Mexican–American War

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US–Mexican War
The Battle of Veracruz
Date 1846–1848 Location Texas, New Mexico, California; Northern, Central and Eastern Mexico; Mexico City Result United States victory; Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexican Cession Casus belli Texas Annexation and subsequent border disputes, Thornton Affair
Combatants
United States	Mexico
Commanders
Zachary Taylor Winfield Scott Stephen W. Kearney	Antonio López de Santa Anna Mariano Arista Pedro de Ampudia
Strength
78,790 soldiers	18,000–40,000 soldiers
Casualties
KIA: 1733 Total dead: 13,271 Wounded: 4,152	25,000 killed or wounded (Mexican government estimate)

Mexican–American War
Fort Texas – Palo Alto – Resaca de la Palma – Cañoncito – Santa Fe – Monterrey – 1st Tabasco – San Pasqual – El Brazito – Rio San Gabriel – La Mesa – Cañada – Mora – Embudo Pass – Pueblo de Taos – Buena Vista – Sacramento – Veracruz – Cerro Gordo – Tuxpan – 2nd Tabasco – Contreras – Churubusco – Molino del Rey – Chapultepec – Mexico City – Huamantla – Puebla

The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as The Mexican War and in Mexico as la intervención norteamericana (the North American Intervention) or la guerra del 47 (the War of '47), was a military conflict fought between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848, in the wake of the 1845 U.S. annexation of Texas. Mexico had not recognized the secession of Texas in 1836 and announced its intention to take back what it considered a rebel province.

In the United States, the war was a partisan issue, supported by most Democrats and opposed by most Whigs, with popular belief in the Manifest Destiny of the United States ultimately translating into public support for the war. In Mexico, the war was considered a matter of national pride.

The most important consequence of the war was the Mexican Cession, in which the Mexican territories of California and New Mexico were ceded to the United States under the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. In Mexico, the enormous loss of territory which resulted from the war encouraged the central government to enact policies to colonize its northern territories as a hedge against further losses.

Contents 1 Background 1.1 Republic of Texas 1.2 Hostilities Before War 1.3 Declaration of war 1.4 Opposition to the war 2 Conduct of the war 2.1 California 2.2 Northeastern Mexico 2.3 Scott's campaign 3 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo 4 Results 5 Combatants 6 See also 7 References 7.1 Primary Sources 7.2 Secondary Sources 7.2.1 Surveys 7.3 Military 7.4 Political and Diplomatic 8 External links

[edit] Background

For the 25 years subsequent to Mexico's independence from the Spanish Empire, what became the Mexican Cessation had been a part of the first Mexican republic (1823-1861) and the First Mexican Empire (1822-1823) that preceded it. The Spanish Empire had gained these territories by conquering various American Indian peoples and had claimed the land since the 1500s. In the years following the Louisiana Purchase by the United States, U.S. settlers began to move further westward into Mexican territory, encouraged by land grants and the United States government. Since the times of New Spain, the Spanish Empire gave permission to U. S. settlers to obtain land in Texas provided they declared themselves to be Catholic and manifested their obedience to the king.

After the Mexican War of Independence, Mexico inherited ownership of the provinces of Alta California, La Mesilla, Nuevo Mexico, Colorado, Utah, the Arizona Territories and Texas, from Spain. The new Mexican government, weakened and virtually bankrupt from the Mexican War of Independence, found it difficult to govern its northern territories, which in any case were up to two thousand miles from the capital of Mexico City.

In the mid-1830s, the government of Mexico, under General Santa Anna, attempted to centralize power. However, several Mexican states rebelled against his government, including Texas (then a department of the state of Coahuila y Tejas), Alta California, San Luis Potosí, Querétaro, Durango, Guanajuato, Michoacán, Yucatán, Jalisco and Zacatecas. The U.S.-settlers in Texas had multiple grievances, including the abolition of slavery by Mexico in 1829 and the abolition of the federalist Constitution of 1824 in favor of a centralist government under Santa Anna. Technically, the legal grievance was abolition of the federalist Constitution of 1824 in favor of a centralist government under Santa Anna. The violent insurgency started in Texas and, to this day is known as the Texas Revolution.

[edit] Republic of Texas

In the successful 1836 Texas Revolution, Texas won its independence after defeating Santa Anna and the Mexican army. General Santa Anna was taken captive by the Texas militia and only released after he promised to recognize the sovereignty of the Republic of Texas. When Santa Anna returned to Mexico however, the government refused to recognize the loss or independence of the Republic of Texas because, the Mexicans said, Santa Anna was not a representative of Mexico and that he signed away Texas under duress. Mexico declared its intention to recapture what it considered a breakaway province.

In the decade after 1836, Texas consolidated its position as an independent republic by establishing diplomatic ties with Great Britain, France, and the United States. Most Texans were in favor of annexation by the United States, but Andrew Jackson rejected it. Texas was admitted to the union in 1845, when it became the 28th state. The Mexican government had long warned that annexation meant war with the United States. Britain and France, which recognized the independence of Texas, repeatedly tried to dissuade Mexico from declaring war against a much more powerful neighbor. British efforts to mediate were fruitless in part because additional political disputes (particularly the Oregon boundary dispute) arose between Britain and the United States.

In 1845, U.S. President James K. Polk, sent diplomat John Slidell to Mexico City in an attempt to purchase Mexico's California and New Mexico territories. U.S. expansionists wanted California to thwart British ambitions in the area and to have a Pacific port. Polk authorized Slidell to forgive the $4.5 million owed to U.S. citizens from the Mexican War of Independence and pay another $25 to $30 million in exchange for the two territories.

However, Mexico was not inclined nor in a position to negotiate. In 1846 alone, the presidency changed hands four times, the war ministry six times, and the finance ministry sixteen times. ^[1] According to historian Miguel Soto, Mexican public opinion and Mexican political factions and leaders felt Mexico's honor would be diminished by selling any territory. ^[2]. Mexicans opposing open conflict with the United States, including President José Joaquín de Herrera, were viewed as traitors. When de Herrera considered receiving Slidell in order to peacefully negotiate the problem of Texas annexation, he was accused of treason and deposed.

Military opponents of President José Joaquín de Herrera considered Slidell's presence in Mexico City an insult. After a more nationalistic government under General Mariano Paredes y Arrillaga came to power, the new government publicly reaffirmed Mexico's claim to Texas, and Slidell left in a temper, convinced that Mexico should be "chastized." [1]

[edit] Hostilities Before War

The Mexican government, while claiming all of Texas, said the southern limit of the province was the Nueces River. Texas, however, set the border at the Rio Grande, giving Texas more land. The resulting dispute over the territory between the rivers was the technical casus belli, as both the U.S. and Mexico sent troops into the region, expecting that war would result. President Polk sent General Zachary Taylor and 1,500 American troops to the Nueces River in July 1845, and then ordered Taylor to cross into disputed territory. Taylor, with his army, marched to Corpus Christi, and later to north of the Rio Grande. In May, the Mexicans attacked, but Taylor's forces drove them back beyond the Rio Grande.

[edit] Declaration of war

By then, Polk had received word of the Thornton Affair and added this to the rejection of Slidell as the casus belli. A message to Congress on May 11, 1846, stated that Mexico had "invaded our territory and shed American blood upon the American soil." A joint session of Congress overwhelmingly approved the declaration of war, mostly because Democrats strongly supported the war. 67 Whigs voted against it on a key amendment, but on the final passage only 14 Whigs voted no, including Representative Abraham Lincoln. The United States declared war on Mexico on May 13, 1846, and Mexico officially declared war on July 7 (sometimes the manifest from President Paredes on May 23 is construed as the declaration of war, but only the Mexican congress had that power).

[edit] Opposition to the war

Whigs in both the North and the South generally opposed the war, while most Democrats supported it. Whig Congressman Abraham Lincoln contested the causes for the war, and demanded to know the exact spot on which Thornton had been attacked and U.S. blood had been shed. He was quoted as saying "Show me the spot." Whig leader Robert Toombs of Georgia declared:

"This war is a nondescript.... We charge the President with usurping the war-making power... with seizing a country... which had been for centuries, and was then in the possession of the Mexicans.... Let us put a check upon this lust of dominion. We had territory enough, Heaven knew." [Beveridge 1:417]

Northern abolitionists attacked the war as an attempt by slave-owners — frequently referred to as "the Slave Power" — to expand the grip of slavery and thus assure their continued influence in the federal government. Acting on his convictions, Henry David Thoreau was jailed for his refusal to pay taxes to support the war, and penned his famous essay, Civil Disobedience.

Former President John Quincy Adams also expressed his belief that the war was fundamentally an effort to expand slavery. In response to such concerns, Democratic Congressman David Wilmot introduced the Wilmot Proviso, which aimed to prohibit slavery in any new territory acquired from Mexico. Wilmot's proposal did not pass Congress, but it spurred further hostility between the factions.

[edit] Conduct of the war

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

[edit] California

When the US declared war against Mexico, on May 13, 1846, it took almost two months (mid-July 1846) for definite word of war to get to California. U.S. consul Thomas O. Larkin, stationed in Monterey, on hearing rumors of war tried to keep peace between the U.S. and the small Mexican military garrison commanded by José Castro. U.S. Army captain John C. Frémont with about 60 well-armed men had entered California in December 1845 and was making a slow march to Oregon when they received word that war between Mexico and the U.S. was imminent. ^[3]

On June 15, 1846, some 30 settlers, mostly U.S. citizens, staged a revolt and seized the small Mexican garrison in Sonoma. They raised the "Bear Flag" of the California Republic over Sonoma. It lasted one week until the U.S. Army, led by Fremont, took over on June 23. The California state flag today is based on this original Bear Flag, and still contains the words "California Republic."

Commodore John Drake Sloat, on hearing of imminent war and the revolt in Sonoma, ordered his naval forces to occupy Yerba Buena (present San Francisco) on July 7 and raise the American flag. On July 15, Sloat transferred his command to Commodore Robert F. Stockton, a much more aggressive leader, who put Frémont's forces under his orders. On July 19, Frémont's "California Battalion" swelled to about 160 additional men from newly arrived settlers near Sacramento, and he entered Monterey in a joint operation with some of Stockton's sailors and marines. The official word had been received — the war was official. The U.S. forces easily took over the north of California; within days they controlled San Francisco, Sonoma, and Sutter's Fort in Sacramento.

In Southern California, Mexican General José Castro and Governor Pío Pico fled from Los Angeles. When Stockton's forces entered Los Angeles unresisted on August 13, 1846 the nearly bloodless conquest of California seemed complete. Stockton, however, left too small a force (36 men) in Los Angeles, and the Californios, acting on their own and without help from Mexico, led by José Mariá Flores , forced the small American garrison to retreat in late September. More than 200 reinforcements sent by Stockton, led by U.S. Navy Captain William Mervine, were repulsed in the Battle of Dominguez Rancho, October 7 through October 9, 1846, near San Pedro, where 14 U.S. Marines were killed. Meanwhile, General Kearny, with a reduced squadron of 139 dragoons, finally reached California after a grueling march across New Mexico, Arizona and the Sonora desert. On December 6, 1846, they fought the Battle of San Pasqual near San Diego, California, where 22 of Kearny's troop were killed.

Stockton rescued Kearny's surrounded forces and later, with their combined force, they moved northward from San Diego, entering the Los Angeles area on January 8, 1847, linking up with Frémont's men and with U.S. forces totaling 660 soldiers, they fought the Californios in the Battle of Rio San Gabriel, the next day, January 9, 1847, they fought the Battle of La Mesa. On January 12, 1847, the last significant body of Californios surrendered to U.S. forces. That marked the end of the War in California. On January 13, 1847, the Treaty of Cahuenga was signed.

On January 28, 1847, U.S. Army Lieutenant William Tecumseh Sherman and his army unit arrived in Monterey, California as U.S. forces in the pipeline continued to stream into California. On March 15, 1847, Col. Jonathan D. Stevenson’s Seventh Regiment of New York Volunteers of about 900 men started arriving in California. All of these men were in place when word went out that gold was discovered in California, January 1848.

[edit] Northeastern Mexico

The defeats at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma caused political turmoil in Mexico, turmoil which Antonio López de Santa Anna used to revive his political career and return from self-imposed exile in Cuba. He promised the U.S. troops that if allowed to pass through their blockade, he would negotiate a peaceful conclusion to the war and sell the New Mexico and California territories to the United States. Once he arrived in Mexico, however, he reneged and offered his military skills to the Mexican government. After he had been appointed general he reneged again and seized the presidency.

Two thousand three hundred U.S. troops led by Taylor crossed the Rio Grande (Rio Bravo) after some initial difficulties in obtaining river transport. He occupied the city of Matamoros, then Camargo (where while waiting the soldiery suffered the first of many problems with disease) and then proceeded south and besieged the city of Monterrey. This Battle of Monterrey was a hard fought battle during which both sides suffered serious losses. The Americans light artillery was ineffective against the stone fortifications of the city. The Mexican forces were under General Pedro de Ampudia. A U.S. infantry division and the Texas Rangers captured four hills to the west of the town and with them heavy cannon. That lent the U.S. soldiers the strength to storm the city from the west and east. Once in the city, U.S. soldiers fought house to house: each was cleared by throwing lighted shells, which worked like grenades. Eventually, these actions drove and trapped Ampudia's men into the city's central plaza, where howitzer shelling forced Ampudia to negotiate. Taylor agreed to allow the Mexican Army to evacuate and to an 8-week armistice in return for the surrender of the city. Under pressure from Washington, Taylor broke the armistice and occupied the city of Saltillo, southwest of Monterrey. Santa Anna blamed the loss of Monterrey and Saltillo on Ampudia and demoted him to command a small artillery battalion.

On February 22, 1847, Santa Anna personally marched north to fight Taylor with 20,000 men. Taylor, with 4,600 men, had entrenched at a mountain pass called Buena Vista. Santa Anna suffered desertions on the way north and arrived with 15,000 men in a tired state. He demanded and was refused surrender of the U.S. army; he attacked the next morning. Santa Anna flanked the U.S. positions by sending his cavalry and some of his infantry up the steep terrain that made up one side of the pass, while a division of infantry attacked frontally along the road leading to Buenavista. Furious fighting ensued during which the U.S. troops were almost routed, but were saved by artillery fire against a Mexican advance at close range by Captain Braxton Bragg, and a charge by the mounted Mississippi Riflemen under Jefferson Davis. Having suffered discouraging losses, Santa Anna withdrew that night, leaving Taylor in control of Northern Mexico. Polk distrusted Taylor, whom he felt had shown incompetence in the Battle of Monterrey by agreeing to the armistice, and may have considered him a political rival for the White House. Taylor later used the Battle of Buena Vista as the centerpiece of his successful 1848 presidential campaign.

[edit] Scott's campaign

Rather than reinforce Taylor's army for a continued advance, President Polk sent a second army under General Winfield Scott, which was transported to the port of Veracruz by sea, to begin an invasion of the Mexican heartland. Scott performed the first major amphibious landing in the history of the United States in preparation for the Siege of Veracruz. A group of 12,000 volunteer and regular soldiers successfully offloaded supplies, weapons and horses near the walled city. Included in the group were Robert E. Lee and George Meade. The city was defended by Mexican General Juan Morales with 3,400 men. Mortars and naval guns under Commodore Matthew C. Perry were used to reduce the city walls and harass defenders. The city replied as best it could with its own artillery. The effect of the extended barrage destroyed the will of the Mexican side to fight against a numerically superior force, and they surrendered the city after 12 days under siege. U.S. troops suffered 80 casualties, while the Mexican side had around 180 killed and wounded, about half of whom were civilian. During the siege, the U.S. side began to fall victim to Yellow Fever.

Scott then marched westward toward Mexico City with 8,500 healthy troops, while Santa Anna set up a defensive position in a canyon around the main road at the halfway mark to Mexico City, near the hamlet of Cerro Gordo. Santa Anna had entrenched with 12,000 troops and artillery that were trained on the road, along which he expected Scott to appear. However, Scott had sent 2,600 mounted dragoons ahead, and the Mexican artillery prematurely fired on them and revealed their positions. Instead of taking the main road, Scott's troops trekked through the rough terrain to the north, setting up his artillery on the high ground and quietly flanking the Mexicans. Although by then aware of the positions of U.S. troops, Santa Anna and his troops were unprepared for the onslaught that followed. The Mexican army was routed. The U.S. army suffered 400 casualties, while the Mexicans suffered over 1,000 casualties and 3,000 were taken prisoner.

In May, Scott pushed on to Puebla, the second largest city in Mexico. Because of the citizens' hostility to Santa Anna, the city capitulated without resistance on May 1]. Mexico City was laid open in the Battle of Chapultepec and subsequently occupied.

Winfield Scott became an American national hero after his victories in the Mexican War, and later became military governor of occupied Mexico City.

The novel, Gone For Soldiers, by Jeff Shaara, explains a great deal of General Scott's campaign, from the point of view of three characters. These characters were Colonel Robert E. Lee, General Winfield Scott, and Mexican Dictator Antonio López de Santa Anna.

[edit] Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed on February 2, 1848 by American diplomat Nicholas Trist, ended the war and gave the U.S undisputed control of Texas, established the U.S.-Mexican border of the Rio Grande River, and ceded to the United States California, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Wyoming. In return, Mexico received US $15,000,000. This exchange is known as the Mexican Cession. Mexicans living in the conquered lands could choose to return to Mexico or stay and become American citizens. Article X was stricken from the treaty before it was ratified by the U.S. Senate. These articles promised that the United States would recognize Mexican and Spanish land grants.

In 1853, in what became know as The Gadsden Purchase, the United States paid an additional $10 million to Mexico to purchase land in what is now southern Arizona and southern New Mexico for the construction of a southern route for a transcontinental railroad. The purchase was also designed to further compensate Mexico for the lands taken by the U.S. after the Mexican-American War.

[edit] Results

Mexico lost more than 500,000 square miles (1,300,000 square km) of land, almost half of its territory. The annexed territories contained about 1,000 Mexican families in California and 7,000 in New Mexico. A few moved back to Mexico; the great majority remained and became U.S. citizens.

A month before the end of the war, Polk was criticized in a United States House of Representatives amendment to a bill praising Major General Zachary Taylor for "a war unnecessarily and unconstitutionally begun by the President of the United States." This criticism, in which Congressman Abraham Lincoln played an important role, followed congressional scrutiny of the war's beginnings, including factual challenges to claims made by President Polk^{[4] [5]}. The vote followed party lines, with all Whigs supporting the amendment. Lincoln's attack haunted his future campaigns in the heavily Democratic state of Illinois, and was cited by enemies well into his presidency.^[6] The stand did not cost Lincoln his Congressional seat in Illinois' Seventh Congressional District; the district was the only place in Illinois where a Whig could win high office, and party leaders agreed to one-term limits for Whig representatives there. Lincoln was succeeded by a Democrat, but the Seventh Congressional District voted for Zachary Taylor, a Whig, that fall.^[7]

In much of the United States, victory and the acquisition of new land brought a surge of patriotism (the country had also acquired the southern half of the Oregon Country in 1846 through a treaty with Great Britain). Victory seemed to fulfill citizens' belief in their country's Manifest Destiny. While Whig Ralph Waldo Emerson rejected war "as a means of achieving America's destiny," he accepted that "most of the great results of history are brought about by discreditable means." Although the Whigs had opposed the war, they made Zachary Taylor their presidential candidate in the election of 1848, praising his military performance while muting their criticism of the war itself.

In the 1880s, Ulysses S. Grant, who had served under Taylor's command, called the conflict an evil war that had brought God's punishment on the United States in the form of the American Civil War:

The Southern rebellion was largely the outgrowth of the Mexican war. Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions. We got our punishment in the most sanguinary and expensive war of modern times. [2]

Many of the generals of the latter war had fought in the former, including Grant, George B. McClellan, Ambrose Burnside, Stonewall Jackson, James Longstreet, George Meade, and Robert E. Lee, as well as the future Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

In Mexico City's Chapultepec Park, the Monument to the Heroic Cadets commemorates the heroic sacrifice of six teenaged military cadets who fought to their deaths rather than surrender to American invaders during the Battle of Chapultepec Castle on September 18, 1847. The monument is an important patriotic site in Mexico. On March 5, 1947, nearly one hundred years after the battle, U.S. President Harry S. Truman placed a wreath at the monument and stood for a moment of silence.

[edit] Combatants

Although 13,000 U.S. soldiers died during the course of the Mexican War, only about 1,700 were killed in combat. 90% died of disease, such as yellow fever. Mexican casualties are estimated at 25,000.

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

The Saint Patrick's Battalion (San Patricios), was a group of several hundred immigrant soldiers, the majority Irish, who deserted the U.S. Army because of ill-treatment or sympathetic leanings to Mexicans facing American aggression, joined the Mexican army. Most were killed in the Battle of Churubusco; about 100 were captured by the U.S. and roughly half were hanged as deserters.

The last surviving U.S. veteran of the conflict, Owen Thomas Edgar, died on September 3, 1929, at age 98.

[edit] See also

• Battles of the Mexican-American War
• History of Mexico
• List of Mexican-American War Veterans
• Reconquista (Mexico)

[edit] References

[edit] Primary Sources

• Polk, James. Polk: The Diary of a President, 1845-1849, Covering the Mexican War, the Acquisition of Oregon, and the Conquest of California and the Southwest. edited by Allan Nevins (1929)
• Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant from Project Gutenberg

[edit] Secondary Sources

[edit] Surveys

• Bauer K. Jack. The Mexican War, 1846-1848. Macmillan, 1974.
• Crawford, Mark; Heidler, Jeanne T.; Heidler, David Stephen , eds. Encyclopedia of the Mexican-American War (1999) (ISBN 157607059X)
• De Voto, Bernard, Year of Decision 1846 (1942)
• Mayers, David; Fernández Bravo, Sergio A., "La Guerra Con Mexico Y Los Disidentes Estadunidenses, 1846-1848" [The War with Mexico and US Dissenters, 1846-48]. Secuencia [Mexico] 2004 (59): 32-70. Issn: 0186-0348
• Meed, Douglas. The Mexican War, 1846-1848 (2003). A short survey.
• Rodríguez Díaz, María Del Rosario. "Mexico's Vision of Manifest Destiny During the 1847 War" Journal of Popular Culture 2001 35(2): 41-50. Issn: 0022-3840
• Smith, Justin Harvey. The War with Mexico. 2 vol (1919). Pulitzer Prize winner.

[edit] Military

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

[edit] Political and Diplomatic

• Albert J. Beveridge; Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1858. Volume: 1. 1928.
• Brack, Gene M. Mexico Views Manifest Destiny, 1821-1846: An Essay on the Origins of the Mexican War (1975).
• Fowler, Will. Tornel and Santa Anna: The Writer and the Caudillo, Mexico, 1795-1853 (2000)
• Gleijeses, Piero. "A Brush with Mexico" Diplomatic History 2005 29(2): 223-254. Issn: 0145-2096 debates in Washington before war
• Graebner, Norman A. Empire on the Pacific: A Study in American Continental Expansion. New York: Ronald Press, 1955.
• Graebner, Norman A. "Lessons of the Mexican War." Pacific Historical Review 47 (1978): 325-42.
• Graebner, Norman A. "The Mexican War: A Study in Causation." Pacific Historical Review 49 (1980): 405-26.
• Krauze, Enrique. Mexico: Biography of Power, Harpers: 1997
• Pletcher David M. The Diplomacy of Annexation: Texas, Oregon, and the Mexican War. University of Missouri Press, 1973.
• Price, Glenn W. Origins of the War with Mexico: The Polk-Stockton Intrigue. University of Texas Press, 1967.
• Robinson, Cecil, The View From Chapultepec: Mexican Writers on the Mexican-American War, University of Arizona Press (Tucson, 1989)
• Ruiz, Ramon Eduardo. Triumph and Tragedy: A History of the Mexican People, Norton 1992
• Schroeder John H. Mr. Polk's War: American Opposition and Dissent, 1846-1848. University of Wisconsin Press, 1973.
• Sellers Charles G. James K. Polk: Continentalist, 1843-1846 Princeton University Press, 1966.
• Smith, Justin Harvey. The War with Mexico. 2 vol (1919). Pulitzer Prize winner.
• Weinberg Albert K. Manifest Destiny: A Study of Nationalist Expansionism in American History Johns Hopkins University Press, 1935.
• Yanez, Agustin. Santa Anna: Espectro de una sociedad (1996)

[edit] External links

• Guerra de Intervención Norteamericana, an account of the war (in Spanish) from the Spanish Wikipedia.
• The Handbook of Texas Online: Mexican War
• The Mexican War
• Mexican-American War Resources
• The Mexican-American War and the Media, 1845-1848
• Lone Star Internet
• PBS site of US-Mexican war program
• Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and related resources at the U.S. Library of Congress
• Smithsonian teaching aids for "Establishing Borders: The Expansion of the United States, 1846-48"
• Franklin Pierce's Journal on the March from Vera Cruz

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