annexation of California, accompanied by a 21-gun salute -- the only shots fired. Two days later this was repeated at the small port town of Yerba Buena (San Francisco). Sloat ordered a company of men on horseback to patrol the area around Yerba Buena, and he senta message to Governor Pico, in Los Angeles, describing himself as "the best friend of California" and inviting "his Excellency" to meet him in Monterey.
One of Sloat's ships, the sloop "U.S.S. Portsmouth" was anchored a little to the north of Yerba Buena -- at Sausalito. Seventy marines and sailors marched north to Sonoma -- the place of the Bear Flag Republic. There, settlers had voted to join the United States. The force from the "Portsmouth" raised the U.S. flag, and they marched to Sutter's Fort (where the city of Sacramento was to be), the center of Anglo agriculture in the Sacramento Valley, and there also they raised the U.S. flag.
By the end of July, word arrived in California of the declaration of war. Commodore Robert Stockton arrived with his squadron of ships at other locations along California's coast began raising flags and firing salutes. Under instructions from the U.S. War Department, on August 17, Stockton claimed the coastal towns of San Diego, Los Angeles and Santa Barbara (160 kilometers northwest of Los Angeles) for the United States.
The day after Stockton's proclamation, a U.S. Army force from Leavenworth Kansas, led by Colonel Stephen W. Kearny, entered Santa Fe, New Mexico. The United States was taking possession of what it had wanted to buy from Mexico - at a price of its choosing. New Mexico had been run arbitrarily by a greedy, corrupt bully -Governor Manuel Armijo. Armijo had driven back the Texans in 1845, but this time he fled to Mexico. Kearny toured New Mexico on horseback, with 700 of his men, announcing to local authorities that his army had come not as a conqueror, that no one would be molested who did not take up arms, that anyone who did take up arms would be hanged, and, he said, "not a pepper, not an onion, shall be disturbed or taken by my troops without pay or by the consent of the owner."
On July 6 and 7, 1846, Alexander MacKenzie, an agent of President Polk, met with Santa Anna in Cuba. MacKenzie spoke of the United States wanting to buy New Mexico and California. Santa Anna said he hoped for peace and that should he return to power he would negotiate a settlement with the United States. He advised the U.S. on how best to conduct its war against Mexico and said that if the U.S. helped him return to power he would agree to the sale. And soon after, President Polk ordered the Navy to allow Santa Anna to return.
By late July, U.S. troops were moving slowly toward the town of Monterrey, 50 miles (80 km) southwest of the Rio Grande, their arrival there more than a month away, while, in Mexico City, Paredes y Arrillaga was finding consolation in alcohol. His power was slipping away. Newspapers were denouncing his regime, and on August 4 he was overthrown and imprisoned, his regime replaced by a shaky coalition of liberals and moderates who were awaiting the arrival of Santa Anna.
The national treasure was virtually empty, and with the return of liberals to power there was talk again of seizing Church properties and also of abolishing the Church's privileges. Santa Anna returned to Mexico on August 16, to his home near Vera Cruz (in English, True Cross, later to be renamed Veracruz by a secularist government). On September 14, he entered Mexico City, its streets decorated for the occasion.
On September 21, Taylor and his army began fighting for control of Monterrey, the fighting ending on the third day. Taylor's army had pushed into the city, but both sides wanted a break from the fighting, and a two-month armistice was agreed to -- to the annoyance of President Polk, who saw Taylor as militarily incompetent in addition to his displeasure over Taylor being a Whig.
By now, Polk was aware that Santa Anna was not going to negotiate a settlement of the war as he had promised, and Polk responded with a plan for a military solution to the war, including an invasion at Vera Cruz. Santa Anna had been organizing a force, and on September 28 he led 2,500 troops out of Mexico City, heading to San Luis Potosi, 327 miles to the north, where 4,000 other Mexican troops had gathered. Santa Anna and his force arrived on October 8, and nine days later, to his dismay, the army from Monterrey arrived, having crossed 200 miles of desert as the crow flies. Santa Anna's plan was to cross that expanse again, to confront Taylor's force near Saltillo, along the Sierra Madre mountain range, where Taylor had been constructing a defensive position.
In November and December, more troops arrived at San Luis Potosi, from the states of Guanajato and Jalisco, but they were poorly armed. On January 6, captured dispatches told Santa Anna of troops from Taylor's force being sent to join the force that was planning to land at Vera Cruz. Santa Anna was encouraged. Everything at San Luis Potosi was in short supply, including winter clothing, gunpowder and food, but Santa Anna was planning to capture provisions from Taylor's army to help provide for his own army.
On January 27, the Mexicans started across the desert, Santa Anna with his Napoleonic hat, riding in a carriage drawn by eight mules, and some prize fighting cocks amid his baggage. To prevent desertions he had orders out to shoot any man found more than 1.5 miles from camp. He lost men anyway, some 4,000 dying or escaping, while temperatures at night dropped below freezing.
In mid-February, mounted patrols of the two hostile armies met and clashed. Taylor ordered a withdrawal to the more defensible position at Angostura Pass, where a major clash occurred on February 22 - the Battle of Buena Vista. Taylor's forces numbered around 5,000. The Mexican force was around three times that size. Mounted troops from Kentucky and Arkansas drove back a courageous assault by Mexican cavalry. A Mexican cavalry unit armed only with lances and sabers was cut to pieces at a distance by Mississippians with rifles. U.S. artillery, with a range of 400 yards, struck Mexicans with muskets with an effective range no better than 100 yards. By the end of the second day of fighting the U.S. had lost 267 killed, 356 wounded and 23 missing. The Mexicans had lost 591 men killed and 1,037 wounded.
Santa Anna and his force withdrew, leaving their campfires burning while beginning the journey back across the desert, his men suffering with dysentery from eating spoiled meat. Wounded were left behind. Mexico had virtually no medical corps with its armies. Its wounded were dependent upon help from their fellow soldiers or from their wives and children who went with them to war. And, with their caste mentality, Mexico's white officers were little interested in risking their own lives to rescue wounded common soldiers.
Like Napoleon on the march back from Moscow, Santa Anna rushed ahead of his men, to Mexico City. To his vice president he described the Battle of Buena Vista as a victory. He described General Taylor as "so frightened and destroyed that he cannot move in any direction." On March 12, Santa Anna's emaciated army arrived back at San Luis Potosi -- Santa Anna having lost more than half of his army in little more than a month.
In early September, 1846, the U.S. had few men protecting its hold on southern California -- only nineteen soldiers at San Diego and an equally small force at Pueblo de Los Angeles. On September 23, 1846, a force of around twenty men attacked the barracks of the force at Los Angeles. The attackers were driven off, but news of the attack was a sensation in southern California, and the Mexicans organized into a variety of rebel bands on horseback. On September 24 in Los Angeles a proclamation was issued, signed by 300. It spoke of subjugation and oppression by an "insignificant force" which was putting the people of the area into a "position worse than slaves" and dictating "despotic and arbitrary laws." The Mexicans asked: "Shall we wait to see our wives violated, our innocent children beaten by the American whip, our property sacked, our temples profaned?"
The Mexicans took captive the U.S. force at Los Angeles and put them aboard a merchant ship in San Pedro Bay. And a band of Mexicans drove a nine-man U.S. force from Santa Barbara. Commodore Robert Stockton sailed into San Diego Bay and established a base. On November 16, a U.S. force and Mexicans fought near Salinas -- ten miles inland from Monterey Bay, and other small battles were fought in northern California, all won by U.S. forces. In late November a force of 450 volunteers, with three cannon and 3000 horses and mules, led by Lieutenant Colonel John C. Fremont, began their march toward southern California. A force of about a hundred men from Santa Fe, under Kearny (now a brigadier general) arrived in southern California, with Kit Carson as a guide, Kearny having been told by the War Department in Washington D.C. that California was secure and that he was to take command of the territory.
On December 5, ten miles east of San Diego Bay, Kearny and his men ran into a Mexican force led by Andrés Pico (younger brother of Pio), and the next morning a battle was fought, the Battle of San Pasqual, Kearny losing 21 killed and 17 wounded, with Kearny among the injured. Later that month, the combined forces of Kearny and Stockton was headed for Los Angeles, as Fremont and his army of a few hundred were passing through Santa Barbara.
At Los Angeles, on January 8, Stockton's force -- 600 sailors, marines, a few volunteers and what was left of Kearny's men -- met Andrés Pico again -- at what was called the Battle of San Gabriel River. Stockton employed his cannon well and lost two men and eight wounded. The Mexican force of 500 withdrew and vanished, leaving Stockton and Kearny dominant in the area.
Fremont arrived in the San Fernando Valley on January 11, and in the days that followed he negotiated an end to the fighting with the Mexicans of southern California, creating the Treaty of Cahuenga, signed on January 13 at what is now 3912 Lankershim Boulevard in North Hollywood -- while Stockton was also working on a settlement. Fremont's treaty forgave all past hostilities and allowed all Californian officers and volunteers to return home on parole after surrendering their arms and promising not to resume hostilities. The treaty guaranteed equal rights and permitted anyone to leave for Mexico. Stockton and Kearny, both of whom outranked Fremont, were angered -- Stockton unhappy about the treaty's liberal terms.
In New Mexico the quiet that had followed the arrival of Kearny and his army back in August proved deceptive. On January 19, 1847, insurrectionists killed the recently appointed U.S. governor, Charles Bent, and several other local officials. And the insurrection spread, involving people of Spanish ancestry and Pueblo Indians. In late January, the U.S. Army force that had remained in New Mexico fought the insurgents at Santa Cruz de La Cañada and at Embudo. The insurgents retreated to a defensive position at the church of San Jeronimo at Daos Pueblo. There, on February 3 and 4, the U.S. force killed 51 of the insurgents and took the others prisoner. In the weeks that followed, nearly two dozen of the insurgents were hanged -- for the killing of Bent and other officials or for treason.
In December, 1846, 856 Missourians, led by Alexander Doniphan, had left Santa Fe and skirmished against Mexicans at the Rio Grande, near El Paso. On February 28, fifteen miles north of Chihuahua, they fought a Mexican force, and the next day they rode into Chihuahua unopposed. In late May they joined Taylor's forces. Then, with their period of enlistment completed, they returned to Missouri.
Meanwhile, guerrilla forces were harassing Taylor's supply lines. Small armies of hacienda-owning warlords had entered the fighting, some of them hoping for independence from Mexico City. Some Mexicans in the north were interest in negotiations with the U.S. to that end. Some were interested in maintaining economic ties with the United States.
Fighting in the north was occasionally brutal, especially that conducted by Texas Rangers, who exercised a grudge against Mexicans and attacked with little regard for civilian lives or property. General Taylor complained that they were "too licentious" and in need of discipline.
Weakening Mexico's cause in the north was rebellion in the center-west of Mexico. The former president, Anastasio Bustamente, was put in command of an expedition that was supposed to counter U.S. intrusions into California, but before Bustamente's force got as far as Guadalajara insurrection intervened. And at Mazatlán, the port from which Bustamente force was supposed to debark, civil war had erupted, making departure impossible and weakening Mexico farther north.
Mexico's acting president, Valentín Gómez Farías, remained in conflict with the Catholic Church. The Church in Mexico had been blessing troops before they went into battle, praying for a Mexican victory and organizing religious processions, but they were ignoring requests for donations of money. In Congress it was argued that the war effort could not continue without financial help from the Church, and Congress voted 46 to 32 to seize church property. Across Mexico and in the streets of Mexico City, priests and lay people protested. Criollo regiments in Mexico City revolted, and, because they were known to enjoy festivities and dancing the polka, it was called the Polko rebellion. In the streets were leaflets reading "Death to Congress" and "Death to Farías." Farías mobilized a militia with which to combat the revolt, and the unrest continued into February, with newspapers on the side of the revolt. The government ordered the arrests of some military leaders. Moderates joined in opposing the government, and, on March 5, the government arrested the leader of the moderates, Gómez Pedraza. Santa Anna returned to Mexico City and ordered an end to hostilities. Farías resigned, complaining of broken health, and was replaced by a supporter of the Church, Pedro Anaya. And the Church extended two million pesos to Santa Anna in exchange for the repeal of anti-clerical laws.
On March 9 the U.S. landed a forceof 12,000 under the command of General Winfield Scott. The landing was unopposed. U.S. forces asked the city of Vera Cruz to surrender, and following its refusal and four days of bombardment from land and U.S. ships, the U.S. captured the city, on March 28, with a loss for the U.S. of 20 killed.
On March 31, news of the invasion reached Mexico City -- twenty-two days after the event. A wave of patriotism swept through Mexico City, and it was decreed there that any Mexican who sought peace with U.S. troops on Mexican territory would be charged with treason. Santa Anna went eastward with a force to confront the U.S. invasion, hoping to hold the U.S. forces to the lowlands and exposure to the yellow fever.
The supplies that Scott was waiting for did not arrive, and rather than wait longer he left his First Infantry at Vera Cruz and moved the rest of his force inland, to a higher elevation and toward Mexico City. In Mid-April Scott and his army found Santa Anna's army waiting for them at a narrow pass by a hill known as Cerro Gordo. The Battle of Cerro Gordo began on April 17. Santa Anna had 32 artillery pieces, elite cavalry units and a total of about 12,000 men, for what has been viewed as the most important battle of the war.
Santa Anna did not array his forces well. Captain Robert E. Lee and his associates found a route around Santa Anna's flank. Theattack from an unexpected direction and toward the rear of Santa Anna's army resulted in Scott's army capturing around 3,000 men and 43 heavy guns. Scott lost 63 killed and 353 wounded. An estimated 1,000 Mexicans were killed or wounded. The remainder of Santa Anna's army fled along the national roadway inland.
Santa Anna returned to Mexico City, where by now news had arrived that the Battle of Buena Vista, back in February, had not been the success that Santa Anna had described. But Santa Anna was still looked to as the only man who could save Mexico, and he was allowed to advance and to occupy the city of Puebla, on the national roadway between Vera Cruz and Mexico City.
Scott tried to treat the inhabitants of Puebla well, while he awaited reinforcements and supplies. Some of his force returned home, their enlistments over. In June an English delegation arrived at Scott's headquarters and announced Santa Anna's willingness to end the war. The message from Santa Anna was that it was essential that the U.S. advance no farther and that it send him $10,000 in cash so that he could influence the necessary people. The money was given to Santa Anna, but it was another ruse.
Reinforcements arrived and Scott drilled his troops, until August 7, when he left a garrison force at Puebla and started for Mexico City with an army of 10,700 men. At Austerlitz, Napoleon entered battle with 68,000, against a combined Russian and Austrian force of 85,000. In Washington D.C. the war was being pursued with some mind to economy.
With about 7,000 infantry and youthful volunteers from Mexico, Santa Anna marched to a fortified hill seven miles east of the city -- El Penón. Scott's army swung to the south (around Lake Chalco and Lake Xochimilco), and Santa Anna hastily repositioned his forces and relocated his headquarters at a monastery at Churubusco, five miles south of Mexico City. Santa Anna still had some hope in his cavalry, although cavalry was ineffective against a standing line of riflemen. Santa Anna's cannons were antiquated, the powder they used was of poor quality and the gunners inadequately trained. The weapons of his infantry were discards from Europe.
On August 20 a major battle ensued. With Santa Anna were 204 deserters from the U.S. army, mostly Irish Catholics who had decided that this was in part at least a religious war -- Catholics against Protestants. They formed what was called the Batallón San Patricio (Saint Patrick's Battalion) and are said to have rebelled against abusive treatment by Protestant officers. Among Protestant citizens of the United States the war against Mexico had inflamed some anti-Catholic passions.
Scott's force feigned a frontal attack in one area while others swung around toward the rear of Santa Anna's force. Santa Anna was demonstrating again that he was something less than a gifted tactician. Scott lost 60 dead and wounded. His force counted 813 prisoners taken, including four generals. An estimate of Mexican casualties is 700.
Among the prisoners taken were men of the St. Patrick's Battalion. Military trials were held and 70 of them sentenced to death. General Scott pardoned five of these and reduced the sentences of fifteen others to fifty lashes and the letter D (for desertion) branded on their cheek. The remaining fifty were hanged on September 12.
On September 13, Scott's army reached Chapultepec Castle -- the Halls of Montezuma (Moctezuma) -- two miles southwest of the city. A force of 832 National guardsmen made a stand there, joined by 43 cadets from a military academy there, some as young as thirteen. Rather than surrender, the cadets fought to their deaths, and September 13 was to be a day celebrated every year in Mexico, the Day of the Boy Heroes of Chapultepec.
Members of a city council negotiated with General Scott, and a guarantee for the safety of the people of Mexico City was established, but it came to naught as outraged Mexicans launched attacks against U.S. forces as they entered the city and U.S. forces fired back in self-defense. Late on the second day in the city (September 15), the U.S. forces celebrated their victory, with music and alcohol, while civilians were tending their dead. Soon, business-starved shopkeepers in Mexico City opened their coffee shops, photography studios, dance and pool halls and other manner of commerce with U.S. soldiers.
Santa Anna had fled with an army of around 9,000, intending to carry on the war, to attack the U.S. garrison at Puebla and to cut Scott's supply line. But before he reached Puebla his demoralized army disintegrated. Guerrilla operations continued against Scott's lines of supply but dwindled by November -- the month that the U.S. Navy captured Mazatlán and the port town of Guaymas. Santa Anna took up residence in the town of Tehuacán, and there, on January 23, 350 Texas Rangers arrived intending to capture Santa Anna, to exact revenge upon him for the Alamo. But Santa Anna had fled two hours before their arrival, and soon the U.S. gave him safe passage into exile -- to Jamaica.
A provisional government had been established at Querétaro, about 100 miles northwest of Mexico City, with a former chief justice of Mexico's Supreme Court, Manuel de la Peña, as interim president -- while some states remained in rebellion against the central government and some, including monarchists, wanted to continue fighting the United States. In November enough support was given to the national government that a quorum was considered to have been obtained and legitimacy established, allowing Peña's government to move toward a settlement with the United States.
Negotiations began in January, and on February 2, 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed. Those who had wanted the United States to acquire Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila and other northern states, and Yucatán, were disappointed. But from Mexico the United States won recognition as having Alto California, New Mexico and Texas to the Rio Grande. Mexico was given a guarantee of rights for the people who had been living in these areas and loyal to Mexico. The U.S. agreed to prevent attacks by Indians across the new border into Mexico. Mexico was agreeing to giving up a good percentage of its territory, and although the United States was virtually dictating the terms of the settlement it wanted to give Mexico something and agreed to pay 15 million dollars for damages, to assume responsibility for 3 million dollars in claims against Mexico by U.S. citizens and to relieve Mexico of its monetary debt to the United States. The U.S. President received the signed treaty on February 19. Mexico's Congress went into session in May and ratified the treaty. And that month so did the U.S. Congress -- a treaty that was to remain active into the twenty-first century.
In the war, the United States lost 1,721 killed and 11,550 deaths from other causes, mainly disease, and the war cost the federal government 100,000,000 in 1848 dollars.
United States troops were out of Mexico by mid-June, 1848. Gold had been discovered in California on February 2, and at mid-year the discovery became common knowledge, beginning a "gold rush." President Polk was ill and exhausted and declined to run in 1848 for another term as president. Zachary Taylor, seen by many in the United States as a hero of the Mexican War, won the election with 47. 4 percent of the vote -- against a Democrat, Lewis Cass, who won 42.5 percent and former president, Martin Van Buren, who ran on a third-party ticket, the Free Soil Party, and won 10.1 percent.
A peaceful transition of power in Mexico had brought a return of the moderate conservative José Joaquín de Herrera to the presidency. But Mexico remained in turmoil, suffering from raids by fortune seeking ruffians from U.S. soil, racial warfare in the Yucatán, economic deprivation and banditry, Indian attacks across the distressed nation, and more rebellious generals and threats of secession.
Among many Mexicans, Santa Anna was still seen as a hero -- and as a bridge between liberals and conservatives. Conservatives called for Santa Anna to return and restore order. In 1853 Santa Anna became President of Mexico for the eleventh time, with both liberals and conservatives in his cabinet. A mapping error had resulted in a dispute over where the border was between New Mexico and Old Mexico, and Santa Anna sold the Mesilla Valley, in what is now southern Arizona and New Mexico, to the United States for 10 million dollars - the Gadsden Purchase -- and he used much of the money for political ends. Against political dissent he censored the press and extended his powers, including the right to stay in power indefinitely and to name his successor. Liberals turned against him, and in 1855 he was deposed and banished again from Mexico.
Recommended Books
The United States and Mexico at War, Donald FS Frazier, editor, MacMillan Reference, 1998.
Santa Anna: A Curse upon Mexico, by Robert L Scheina, 2002.
Mexicans at Arms: Puro Federalists and the Politics of War, 1845-1848, by Pedro Santoni, 1996.
Bear Flag Rising: the Conquest of California, 1846, by Dale L Walker, 1999.
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