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(August First 1467) Dear Diary, Congress has sailed today, with all marines full of men on route for San Pedro, Mexico
(August Thirteenth 1467) Congress has invaded Mexico, we have taken parts.

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California As I Saw: General John Bidwell 

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California As I Saw: General John Bidwell 

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" I can say, I think I saw as many buffalo there than I have seen cattle over my entire life .  I have seen the plain black with the for several days on my journey as far as I could physically go. They seemed to be coming northward from the distant planes to the Platte continuously for their water, and would go in the water and swim but the thousands. One night when we were camped on the South Fork of the Platte, the came in in such force, we had to fire our guns too drive them away because they almost trampled over our entire camp."

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Today, On the 25th of April, 1846, Mexican cavalry attacked a group of U.S. soldiers in the disputed zone under the command of General Zachary Taylor, killing around a dozen troops. Mexican Cavalry then proceeded to capture an American fort along the Rio Grande.

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Spanish:

Guerra de 1847 or Guerra de Estados Unidos a Mexico ("War of the United States Against Mexico")

What was the Mexican-American War?

What did the Mexican-American War have to do with Manifest Destiny?

Was there opposition to the Mexican-American War within the United States?

What did the U.S. gain by winning the Mexican-American War?

How did the Mexican-American War increase sectionalism in the United States?

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Mexican-American War, war between the United States and Mexico (April 1846-February 1848) stemming from the United States' annexation of Texas in 1845 and from a dispute over whether Texas ended at the Nueces River (Mexican claim) or the Rio Grande (U.S. claim). The war-in which U.S. forces were consistently victorious-resulted in the United States' acquisition of more than 500,000 square miles (1,300,000 square km) of Mexican territory extending westward from the Rio Grande to the Pacific Ocean.

"American blood on American soil": Polk and the prelude to war

Mexico severed relations with the United States in March 1845, shortly after the U.S. annexation of Texas. In September U.S. Pres. James K. Polk sent John Slidell on a secret mission to Mexico City to negotiate the disputed Texas border, settle U.S. claims against Mexico, and purchase New Mexico and California for up to $30 million. Mexican Pres. José Joaquín Herrera, aware in advance of Slidell's intention of dismembering the country, refused to receive him. When Polk learned of the snub, he ordered troops under Gen. Zachary Taylor to occupy the disputed area between the Nueces and the Rio Grande (January 1846).

On May 9, 1846, Polk began to prepare a war message to Congress, justifying hostilities on the grounds of Mexican refusal to pay U.S. claims and refusal to negotiate with Slidell. That evening he received word that Mexican troops had crossed the Rio Grande on April 25 and attacked Taylor 's troops, killing or injuring 16 of them. In his quickly revised war message-delivered to Congress on May 11-Polk claimed that Mexico had "invaded our territory and shed American blood on American soil."

Spot Resolutions and Civil Disobedience: American opposition to the war

Congress overwhelmingly approved a declaration of war on May 13, but the United States entered the war divided. Democrats, especially those in the Southwest, strongly favoured the conflict. Most Whigs viewed Polk's motives as conscienceless land grabbing. Indeed, from the outset, Whigs in both the Senate and the House challenged the veracity of Polk's assertion that the initial conflict between U.S. and Mexican forces had taken place in U.S. territory. Further, legislators were at odds over whether Polk had the right to unilaterally declare that a state of war existed. Principally at issue was where the encounter had actually taken place and the willingness of Americans to acknowledge the Mexican contention that the Nueces River formed the border between the two countries. Active Whig opposition not only to the legitimacy of Polk's claim but also to the war itself continued well into the conflict. In December 1846 Polk accused his Whig doubters of treason. In January 1847 the by-then Whig-controlled House voted 85 to 81 to censure Polk for having "unnecessarily and unconstitutionally" initiated war with Mexico.

Among the most-aggressive challenges to the legitimacy of Polk's casus belli was that offered by future president Abraham Lincoln, then a first-term member of the House of Representatives from Illinois. In December 1847 Lincoln introduced eight " Spot Resolutions," which placed the analysis of Polk's claim in a carefully delineated historical context that sought to

obtain a full knowledge of all the facts which go to establish whether the particular spot of soil on which the blood of our citizens was so shed was, or was not, our own soil at that time.

Ultimately, the House did not act on Lincoln's resolutions, and Polk remained steadfast in his claim that the conflict was a just war.

Abolitionists saw the war as an attempt by the slave states to extend slavery and enhance their power with the creation of additional slave states out of the soon-to-be-acquired Mexican lands. One abolitionist who agreed with that interpretation was author Henry David Thoreau, who was incarcerated in July 1846 when he refused to pay six years' worth of back poll taxes because he felt the U.S. government's prosecution of the war with Mexico was immoral. Although he spent only a single night in jail (his aunt, against his wishes, paid the taxes, thus securing his release), Thoreau documented his opposition to the government's actions in his famous book-length essay Civil Disobedience (1849), insisting that if an injustice of government is

of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.

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Mexican-American War | Significance, Battles, Results, Timeline, & Facts

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Mexican-American War, war between the U.S. and Mexico from 1846 to 1848. It was caused by a territorial dispute stemming from the United States' annexation of Texas in 1845 and from contention over whether Texas ended at the Nueces River or the Rio Grande.