Mexican–American War

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Mexican-American War
Date1846–1848
Location
Texas, New Mexico, California; Northern, Central and Eastern Mexico; Mexico City
Result US victory; Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexican Cession
Belligerents
United States Mexico
Commanders and leaders
Zachary Taylor
Winfield Scott
Stephen W. Kearney		 Antonio López de Santa Anna
Mariano Arista
Pedro de Ampudia
Strength
60,000 40,000
Casualties and losses
KIA: 1,733
Total dead: 13,283
Wounded: 4,152		 25,000 killed or wounded (Mexican government estimate)

The Mexican-American War was a military conflict fought between the United States and Mexico in the years 1846 to 1848. It is also referred to as the U.S.-Mexican War or (from a U.S. perspective) the Mexican War; contemporary critics occasionally labeled it Mr. Polk's War. In Mexico, it is sometimes called La Guerra de Intervención Norteamericana (the War of North American Intervention).

The war arose from the competing claims to Texas by Mexico and the United States in the wake of the Texas Revolution. Texas had just fought a war of independence against Mexico, which considered Texas a "breakaway province" and refused to recognize its independence. The root causes of war were westward expansion on the part of Americans and political instability in Mexico in the aftermath of the Mexican War of Independence, which had made it difficult for the United States to negotiate with Mexico and for Mexico to administer its northern territories. Texans strongly favored the war. In the United States, the war was bitterly opposed by the Whig party. In Mexico the war was considered a matter of defensive necessity.

The most important consequence of the war was the Mexican Cession, in which the Mexican territories of California and New Mexico were sold to the United States. American politics entered several years of heated debate over slavery in the new territories, finally resolved by the Compromise of 1850. In Mexico there was little impact as the political turmoil continued unabated.

Background to the war

Prior to the Mexican-American War, some of the lands in this region had already become familiar to American mountain men and tradesmen who frequented the Santa Fe Trail. Americans were already in California, coming by way of the California Trail, and American ships had been exchanging goods for hides and tallow along the coast of California. All of this area was, before the Mexican-American War, the sovereign territory of the independent Mexican republic for 25 years, and before that, part of the Spanish Empire in North America.

In the years following the Louisiana Purchase by the United States, settlers from the U.S. ("Anglos") had begun to move westward into Spanish territory, encouraged in part by Spanish land grants and the United States government. When Mexico gained control of this territory after the Mexican War of Independence, the westward migration continued. The Mexican government had an uneasy relationship with these early settlers, in part because the settlers being mostly Protestants in officially Catholic Mexico. When Mexico abolished slavery nationwide, some immigrants from the U.S. refused to comply with the law and resisted governmental efforts to enforce their national abolition of slavery in the territory. This was coupled with complaints about the tightening political and economic control over the territory by the central government in Mexico City, leading to the Texas Revolution.

The new Mexican government, weakened and virtually bankrupt from the Mexican War of Independence, found it difficult to administer its distant northern territories, which in any case were thousands of miles from Mexico City, the nation's capital.

Republic of Texas

In 1836, after defeating Santa Anna and his Mexican army, Texas achieved independence. In the decade that followed, Texas solidified its position by establishing diplomatic ties with Great Britain and the United States. Texans wanted annexation to the United States, but was refused because of ongoing difficulties regarding admission of slave states. Finally in 1845, annexation was achieved and Texas became the 28th state of the United States.

Mexico never recognized the Republic of Texas after the successful 1836 Texas Revolution. Mexico declared its intention to recapture the Republic of Texas, which it considered a breakaway province.

The Mexican government, in the throes of its own volatile changes in power, reacted to this development with complaints that the United States, by annexing its rebel province, was intervening in Mexico's internal affairs and had unjustly seized sovereign Mexican territory. British envoys had repeatedly attempted to dissuade Mexico from declaring war, but British efforts to mediate were fruitless as additional political disputes (particularly the Oregon boundary dispute) arose between Britain and the United States.

President Polk in 1845 sent diplomat John Slidell to Mexico City in an attempt to purchase what are now California and New Mexico. American expansionists wanted California to thwart British ambitions in the area and to have a port on the Pacific Ocean, which would allow the United States to participate in the lucrative trade with Asia. Mexico, in political and economic disarray, had failed to make payments on $4.5 million it owed United States citizens for damages incurred during the Mexican War of Independence. Polk authorized Slidell to forgive the debt and pay another $25 to $30 million in exchange for California and New Mexico.

Mexican leaders, however, were not in a position to negotiate with Slidell. As one Mexican historian explains: [1]

Mexican public opinion and all the various political factions that aspired to or that actually shared in power at that time, had to--willingly or unwillingly--participate in a very hawkish attitude toward the war. 3 Anyone who tried to avoid open conflict with the United States was treated as a traitor. That was precisely the case of President José Joaquin de Herrera. At one time he, at least, seriously considered receiving the American special envoy, John Slidell, in order to negotiate the problem of Texas annexation peacefully. But as soon as he assumed that position, the president was accused of favoring the handing over of a part of national territory; he was accused of treason and was overthrown.

Mexican officials thus refused to meet Slidell. Moreover, military opponents of the Mexican president José Joaquin de Herrera considered Slidell's presence in Mexico City an insult, and a nationalistic government under General Mariano Paredes y Arrillaga seized power. When Paredes y Arrillaga publicly reaffirmed Mexico's claim to Texas, Slidell left in a temper, convinced that Mexico should be "chastised." [1]

Hostilities in Texas

In January 1846, after Texas was admitted into the Union, Polk increased pressure on Mexico to sell by sending troops under General Zachary Taylor into the area between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande—territory that was claimed by both Texas and Mexico. The original Mexican province of Texas had the border at the Nueces River and Mexico recognized this as the current border. The United States on the other hand recognized the border at the Rio Grande. Taylor ignored Mexican demands that he withdraw, and marched to the bank of the Rio Grande, where he began to build Fort Brown. The Mexican forces under General Mariano Arista on the opposite side of the river in Matamoros prepared for war.

On April 24, 1846, 2,000 Mexican cavalry crossed the Rio Grande, and attacked a 63-man American patrol, killing 11 U.S. soldiers in what later became known as the Thornton Affair, after the slain U.S. officer who was in command. A few survivors escaped and related what occurred back at Fort Brown. American blood had been shed on disputed soil.

On May 3, the artillery at Matamoros began to shell Fort Brown, to which they replied sparingly with their own artillery. The bombardment continued for 5 days and expanded as the Mexican forces gradually surrounded the fort. Two soldiers were killed during the bombardment including Jacob Brown, after whom the fort was later named.

On May 8, Zachary Taylor arrived with 2,400 troops to relieve the fort. However Arista rushed north and intercepted him with a force of 3,400 at Palo Alto. The Americans used a new artillery method named flying artillery - a mobile light artillery that was mounted on horse carriages, with all cannoneers mounted as well. In addition, the shells exploded on impact to a devastating effect on the Mexican Army. The Mexicans responded with cavalry skirmishes and its own reply of artillery. The American flying artillery somewhat demoralized the Mexican side and they felt the need to find a terrain more to their advantage. They relocated to the far side of a dry riverbed (resaca) during the night, which provided a natural fortification, but also scattered their troops so that communication was difficult. During the Battle of Resaca de la Palma the next day, the two sides engaged in vicious hand-to-hand fighting. The American cavalry managed to capture the Mexican artillery, leading the Mexican side to retreat and then re-rout. Because of the terrain and the dispersion of his troops, Arista found it impossible to rally his forces. Mexican casualties were heavy, and they were forced to abandon their artillery and baggage. Fort Brown inflicted further casualties as the withdrawing troops passed them and swam across the Rio Grande.

Declaration of war

By now Polk had received word of the Thornton attack, 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. Democrats overwhelmingly supported the war. 67 Whigs voted against it on a key amendment, but on the final passage only 14 Whigs voted no. The United States declared war on Mexico on May 13, 1846, and Mexico declared war on 23 May.

Whigs in both North and South generally opposed the war, while Democrats mostly supported it. Whig Abraham Lincoln contested the causes for the war at that time, and demanded to know the exact spot on which Thornton had been attacked and U.S. blood had been shed.

"This war is a nondescript," declared Whig leader Robert Toombs of Georgia; "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]

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.

War in California

At that time all western Mexican territories, the present-day California and south-west United States, were thinly populated, with small and scattered settlements of both Spanish-speaking Californios and Hispanos and English-speaking immigrants, both outnumbered by native American populations. Mexico's sovereignty, recognized by the United States, had been acquired from Spain after the success of Mexico's War of Independence in 1821.

On June 14, 1846 30 American settlers in Sonoma, after a night of drinking, arrested and imprisoned the Lieutenant Colonel-Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo and proclaimed an independent republic of California; this proved to be a short lived "republic" and its influence never reached further than Sonoma and scattered parts of northern California. General John C. Frémont arrived at the so called "Bear Flag Revolt" in Sonoma on June 25th and organized the Bear Flag rebels into a motley group calling itself the California Batallion.

On July 7 on the Pacific coast, Sloat claimed Monterey (a town on the Californian coast, not to be confused with Monterrey, Nuevo León), taking formal control of California under the American Flag. Subsequently he transferred his command to Commodore Robert F. Stockton on July 15th.

On August 13, 1846, American naval forces sailed into Los Angeles and raised the American Flag without opposition. However, the hard handed martial law of Captain Archibald Gillespie as acting commander of Los Angeles ignited a popular uprising led by a Mexican patriot in California, José Mariá Flores. Gillespie's small but oppressive garrison was thrown out on September 23rd and his life was spared in a truce if he immediately left California.

Stockton was informed of this revolt by the ¨Paul Revere¨ of California, Lean John, and promised to make quick work of the uprising and their leaders by sending Captain William Mervine and a ship to San Pedro. As Captain Mervine landed his 350 men on October 7th, 1846, Gillespie, seeing Mervine and his marines land, immediately scrapped the truce made with the Californios. The new expedition quickly set out for Los Angeles, anxious to cover themselves in military glory. In a skirmish known as ¨The Battle of the Old Woman's Gun¨, mounted Californios led by Jose Antonio Carillo met Mervine's marines with fire from a single cannon which took a terrible toll on Mervine's men, forcing him to retreat with his marines back to his ship Savannah, where the Californios couldn't reach them. This battle is also known as the Battle of Dominguez Rancho. During the skirmish, 14 US Marines were killed. The Californios suffered no dead and 5 wounded. As a great number of American reinforcements approached, the Californios retreated as night fell. Commodore Stockton landed in San Diego and later relieved Mervine and Gillespie with large reinforcements.

Meanwhile, General Stephen Watts Kearny and the Army of the West (some 1,700 U.S. army troops) marched to Santa Fe, New Mexico and took control. Kearny then proceeded onward with a considerably lower detachment of 300 dragoons along the Gila river valley, and across the deserts to California with eventually less than 150 men. General Kearny had been ill advised by a number of Americans, including his famous scout-Kit Carson, that the Californios were basically cowards and that they would sooner run than fight. Kearny received the news that Andres Pico and his insurgents of Southern California were in the vicinity, and looked forward to his first actual battle in the Mexican War of the north. Before dawn on December 6th, 1846, in a place called San Pascual (near present day Escondido) General Kearny and the Army of the West, augmented by Gillespie's men, fought a pitched battle with less than 150 Californios. The battle took a terrible toll on the American soldiers of 22 killed, including the Captain A.R. Johnston, Captain Moore (leader of the dragoons). The Californios, world renowned for the horsemanship, easily outmanuevered the Americans with their lassos roping them off their horses and dragging them to their death, or stabbed with the long Californio lances. Archibald Gillespie was wounded several times, as well as General Kearny who was stabbed quite severely in the buttocks. The Battle of San Pascual was a decisive defeat and setback for the American conquest of California.

On November 16, 1846, another battle took place at the Rancho La Natividad (near present day Salinas Valley). The Californios under Joaquin de la Torre had captured the American consul-Thomas Oliver Larkin and were holding him as a prisoner of war. Some 100 of Fremont's men, led by Bluford "Hell Roaring" Thompson and Charles Burroughs met a contingent of 130 Californios led by Commandante Manuel de Jesus Casto and Joaquin de la Torre. A battle ensued lasting 20 minutes in which the Californio force killed 5 Americans, including Captain Burroughs, and wounded several more.

Upon arriving in southern California, Stockton united with naval reinforcements and won the very minor skirmishes of Battle of Rio San Gabriel and La Mesa and as a result took control of San Diego and Los Angeles. The Treaty of Cahuenga was signed on January 13, 1847 between John Charles Fremont and General Andrés Pico to end the conflict in California.

War in Central Mexico

In Mexico, the loss at Resaca de la Palma caused political turmoil in Mexico which Antonio López de Santa Anna used to return from self-imposed exile in Cuba. He promised a peaceful conclusion to the war and sale of territory to the Americans so as to pass through their blockades. He then, after his arrival, reneged on these promises and offered his military skills to the Mexican government. After he had been appointed general, he reneged again, this time to his own government, and seized the presidency.

A large force 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 under General Pedro de Ampudia and Catholic-American defectors Batallón de San Patricio made the American troops life difficult. However an infantry division and the Texas Rangers captured four hills to the west of the town and with them heavy cannon. That lent the Americans the strength to storm the city from the west and east. Once in the city, Americans fought house to house: each was cleared by throwing lighted shells, which worked like primitive 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, south of Monterrey. Santa Anna blamed the loss of Monterrey and Saltillo on Ampudia and demoted him to command a small artillery batallion.

On February 22, 1847, Santa Anna personally marched north to fight Taylor with 20,000 men. Taylor had dug in at a mountain pass near a hacienda called Buena Vista with 4,600 men. 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 Americans the night he arrived, then attacked in the next morning. Santa Anna flanked the American 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 Buena Vista. Furious fighting ensued during which the Americans 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. Taylor later used the Battle of Buena Vista as the centerpiece of his successful 1848 presidential campaign.

Meanwhile, rather than reinforce Taylor's army for a continued advance, President Polk sent a second army under U.S. general Winfield Scott in March, which was transported to the port of Veracruz by sea, to begin an invasion of the Mexican heartland. Polk distrusted Taylor, who 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.

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 was 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 foe, and they surrendered the city after 12 days under siege. Americans suffered 80 casualties, while the Mexican side had around 180 killed and wounded, about half of whom were civilian. During the siege, the American 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 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 American positions, Santa Anna and his troops were unprepared for the onslaught that followed. The Mexican army was routed. The Americans suffered 400 casualties, while the Mexicans suffered over 1,000 casualties and 3,000 were taken prisoner.

In May, Scott pushed on to Puebla, at the time the second largest city in Mexico. Because of the citizens' hostility to Santa Anna, the city capitulated without resistance on May 15. Mexico City was laid open in the Battle of Chapultepec and subsequently occupied.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed on February 2, 1848, ended the war and gave the U.S undisputed control of Texas as well as California, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Wyoming. In return, Mexico received $18,250,000, the equivalent of $627,500,000 in mid-2000s dollars. Article X was struck from the treaty when it was ratified by the U.S. Senate. These articles promised that the United States would recognize Mexican and Spanish land grants and that Mexicans living in the conquered lands would be afforded the same rights as American citizens.

Combatants

During the course of the war, approximately 13,000 American soldiers died. Of these, only about 1,700 were from actual combat; the other casualties stemmed from disease and unsanitary conditions. Mexican casualties remain somewhat of a mystery, and 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 firearms from the Napoleonic War, while American troops had the latest American manufactured weapons. Furthermore, Mexican troops were trained to fire with their rifle held loosely at hip-level, while Americans 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 Irish immigrant soldiers who deserted the U.S. Army and joined the Mexican army. Most were killed in the Battle of Churubusco; about 100 were captured and hanged as deserters. The last surviving US veteran of the conflict, Owen Thomas Edgar, died on September 3, 1929 at the age of 98.

Politics of the war

Mexico lost more than 500,000 square miles (1,300,000 square km) of land, which was almost half of its territory. The war also elicited the sense of national unity in Mexico, which had been lacking since the Independence movement dissolved in 1821.

The war also provoked the emergence of a new class of politicians in Mexico. They finally got rid of Santa Anna's grip over Mexico and eventually proclaimed a liberal republic in 1857. One of the first acts of the liberal republic was the enactment of several laws that facilitated and propelled the colonization of the vast and sparsely populated northern Mexican States. Avoiding further territorial losses was the driving idea behind the colonization laws.

On the other hand, 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, becoming US citizens.

In the month before the end of the war, Polk was criticized in a House amendment to a bill praising Maj. 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[2] [3]. The vote was along party lines, with all the Whigs supporting the amendment. Lincoln's attack damaged his political career in Illinois, where the war was popular, and he did not run for re-election.

For many Americans, victory in the war brought a surge in patriotism as the acquisition of new western lands (the country had also officially acquired the southern half of the Oregon Country in 1846, via a treaty that divided the Oregon Country between Great Britain and the United States) 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 election of 1848, praising his military performance while muting its criticism of the war itself.

The war had been widely supported by Democrats, and opposed by Whigs. Many Northern abolitionists attacked the war as an attempt by the slave-owners to expand slavery and assure their continued influence in the Federal government. Henry David Thoreau wrote his essay Civil Disobedience and refused to pay taxes because of this war. Former president John Quincy Adams also expressed his belief that the war was an effort to expand slavery. In 1846, Democratic Congressman David Wilmot introduced the Wilmot Proviso to prohibit slavery in any new territory acquired from Mexico. Wilmot's proposal did not pass, but it sparked further hostility between the factions.

Ulysses S. Grant, who served in the war under Scott's command, in the 1880s called the conflict an evil war that brought God's punishment 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 teenage military cadets who leapt to their deaths from the castle battlements 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 a hundred years after the battle, U.S. President Harry S. Truman placed a wreath at the monument and stood for a few moments of silent reverence.

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ Miguel E. Soto, "The Monarchist Conspiracy and the Mexican War" in Essays on the Mexican War ed by Wayne Cutler; Texas A&M University Press. 1986. pp 66-67
  2. ^ Congressional Globe, 30th Session (1848) pp.93-95
  3. ^ House Journal, 30th Session (1848) pp.183-184

References

Primary sources

Secondary sources

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.

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)

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)

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