Mexican War

III

The Road to War

Central to the events leading up to war were the Fredonian Rebellion (1826), the Texas Revolution (1835-1836), and the annexation of Texas by the United States in 1845.

A

The Fredonian Rebellion

In 1825 a group of Texas colonists received permission from the Mexican government to colonize an area in eastern Texas known as Nacogdoches. By the time they arrived, however, other settlers had already claimed the region. The Texas colonists threatened to expel anyone who could not produce a valid land title. After the original settlers protested, the Mexican government denied the Texans permission to colonize the region.

In December 1826 a group of 16 Texas colonists went to Nacogdoches and proclaimed the region to be the independent Republic of Fredonia. The next month about 60 men, mostly Mexicans, rode to Nacogdoches to capture the rebellious Fredonians. The small garrison of Fredonians soundly defeated their attackers in the only battle of the rebellion. When Mexican troops arrived at Nacogdoches a short time later, the republic had been dissolved and the leader of the colonists had fled to Louisiana.

B

The Texas Revolution

Although the Fredonians were not successful, by the 1830s the population of Mexican Texas included many immigrants from the United States. These Anglo-American colonists were angry over Mexican attempts to deny autonomy to Texas and were unhappy with a colonization law that prevented immigration from the United States into Texas. They were also wary of Catholic laws and customs. In 1835 they revolted and established Texas as an independent republic. The Texas Revolution included the battles of The Alamo, Goliad, and San Jacinto. When hostilities ceased, Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna agreed to withdraw his troops across the Río Grande and recognize the independence of Texas. The Mexican congress rejected the agreement, and many Mexicans assumed the nation would regain Texas. It soon became apparent, however, that Mexico was in no position to retake Texas by force. The Lone Star Republic, as it was known, remained independent from 1836 to 1845, when the United States Congress approved a joint resolution annexing Texas. Mexico considered this annexation an act of aggression, and the Mexican diplomat in Washington, D.C., broke off negotiations and went home.

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C

Disputed Borders

With diplomatic relations broken, President Polk sent diplomat John Slidell as a special envoy to Mexico to negotiate a dispute over the boundary between Texas and Mexico. Throughout the colonial era the western boundary of Spanish “Tejas” had been the Nueces River. During the Mexican period of Texas history, from 1821 to 1845, Spanish and Mexican maps and documents reaffirmed the Nueces River as the boundary. But the Anglos in Texas, and their backers in the United States, insisted that the western boundary was the Río Grande. At stake were not merely the 150 miles that separated the Nueces from the Río Grande in southern Texas, but the thousands of square miles of territory to the northwest that also fell within the claim (including half of New Mexico, several hundred miles west of the headwaters of the Nueces River).

But when Mexican newspapers discovered that Slidell also had secret instructions to negotiate for the purchase of California and New Mexico, they threatened rebellion if Mexican president José Joaquin de Herrera negotiated with the United States. The president promptly informed Polk that he had nothing to discuss with Slidell. Herrera was then overthrown by General Mariano Paredes, and Mexico prepared to assert its authority over Texas by mobilizing an army of 5200 troops near the mouth of the Río Grande under the command of General Mariano Arista.

On June 23, 1845, General Zachary Taylor, in command of approximately 1500 regulars, was ordered to leave Louisiana for Texas. By July he was in Corpus Christi, about 320 km (200 mi) north of the Río Grande. That next year, on March 8, 1846, Polk ordered Taylor and his troops to enter disputed territory between the Nueces and the Río Grande. Another detachment was moved to Fort Texas (present-day Brownsville, Texas), across the border from Matamoros, Mexico. By April 1846 the two nations stood on the brink of war.

IV

The War

On April 24 Taylor’s forces clashed with Arista’s at Carricitos on the northern bank of the Río Grande. Polk used this skirmish to justify his war message to Congress when he declared that Mexico had “shed American blood on American soil.” Although a young congressman from Illinois named Abraham Lincoln challenged Polk to show him the spot where blood had been shed, a majority of the members of Congress were ready to approve a bill authorizing war.

On May 8, before Polk signed the declaration of war, the first major engagement of the Mexican War began. This was the Battle of Palo Alto, which took place along the Gulf Coast north of Matamoros and the Río Grande. Taylor pitted his approximately 2200 troops against Arista’s 3200 Mexican soldiers. The U.S. artillery inflicted heavy casualties on the Mexicans while Taylor reported only 16 men killed or wounded. The next day another pre-war battle occurred south of Palo Alto at Resaca de la Palma, sending the Mexicans reeling back to Matamoros. Finally, on May 13, Polk signed a declaration of war, and five days later Matamoros fell to the United States. Arista retreated and was relieved of his command.

The U.S. strategy called for a three-pronged offense: The Army of the West would take New Mexico and California; the Army of the Center would seize northern Mexico; and the Army of Occupation would carry the war into Mexico City. The navy would provide logistical support, escort the transport of troops to Mexico, guard the army’s bases from the sea, and blockade the coasts along the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific. It would also aid the capture of Monterey, a key coastal port in central California, and assist in the capture and occupation of Tampico and Veracruz on Mexico’s Gulf Coast.

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