Mexican–American War
On the 25th of April 1846, a Mexican cavalry force of 2,000 men attacked a patrol of 70 American soldiers led by Captain Seth Thornton. The patrol was routed. Eleven Americans were killed and 52 were captured. The clash took place in territory north of the Rio Grande and south of the Nueces River, ground that both nations claimed. It began the Mexican-American War, which lasted until the 2nd of February 1848. Americans often call it the Mexican War. In Mexico it carries a blunter name, the United States intervention in Mexico.
Almost everything about that day is still argued over. Why were American soldiers standing on disputed ground in the first place? Who pushed for a war, and who tried to stop it? How could a country that kept swapping presidents face an army marching toward its capital? And what did the peace take from one nation and hand to the other?
In 1800, Spain's province of Texas held only about 7,000 white settlers, and the Spanish crown wanted more people to secure it. After Mexican independence, the new government kept that policy. It granted a large tract of land to Moses Austin, a banker from Missouri. Austin died before he could recruit anyone, but his son Stephen F. Austin brought over 300 American families into Texas. His became the most successful of several authorized colonies.
Mexico City hoped these newcomers would shield the Tejano residents from Comanche raiders. The colonists had other plans. They chose land with good farmland and trade ties to Louisiana, rather than the dangerous west where a buffer was needed. By 1829, non-Hispanic residents outnumbered Hispanic ones in Texas.
That same year, President Vicente Guerrero, a hero of Mexican independence, tried to tighten his grip on the province. He abolished slavery in Mexico, reinstated a property tax, and raised tariffs on shipped American goods. The settlers and many Mexican businessmen in the region rejected these demands. Mexico then closed Texas to further immigration, but Americans kept arriving illegally.
In 1834, General Antonio López de Santa Anna became the centralist president of Mexico. Its conservative Congress scrapped the federal system and replaced it with a unitary government. Santa Anna marched north to crush Texas's semi-independence, as he had done in Coahuila. Texians declared independence in 1836. Santa Anna won the Battle of the Alamo that March. In April, a Texian Army under General Sam Houston defeated and captured him at the Battle of San Jacinto.
To save his life, Santa Anna signed a treaty with Texan President David Burnet recognizing Texian independence. Mexico's Congress refused to ratify it, since a captive had signed it under duress. Britain, France, and the United States all recognized the new republic and advised Mexico not to try reconquering it.
Most Texians wanted to join the United States, but annexation divided Congress. Whigs and Abolitionists opposed adding another slave state. Southern planters wanted Texas as a slave state to anchor a Southern empire of slavery. Texas finally accepted Congress's offer and became the 28th state on the 29th of December 1845. The annexation resolution had quietly left out any mention of where Texas's southern border ran, a omission made to help it pass after the earlier annexation treaty failed in the Senate.
The treaties Santa Anna signed in 1836 placed Texas's southern border at the "Rio Grande del Norte." Texans said this meant the modern Rio Grande. Mexico disputed it on two grounds. First, it rejected Texan independence altogether. Second, it argued the treaty meant the more northerly Nueces River, since Mexicans call the Rio Grande the Rio Bravo. That argument had a flaw, because the river's full Mexican name is Rio Bravo del Norte. In 1841, the Texan Santa Fe Expedition tried to press the claim into New Mexico. Its members were captured and imprisoned by the Mexican Army.
James K. Polk, a Democrat, won the 1844 presidential election on a promise to expand into Oregon, California, and Texas. In July 1845, he sent General Zachary Taylor to Texas. By October, Taylor commanded 3,500 Americans on the Nueces River, ready to seize the disputed land. Polk also wrote to the American consul in Alta California. He disclaimed American ambitions there but offered to support independence from Mexico or voluntary accession to the United States. He warned that Washington would oppose any European takeover. Meanwhile, he signed the Oregon Treaty with Britain, which angered Northern Democrats who felt he favored Southern expansion.
In November 1845, Polk sent John Slidell to Mexico City as a secret representative. Slidell carried an offer of $25 million for the Rio Grande border in Texas and the provinces of Alta California and Santa Fe de Nuevo México. He was also authorized to forgive $3 million that Mexico owed American citizens for damages in its War of Independence. Beyond that, he could pay another $25 to $30 million for the two territories.
Mexican public opinion, across every political faction, held that selling territory would tarnish the national honor. President José Joaquín de Herrera considered receiving Slidell to settle the Texas question peacefully. For that, he was accused of treason and deposed. Military rivals and populist newspapers had already called Slidell's presence an insult. A more nationalistic government under General Mariano Paredes y Arrillaga took power and publicly reaffirmed Mexico's claim to Texas.
Taylor, ordered south to the Rio Grande, ignored Mexican demands that he withdraw to the Nueces. He built a makeshift fort on the riverbank opposite the city of Matamoros, in Tamaulipas. Its guns would soon face the cannon of Matamoros.
The siege of Fort Texas began on the 3rd of May 1846, when Mexican artillery at Matamoros opened fire. The bombardment lasted 160 hours, as Mexican forces slowly surrounded the fort. Thirteen American soldiers were wounded and two were killed. One of the dead was Jacob Brown, for whom the fort was later renamed. On the 8th of May, Taylor arrived with 2,400 troops to relieve it. General Arista rushed north with 3,400 men and intercepted him about 5 miles from the Rio Grande, near modern Brownsville, Texas.
At that battle, called Palo Alto, the Americans used what they called flying artillery. Light cannon rode on horse-drawn carriages, with the whole crew mounted. Its fast, mobile fire devastated the Mexican lines. Mexican cannon, loaded with poor gunpowder, fired so slowly that American soldiers could dodge the rounds. Overnight the Mexicans pulled back behind a dry riverbed. On the 9th of May, at Resaca de la Palma, the two sides fought hand to hand. American cavalry captured the Mexican guns, and the retreat became a rout. Some Mexican soldiers drowned trying to swim the Rio Grande.
Behind those results lay a Mexican Army that was weak and divided. Only 7 of Mexico's 19 states sent soldiers, weapons, and money. The politician Lucas Alamán judged that the money spent on arms had mostly let Mexican troops fight each other. Ulysses Grant, a veteran of the war, wrote in his 1885 memoirs: "The Mexican army of that day was hardly an organization." He added that he had still seen some of its men make stands as brave as any he had witnessed.
The weapons told part of the story. Mexico relied on surplus British muskets, such as the Brown Bess, left from the Napoleonic Wars. Most American troops began the war with Springfield 1816 flintlocks, though more reliable caplock models spread as the fighting went on. The Mississippi Rifles carried the Springfield 1841 rifle, and the Texas Rangers had Colt Paterson revolvers. The U.S. Army ordered 1,000 Colt Walker revolvers in 1846. Throughout the war, American artillery often decided the outcome.
Women served on both sides. In Mexico, soldaderas traditionally supported the troops, and some fought during the defense of Mexico City and Monterrey. Doña Jesús Dosamantes and María Josefa Zozaya were remembered as heroines for aiding the wounded. On the American side, Sarah Bowman became one of the best known women on the battlefield, delivering food, carrying wounded soldiers, and appearing in close combat.
The American force itself was an odd mixture. At the start, the Army had eight infantry regiments, four of artillery, and three mounted regiments. Congress added 10 new one-year regiments with an act of the 11th of February 1847. According to Tyler V. Johnson, foreign-born men made up 47 percent of Taylor's total forces. Many were Irish and German, and an estimated 1,500 came from British North America, including French Canadians.
Regular officers looked down on the volunteers, whose training was poor and whose conduct was often wild. One officer's diary described Louisiana volunteers at Burrita as "a lawless drunken rabble." The phrase "Just like Gaines's army" came to mean something useless, after General Taylor sent back a group of untrained, unwilling Louisiana troops. Grant took a kinder view, arguing that volunteers quickly became soldiers beside disciplined regulars. Yet the best volunteers had signed up for a year in the summer of 1846. Their terms were expiring just as General Winfield Scott prepared to march on Mexico City.
Mexico won independence from Spain through the Treaty of Córdoba in 1821, after a decade of fighting that ruined the silver-mining districts of Zacatecas and Guanajuato. The country thus began life with its chief export wrecked. It tried a brief monarchy, then became a republic in 1824. It beat back Spanish attempts at reconquest in the 1820s and held out against the French in the Pastry War of 1838. Even so, the secessionist successes in Texas and the Yucatán exposed how weak its central government was.
In the far north, the state barely existed. When Spanish rule ended, so did the money for garrisoned presidios and the payments that had kept peace with Native peoples. Comanche and Apache raiders struck hundreds of miles into Mexico for livestock, killing many, halting transport, and decimating the ranching industry. The demoralized civilians of the north offered little resistance to the American invaders. New Mexico had come to depend on trade with the United States along the Santa Fe Trail.
In 1846 alone, the presidency changed hands four times, the war ministry six times, and the finance ministry sixteen times. After Paredes left office to fight the Americans, Nicolás Bravo held the presidency from the 28th of July to the 4th of August 1846. Federalist liberals overthrew him and restored the Constitution of 1824. Santa Anna won the elections that followed. As was his habit, he left the administration to his vice president, Valentín Gómez Farías, and went to the front.
Santa Anna had been in exile in Cuba when the war began. After the defeats on the Rio Grande, he wrote to Mexico City offering to end his exile and use his military experience to reclaim Texas. The desperate government accepted. Unknown to it, Santa Anna had been secretly dealing with American representatives about selling the contested territory, as long as he could pass through the U.S. naval blockade. Polk sent Alexander Slidell MacKenzie to meet him in Cuba. There are no written records of these talks. Polk asked Congress for $2 million to negotiate a treaty, and the blockade was lifted.
Back in Mexico, Santa Anna denied everything, pocketed the money, and began planning the defense of the country. Winfield Scott and the other Americans were dismayed. Santa Anna later gloated: "The United States was deceived in believing that I would be capable of betraying my mother country." He also admitted his own country's faults: "However shameful it may be to admit this, we have brought this disgraceful tragedy upon ourselves through our interminable in-fighting."
That in-fighting was real. Gómez Farías forced a loan from the Catholic Church, but the funds arrived too late for Santa Anna's army. In February 1847, conservatives rebelled against the liberal plan to take Church property. In the Revolt of the Polkos, the Church and conservatives paid soldiers to rise against the government. Santa Anna had to leave the campaign and return to the capital. Conservatives then got the vice presidency abolished to remove Gómez Farías. Pedro María de Anaya, Santa Anna, and Manuel de la Peña y Peña traded the presidency over the following months. Peña y Peña resumed it on the 8th of January 1848, and under him a peace treaty was finally signed.
On the 13th of May 1846, the United States Congress approved the declaration of war after only a few hours of debate. Polk had told the members that Mexico "has invaded our territory and shed American blood upon the American soil." Southern Democrats gave strong support. On a key amendment about slavery, sixty-seven Whigs voted against the war. On final passage, only fourteen Whigs voted no, including former President John Quincy Adams. Adams had warned of adding slave territory since opposing the annexation of Texas in 1836. Even so, he later voted for war funds.
A freshman Whig congressman from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, challenged Polk's claim, calling it "a bold falsification of history." Lincoln submitted eight "Spot Resolutions." They demanded that Polk name the exact place where American blood was shed, and say whether it was American soil or land claimed by Spain and Mexico. Like Adams, Lincoln did not actually block money for men or supplies.
Grant, who opposed the war but served as a lieutenant under Taylor, offered a more cynical reading. In his memoirs he wrote: "We were sent to provoke a fight, but it was essential that Mexico should commence it." In his view, a Mexican attack would let the president announce that war already existed. Few public men would have the courage to oppose it after that.
Other critics were harsher. Joshua Giddings called it "an aggressive, unholy, and unjust war" and voted against supplying soldiers and weapons. Whig leader Robert Toombs told the Senate on the 11th of February 1847 that "We had territory enough, Heaven knew." Frederick Douglass lamented how weak the anti-war movement was, saying that "None seem willing to take their stand for peace at all risks." Democratic Representative David Wilmot proposed a ban on slavery in any territory won from Mexico. His Wilmot Proviso passed the House but not the Senate. The war also cost Polk's party control of the House, which went to the Whigs.
Writers joined the protest. James Russell Lowell's "The Present Crisis" and his satirical Biglow Papers were popular at once. Henry David Thoreau served jail time for refusing to pay a tax that would support the war, and he turned a lecture into the essay now known as Civil Disobedience. Ralph Waldo Emerson predicted: "The United States will conquer Mexico, but it will be as a man who swallowed the arsenic which brings him down in turn. Mexico will poison us." Civil war arrived about a dozen years later. Some Irish and German immigrants even deserted the U.S. Army and formed the Saint Patrick's Battalion to fight for Mexico.
Supporters had their own arguments. John L. O'Sullivan, editor of the Democratic Review, coined the phrase Manifest Destiny, which he described as the continent "allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions." On the 7th of December 1847, Polk gave his Third Annual Message to Congress. He argued that Mexico was insolvent, so ceding northern territory was the only indemnity realistically available for American claims. That helped rally congressional Democrats behind his war measures.
This was the first American war covered by mass media, chiefly the penny press, and the first foreign war reported mostly by American correspondents. The telegraph brought fresh news. The most important reporter was George Wilkins Kendall of the New Orleans Picayune, whose collected Dispatches from the Mexican War remain a key primary source. Walt Whitman cheered the conflict in 1846, asking what "miserable, inefficient Mexico" had to do with "the great mission of peopling the new world with a noble race."
News of victories drew crowds. In spring 1846, a large crowd met in the cotton textile town of Lowell, Massachusetts, after Taylor's win at Palo Alto. Chicago celebrated the victory of Buena Vista in April 1847, and New York marked Veracruz and Buena Vista in May 1847. Taylor and Scott became national heroes and later presidential candidates. Polk had promised to serve one term, and his last official act was to attend Taylor's inauguration.
General Stephen W. Kearny left Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in June 1846 with about 1,700 men in his Army of the West. His orders were to secure New Mexico and Alta California. In Santa Fe, Governor Manuel Armijo wanted to avoid battle. On the 9th of August, Colonel Diego Archuleta and militia officers Manuel Chaves and Miguel Pino forced him to organize a defense at Apache Canyon, a narrow pass about 10 miles southeast of the city. On the 14th of August, before the Americans were even in sight, Armijo changed his mind. An American named James Magoffin claimed credit for the decision, and one unverified story says he bribed Armijo.
When Pino, Chaves, and some militiamen still wanted to fight, Armijo had a cannon pointed at them. He then fled to Chihuahua. Kearny entered Santa Fe on the 15th of August without a shot fired and claimed New Mexico for the United States. He named himself military governor three days later. American officers drew up a temporary legal system called the Kearny Code. Charles Bent became the first territorial governor, and Colonel Sterling Price took command of the troops as Kearny headed west.
On the 19th of January 1847, an uprising erupted in Don Fernando de Taos, now Taos, New Mexico. Pablo Montoya, a New Mexican, and Tomás Romero, a Taos Pueblo man known as Tomasito, led it with Pueblo allies who also wanted the Americans gone. Romero's force broke into Bent's house, shot him with arrows, and scalped him in front of his family. His wife Ignacia, his children, and the wives of Kit Carson and Thomas Boggs dug through the adobe walls into the next house. The insurgents found them and killed Bent but spared the women and children.
The next day, about 500 New Mexicans and Pueblo besieged Simeon Turley's mill in Arroyo Hondo. After a day-long battle, only two of the mountain men defending it survived, John David Albert and Thomas Tate Tobin. Both escaped on foot that night. The same day, insurgents killed seven American traders in the village of Mora. At most, 15 Americans died in the two actions.
Price marched from Santa Fe with more than 300 troops, joined by 65 volunteers organized by Ceran St. Vrain. They beat back about 1,500 New Mexicans and Pueblo at Santa Cruz de la Cañada and at Embudo Pass. The insurgents then took refuge in the thick-walled adobe church at Taos Pueblo. American troops breached a wall and fired cannon into the church, killing about 150 rebels and capturing 400 more. Only seven Americans died in that battle. Fighting around Mora and elsewhere continued in the following months.
In California, foreign powers had been circling for years. In 1842, American minister Waddy Thompson Jr. suggested that Mexico might cede California to settle debts. He called it "the richest, the most beautiful, and the healthiest country in the world." The British minister, Richard Pakenham, wrote to Lord Palmerston in 1841 urging an English colony there. By the time the letter reached London, Sir Robert Peel's government had come to power and rejected the idea as expensive. Pío Pico, the last governor of Alta California, even favored independence under a British protectorate.
Then came John C. Frémont. His 62-man exploring expedition entered California in late 1845. American consul Thomas O. Larkin, in Monterey, worked to avoid bloodshed with General José Castro, the senior Mexican officer. In early 1846, Castro ordered Frémont to leave. Frémont camped on Gavilan Peak and raised the American flag. Under threat of confrontation, he moved into Oregon Country in March. Marine Lieutenant Archibald H. Gillespie reached him in early May with a secret message from Polk, and Frémont returned to the Sacramento Valley.
On the 14th of June 1846-34 American settlers seized the undefended Mexican outpost of Sonoma. One of them made a Bear Flag and raised it over the plaza. Within a week, 70 more volunteers joined, and the force grew to nearly 300 by early July. William B. Ide led what became known as the Bear Flag Revolt. The rebels occupied San Francisco, then called Yerba Buena, on the 2nd of July. On the 5th of July, Frémont combined his men with many of the rebels as the California Battalion.
Commodore John D. Sloat of the Pacific Squadron reached Monterey on the 1st of July. Hearing of Frémont's role, he wrongly assumed Washington had ordered it. On the 7th of July, he occupied Monterey and raised the American flag. Two days later, 70 sailors and Marines landed at Yerba Buena and did the same, and the Bear Flag came down at Sonoma. On the 15th of July, Commodore Robert F. Stockton replaced Sloat and proved more aggressive. He mustered the California Battalion into service under Frémont and sent it to San Diego. When Stockton's 360 men arrived at San Pedro, Castro and Pico wrote farewells and fled.
Nicholas Trist was formally relieved by Polk of his post as peace envoy, but he ignored the order. By then, General Winfield Scott had landed at Veracruz on the 9th of March 1847 and captured Mexico City in September. Mexico was beaten on the battlefield, yet peace was politically tangled. Some Mexican factions refused to accept any loss of territory, and Pedro María Anaya refused to sign a treaty ceding land even with Americans in the capital. Trist nonetheless concluded the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848.
Under it, Mexico recognized the cession of present-day Texas, California, Nevada, and Utah. It also gave up parts of present-day Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming. Mexico dropped its claims on Texas and accepted the Rio Grande as its northern border. The United States agreed to pay $15 million for the physical damage of the war. It also assumed $3.25 million of debt that Mexico already owed to American citizens.
For Mexico, the cost was staggering. The country lost more than half of its territory, suffered large losses of life among soldiers and civilians, and saw its financial foundations undermined. The war deepened its political turmoil and damaged its national prestige.
The winners did not agree on what they had won. The victory and expansion that Polk had driven inspired patriotism in some parts of the United States. The war and treaty also drew fierce criticism for the casualties, the cost, and the heavy-handedness. The question of how to treat the new lands intensified the debate over slavery, and some scholars see the war as leading to the American Civil War. Many officers who trained at West Point gained experience in Mexico, and later held prominent leadership roles during that conflict.
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Common questions
When did the Mexican-American War take place?
The Mexican-American War lasted from the 25th of April 1846 to the 2nd of February 1848. It began when Mexican cavalry attacked an American patrol in disputed territory north of the Rio Grande.
What caused the Mexican-American War?
The Mexican-American War followed the 1845 American annexation of Texas, which Mexico still considered its territory. The two countries also disputed whether the border was the Rio Grande or the more northerly Nueces River, and Mexico refused James K. Polk's offer to buy the disputed land and California.
How did the Mexican-American War end?
The Mexican-American War ended with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, which Nicholas Trist concluded after Polk had relieved him of his post. Mexico recognized the cession of present-day Texas, California, Nevada, and Utah, plus parts of several other states.
How much did the United States pay Mexico after the Mexican-American War?
The United States agreed to pay $15 million for the physical damage of the war. It also assumed $3.25 million of debt that Mexico already owed to American citizens.
Who opposed the Mexican-American War in the United States?
Most Whigs and many Northern antislavery figures opposed the Mexican-American War, including John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Joshua Giddings, Frederick Douglass, and Henry David Thoreau. Lincoln challenged Polk's claim that American blood was shed on American soil with his eight Spot Resolutions.
Why did Mexico lose the Mexican-American War?
Mexico's army was weak and divided, and political infighting meant presidents sometimes held office for only weeks or days. American forces also had stronger artillery, including mobile horse-drawn guns that proved devastating at Palo Alto.
What was the Bear Flag Revolt in the Mexican-American War?
The Bear Flag Revolt began on the 14th of June 1846, when 34 American settlers seized the Mexican outpost of Sonoma in California. Its leader was William B. Ide, and the rebels later joined John C. Frémont's men to form the California Battalion.
All sources
234 references cited across the entry
- 1Mexican–American War | History, Causes & ResultsJoseph Cataliotti — November 21, 2023
- 2Horgan, Paul, Great River: The Rio Grande in North American History, Volume Two, Rinehart & Company, Inc. New York, 1954, P. 766
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- 13BookHistory of Mexico Vol. VHubert H. Bancroft — A. L. Bancroft And Company — 1885
- 14Schoultz, Beneath the United States, pp. 19–20
- 15Guardino, The Dead March, p. 6
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- 18JournalGender, Soldiering, and Citizenship in the Mexican-American War of 1846—1848Peter Guardino — 2014
- 19JournalIndians in American–Mexican Relations Before the War of 1846Ralph A. Smith — 1963
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- 48quoted in Carol and Thomas Christensen, The U.S.–Mexican War. Companion to the Public Television Series, The U.S.–Mexican War, 1846–48. San Francisco: Bay Books 1998, p. 138.
- 49Alamán paraphrased in Christensen, The U.S.–Mexican War, p. 61.
- 50Mexican soldier Manuel Balontín, quoted in Christensen, The U.S.–Mexican War, p. 137.
- 51BookRené Chartrand, Santa Anna's Mexican Army 1821–48, Illustrated by Bill YounghusbandRene Chartrand — Bloomsbury — March 25, 2004
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- 57JournalBeyond a Border Conflict: Indigenous Involvement in the Mexican-American WarRiley Bowers — 2021-09-20
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- 61BookDevotion to the Adopted Country: U.S. Immigrant Volunteers in the Mexican WarTyler V. Johnson — University of Missouri Press — 2012
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- 79Faragher, John Mack, et al., eds. Out Of Many: A History of the American People. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, 2006.
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- 83Bauer, The Mexican War, 1846–1848, p. 370.
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- 85BookLa Evolución de MéxicoÁngel Miranda Basurto — Editorial Porrúa — 2002
- 86quoted in Fowler, Santa Anna of Mexico p. 255. The negotiations are discussed pp. 253–254
- 87Fowler, Santa Anna of Mexico pp. 259–261
- 88Jay (1853), pp. 165–166.
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- 91quoted in Christensen, The U.S.–Mexican War, p. 74.
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- 96Silbey, Joel H. Storm over Texas: The Annexation Controversy and the Road to the Civil War. 2005 130–131
- 97Gradert, Kenyon. Puritan Spirits in the Abolitionist Imagination. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2020: 108.
- 98Pierpaoli, Paul G., Jr. The Encyclopedia of the Mexican-American War: A Political, Social, and Military History (volume I), Spencer Tucker (editor). Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2013: 372.
- 99NewsThe Fraudulent Mexican-American War (1846–48)Danny Sjursen — August 18, 2018
- 100James K. Polk: Third Annual Message – December 7, 1847Presidency.ucsb.edu
- 101JournalNewspaper Suppression During the Mexican War, 1846–48Tom Reilly — June 1, 1977
- 102Editorial, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 1846, quoted in Loveman, Brian. No Higher Law: American Foreign Policy and the Western Hemisphere since 1776. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 2010, p.
- 103Lawrence Delbert Cress, "Introduction," Dispatches from the Mexican War, Norman: the University of Oklahoma Press 1999, p. 8.
- 104George Wilkins Kendall, Dispatches from the Mexican War, edited by Larence Delbert Cress. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press 1999.
- 105JournalAmerican Sensations: Empire, Amnesia, and the US–Mexican WarShellby Streetby — 2001
- 106Ron Tyler. "A Great American Book: The War between the United States and Mexico, Illustrated" in Artes de México. No. 80, "Carl Nebel: Nineteenth-Century Itinerant Painter", August 2006, pp. 77–80.
- 107BookHistory of Chicago from the Earliest Period to the Present TimeA. T. Andreas — A. T. Andreas — 1884
- 108Christiansen, The U.S.–Mexico War, p. 220.
- 109The Battle of Santa FeMyCivilWar.com — 2005–2008
- 110BookThe Little Lion of the Southwest: a life of Manuel Antonio ChavesSimmons, Marc — The Swallow Press — 1973
- 112BookTurmoil in New Mexico 1846–1848Keleher, William A. — University of New Mexico Press — 1952
- 113BookNew Mexico: A History of Four CenturiesBeck, Warren A. — University of Oklahoma Press — 1962
- 114Morgan, Robert (2011). Lions of the West. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, p. 243.
- 116BookBear Flag Rising: The Conquest of California, 1846Dale L. Walker — Forge Books — 1999
- 117Brooks (1849), p. 257.
- 118Bauer (1992), pp. 190–191.
- 119Urban WarfareBattle of Monterrey.com
- 120Rip Ford's Texas Memoirs, Stephen Oates, University of Texas Press, 1963.
- 121BookA Perfect Gibraltar: The Battle for Monterrey, MexicoChristopher Dishman — University of Oklahoma Press — 2010
- 123Foote, Shelby. The Civil War: A Narrative: Volume 1: Fort Sumter to Perryville (1958).
- 124Christiansen, The U.S.–Mexican War, p. 161.
- 125Groom, Winston "Kearny's March" Alfred A. Knopf, 2011, p. 143.
- 126BookDoniphan's Epic March: The 1st Missouri Volunteers in the Mexican WarJoseph G. Dawson — University Press of Kansas — 1999
- 128Private Robinson on Pawnee RockMay 20, 2019
- 130BookAlexander William Doniphan: portrait of a Missouri moderateRoger D. Launius — University of Missouri Press — 1997
- 131BookThe Comanche EmpirePekka Hamalainen — Yale University Press
- 132Gilbert M. Joseph, "The United States, Feuding Elites, and Rural Revolt in Yucatán, 1836–1915" in Rural Revolt in Mexico: U.S. Intervention and the Domain of Subaltern Politics, expanded edition, Dani
- 133K. Jack Bauer, The Mexican war, 1846–1848. 1974. Republished by University of Nebraska Press 1992, pp. 108–109.
- 134quoted in Brian Loveman, No Higher Law: American Foreign Policy and the Western Hemisphere Since 1776. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 2010, p. 70.
- 135"Message from the President of the United States with communications from the government of Yucatan, representing the state of suffering to which that country is reduced by an insurrection of the Nati
- 138Morgan, Robert, Lions of the West, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2011, p. 282.
- 140Guardino, The Dead March, pp. 193–194
- 141Guardino, The Dead March, p. 200
- 142BookSo Far from God: The U.S. War With Mexico, 1846–1848John S. D. Eisenhower — Random House — 1989
- 143Guardino, The Dead March, pp. 201–202
- 145BookThe History of MexicoBurton Kirkwood — Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press — 2000
- 1465 datos que no conocías sobre los Niños Héroes... ¿Mito o Realidad?September 13, 2018
- 147Guardino, The Dead March, pp. 290–291
- 150Guardino, The Dead March, pp. 294–298.
- 151Executive Document, No. 60, House of Representatives, first Session of the thirtieth Congress, pp. 1028, 1032.
- 152U.S. Army Campaigns of the Mexican War: The Occupation of Mexico, May 1846 – July 1848 (CMH Pub 73-3)Stephen A. Carney — U.S. Government Printing Office — 2005
- 154BookThe Mexican War, 1846–1848Douglas Meed — Routledge — 2003
- 155see Coffman, Old Army (1988), p. 193Brian McAllister
- 156BookA Short, Offhand, Killing AffairPaul Foos — 2002
- 157JournalDeserters in the Mexican WarEdward S. Wallace — 1935
- 158BookWhy We Fought: America's Wars in Film and HistoryPeter C. Rollins — University Press of Kentucky — 2008
- 159JournalBorder Crossings in the Mexican American WarRosemary King — 2000
- 160BookShamrock and Sword, The Saint Patrick's Battalion in the US–Mexican WarRobert Ryal Miller — University of Oklahoma Press — 1989
- 161Biography of John RileyChristopher Minster — July 3, 2019
- 162Connors and Muñoz, "Looking for the North American Invasion in Mexico City", p. 503ñ.
- 163Loveman, No Higher Law, p. 87
- 164Guardino, The Dead March, p. 305
- 165Schoultz, Lars. Beneath the United States: A History of U.S. Policy Toward Latin America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1998, p. 34
- 166Merry, A Country of Vast Designs, pp. 414–415
- 167Conquest of MexicoJohn Calhoun — Blair & Rives — January 4, 1848
- 168quoted in Schoultz, Beneath the United States, p. 14
- 169The Ten-Regiment BillJohn Clarke — Blair & Rives — January 25, 1848
- 170Smith (1919), p. 241.
- 171BookU.S.–Mexican WarBronwyn Mills — New York : Facts On File — 2003
- 172Jay (1853), p. 117.
- 173BookOur Public LandsU.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management — 1958
- 174BookDon't Know Much About HistoryKenneth C. Davis — Avon Books — 1995
- 175BookA People's History of the United StatesHoward Zinn — HarperCollins Publishers — 2003
- 176Boundary DisputesDonald S. Frazier — PBS
- 177Treaty of Peace, Friendship, Limits, and Settlement Between the United States of America and the United Mexican States Concluded at Guadalupe HidalgoaUniversity of Dayton (academic.udayton.edu)
- 178Article IXLillian Goldman Law Library
- 179Hamalainen, 293–341.
- 180BookWar of a Thousand Deserts: Indian Raids and the U.S.–Mexican WarBrian DeLay — Yale University Press — 2008
- 181Gadsden Purchase Treaty: December 30, 1853Lillian Goldman Law Library
- 182BookThe California Campaigns of the U.S.-Mexican War, 1846-1848Hunt Janin et al. — McFarland & Company — 2015
- 183Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgowww.ourdocuments.gov
- 185Population and Housing Unit Counts. 1990 Census of Population and Housing. CPH-2-1.U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census
- 186BookRecovering History, Constructing Race: The Indian, Black, and White Roots of Mexican AmericansMartha Menchaca — University of Texas Press — 2001
- 189Linscott, 1959, pp. 218–219.
- 190Congressional Globe, 30th Session (1848)Memory.loc.gov
- 191House Journal, 30th Session (1848), pp. 183–184/Memory.loc.gov
- 192BookLincolnDavid Herbert Donald — 1995
- 193Groom, Winston "Kearny's March" Alfred A. Knopf, 2011, p. 275
- 194BookThe Conduct of LifeRalph Waldo Emerson — 1860
- 195BookBattle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War EraJames M. McPherson — OUP USA — 1988
- 196Christensen, The U.S.–Mexican War, p. 190.
- 198Christiansen, The U.S.–Mexico War, p. 220
- 199Chernow, Ron. Grant. New York: Penguin Press 2017, p. 49
- 200Chernow, Grant p. 46
- 201quoted in Chernow, Grant, p. 55.
- 202Ulysses S Grant Quotes on the Military Academy and the Mexican WarFadedgiant.net
- 203BookPersonal Memoirs of General U. S. GrantUlysses S. Grant — 1885
- 204BookRobert E. Lee; a BiographyRobert Winston — W. Morrow & Co — 1934
- 205quoted in Chernow, Grant, p. 58.
- 206BookWarriors Seven: Seven American Commanders, Seven Wars, and the Irony of BattleBarney Sneiderman — Savas Beatie — 2006
- 207Christensen, The U.S.–Mexican War, p. 187.
- 208BookThe Movement for the Acquisition of All Mexico, 1846–1848John Douglas Pitts Fuller — Da Capo Press — 1969
- 209BookRace over empire: racism and U.S. imperialism, 1865-1900University of North Carolina Press — 2010
- 210BookRemembering the forgotten war: the enduring legacies of the U.S./Mexican WarUniversity of Massachusetts Press — 2012
- 211BookAmerican umpireElizabeth Cobbs — Harvard University Press — 2013
- 212BookThe American West: A New Interpretive HistoryRobert V Hine et al. — Yale University Press — 2000
- 214Davies, Wallace E. "The Mexican War Veterans as an Organized Group." The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, vol. 35, no. 2, 1948, pp. 221–238. . Accessed May 19, 2020.
- 215Van Wagenen, Remembering the Forgotten War, p. 64
- 216Van Wagenen, Michael Scott. "US–Mexican War Veterans and the Congressional Pension Fight." Military History of the West 40 (2010).
- 219BookThe Occupation of Mexico, May 1846–July 1848Stephen A. Carney — Government Printing Office — 2005
- 221Santoni, Pedro. "U.S.–Mexican War" in Encyclopedia of Mexico, Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn 1997, p. 1511.
- 222BookThe Other Side: or Notes for the History of the War between Mexico and the United StatesJohn Wiley — 1850
- 223Connors, Thomas G. and Raúl Isaí Muñoz, "Looking for the North American Invasion in Mexico City." American Historical Review vol. 125, no. 2, April 2020, p. 502.
- 224Van Wagenen, Michael. Remembering the Forgotten War: The Enduring Legacies of the U.S.–Mexican War. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2012.
- 225Connors and Muñoz, "Look for the North American Invasion in Mexico City," pp. 511–512.
- 226Van Wagenen, Remembering the Forgotten War, pp. 123–124.
- 227BookMonterrey Is Ours!: The Mexican War Letters of Lieutenant Dana, 1845–1847Napoleon Jackson Tecumseh Dana — University Press of Kentucky — 1990
- 228BookPersonal Memoirs of U. S. GrantUlysses S. Grant — Charles L. Webster & Co — 1885
- 229BookThe Diary of James K. Polk During his Presidency, 1845 to 1849James, K. Polk — A. C. McClurg & Co — 2017
- 230BookThe Mexican War Journal of Captain Franklin SmithFranklin Smith — University Press of Mississippi — 1991
- 231BookChronicles of the Gringos: The U.S. Army in the Mexican War, 1846–1848, Accounts of Eyewitnesses and CombatantsThe University of New Mexico Press — 1968
- 232BookThe Papers of Daniel Webster, CorrespondenceDaniel Webster — The University Press of New England — 1984
- 233Treaty of Guadalupe HidalgoInternet Sourcebook Project
- 23428th Congress, 2nd sessionUnited States House Journal
- 23529th Congress, 1st sessionUnited States House Journal
- 23628th Congress, 2nd sessionUnited States Senate Journal
- 23729th Congress, 1st sessionUnited States Senate Journal