Mexican–American War

Mexican-American War
Date 1846–1848 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 (Mexican government estimate)

The Mexican-American War was fought between the United States and Mexico between 1846 and 1848. It is sometimes also referred to as Mr. Polk's War or the U.S. Invasion of Mexico. Its most important consequence was the Mexican Cession, or the resulting sale of the Mexican territories of California and New Mexico to the U.S. and the recognition of the annexation of Republic of Texas. The war coincided with a period of political turmoil in Mexico.

Background

The Mexican-American War grew out of a US expansionist ideology known as Manifest Destiny. Interest in the lands to the west of the United States had been growing. Some of the lands in this region had become familiar to American mountain men as well as tradesmen who frequented the Santa Fe Trail. A few hundred Americans were already in California, coming by way of the California Trail, and American ships had been exchanging various goods for hides and tallow all along the coast of California. All of this was, before the Mexican-American war, the sovereign territory of the independent Mexican republic for some 30 years, and before that, part of the Spanish imperial claim in North America.

American Settlers were steadily migrating into Mexican held territories, some by invitation of the Spanish colonial government before Mexico declared its independence, and many illegally both before and after independence. The new Mexican government, weakened and virtually bankrupt from the War of Independence found it difficult to administer its distant northern territories, and in particular, to enforce the abolition of slavery in Texas. In California, the few Anglo Americans who immigrated there typically married into the upper class families of Californios and in general, abided by what little regulation came their way from distant Mexico City. Massive immigration into California, however, did not occur until the Gold Rush.

Mexico never recognized the Republic of Texas after the 1836 Texas Revolution. Mexico declared its intention to recapture what it considered to be a breakaway province. But nearly a decade had passed and Texas had solidified its position by establishing diplomatic ties with Great Britain and the United States. Officials in the Republic of Texas had for most of its short existence expressed interest in being annexed to the United States, however this had been blocked in Congress because of ongoing difficulties regarding admission of slave states. Finally in 1845, in his last days in office, President John Tyler used the fear of a British encroachment to swing the offer of annexation to Texas. Texas accepted, and became the 28th state of the United States.

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.

After the annexation of Texas, newly elected President James K. Polk set out to acquire the Mexican provinces of California and New Mexico (which then covered all of the present-day southwest United States), for up to $30 million. In 1845, Polk sent diplomat John Slidell to negotiate this sale. American expansionists wanted California in order to have a port on the Pacific Ocean, which would allow the United States to participate in the lucrative trade with Asia. Furthermore, Mexico's hold on its distant province was weak, and American expansionists feared that California would eventually be acquired by Great Britain, which, according to the thinking of the Monroe Doctrine, was a threat to U.S. security.

In January 1846, 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. Whereas the United States recognized the border at the Rio Grande, in accordance with the broken Treaties of Velasco and understandings by Texan and Mexican citizens. 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 on the opposite side of the river, in Matamoros, commanded by General Mariano Arista prepared for war.

Slidell's arrival in Mexico caused political turmoil after word leaked out that he was there to purchase additional territory and not to offer compensation for the loss of Texas. President Mariano Paredes y Arrillaga, who had seized control of Mexico from José Joaquin de Herrera in a bloodless military coup, refused to receive Slidell, citing a problem with his credentials. Slidell returned to Washington, D.C. at the beginning of May, 1846.

Hostilities and declaration of war

On 24 April 1846, 2,000 Mexican cavalry crossed the Rio Grande, and attacked an American troop of 63 soldiers. This was called, in the USA, the Thornton Affair, named after the commander of these troops. 11 were killed, and most of the rest were captured, although a few escaped and related what occurred back at Fort Brown.

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.

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 English speaking immigrants. Mexico's sovereignty, recognized by the United States, had been acquired from Spain after the success of Mexico's War of Independence in 1821. The U.S. made no claim to the territories, but repeatedly attempted to purchase them from Mexico in the years before the Mexican-American war.

On June 14, 1846 30 American settlers in Sonoma, arrested and imprisoned the 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. John Charles Fremont arrived at the so called "Bear Flag Revolt" in Sonoma on June 25th and organized the Bear Flag rebels into a motley group of calling itself the California Batallion.

On July 7th 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 13th, 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, Jose Maria Flores. Gillespie´s small but oppresive 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 scraped 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 re-inforcements 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 recieved 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 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 16th, 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 [|Battles of 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 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.

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 half of its territory, mostly unpopulated, in the war. 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 1000 thousands Mexican families in California and 7000 in New Mexico. A few moved to to Mexico; the great majority remained, becoming American citizens.

In the month before the end of the war, the president 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 . 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 acquired the southern half of the Oregon Country in 1846) 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 as 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." [1] 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.

Some later historians, such as Howard Zinn, cite the Mexican-American War as an example of American imperialism.

See also

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

References

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

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)

External links

• The Handbook of Texas Online: Mexican War
• The Mexican War
• Mexican-American War Resources
• 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