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The first United States president elected after the Mexican War was a popular hero of that war, General Zachary Taylor. After 40 years in the army, he became the first man to occupy the nation's highest office without previous political experience. The biggest problem he faced was how to organize the large Southwest territory acquired from Mexico. Amid a national crisis between the North and the South over the territory, Taylor died suddenly on July 9, 1850, only 16 months after his inauguration.
In 1808 Taylor received a commission as first lieutenant in the 7th Infantry (Regiment). During the next 40 years he served at several frontier posts and fought in the War of 1812, in Indian wars in the old Northwest Territory and Florida, and in the Mexican War. Among the men who served under him were Abraham Lincoln, in the Black Hawk War, and Ulysses S. Grant and Jefferson Davis, in the Mexican War.
Taylor was an able and respected military commander. He wore a simple, informal uniform and in combat often exposed himself to enemy fire. His stocky build and stout endurance led his men to nickname him Old Rough and Ready.
Two years after he entered the army Taylor married Margaret Smith of Maryland. They reared four children. The only son, Richard, became a Louisiana planter and later served as a lieutenant general in the Confederate army. All three daughters—Anne Mackall, Sarah Knox, and Mary Elizabeth married army men. Sarah's husband was Jefferson Davis. |
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| James Knox Polk was born Nov. 2, 1795, in Mecklenburg County, N.C. He was the eldest of the ten children of Samuel and Jane Knox Polk. His ancestors were Scotch-Irish. The first to come to America settled in Maryland early in the 18th century. As the frontier moved westward, the Polks pioneered into North Carolina. In 1806 Samuel Polk, a well-to-do farmer, moved his family to new land in the Duck River valley in west-central Tennessee.For four years Polk was speaker of the House, a trying position in those turbulent times. Some anti-Jackson men tried to badger Polk into a duel, but he was unruffled. He always believed that every man, even a foe, had the right to his own opinion. Most of the House admired his fairness. Even his political enemy, John Quincy Adams, serving in Congress after his presidency, declared that Speaker Polk gave him “every kindness and courtesy imaginable.” |
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| Lincoln was born on Feb. 12, 1809, in a log cabin in Hardin (now Larue) County, Ky. Indians had killed his grandfather, Lincoln wrote, "when he was laboring to open a farm in the forest" in 1786; this tragedy left his father, Thomas Lincoln, "a wandering laboring boy" who "grew up, literally without education." Thomas, nevertheless, became a skilled carpenter and purchased three farms in Kentucky before the Lincolns left the state. Little is known about Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln. Abraham had an older sister, Sarah, and a younger brother, Thomas, who died in infancy.As a commander in chief Lincoln was soon noted for vigorous measures, sometimes at odds with the Constitution and often at odds with the ideas of his military commanders. After a period of initial support and enthusiasm for George B. McClellan, Lincoln's conflicts with that Democratic general helped to turn the latter into his presidential rival in 1864. Famed for his clemency for court-martialed soldiers, Lincoln nevertheless took a realistic view of war as best prosecuted by killing the enemy. Above all, he always sought a general, no matter what his politics, who would fight. He found such a general in Ulysses S. Grant, to whom he gave overall command in 1864. Thereafter, Lincoln took a less direct role in military planning, but his interest never wavered, and he died with a copy of Gen. William Sherman's orders for the March to the Sea in his pocket. Politics vied with war as Lincoln's major preoccupation in the presidency. The war required the deployment of huge numbers of men and quantities of materiel; for administrative assistance, therefore, Lincoln turned to the only large organization available for his use, the Republican party. With some rare but important exceptions (for example, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton), Republicans received the bulk of the civilian appointments from the cabinet to the local post offices. Lincoln tried throughout the war to keep the Republican party together and never consistently favored one faction in the party over another. Military appointments were divided between Republicans and Democrats |
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| Antonio López de Santa Anna Pérez de Lebrón, soldier and five-time president of Mexico, was born at Jalapa, Vera Cruz, on February 21, 1794, the son of Antonio López de Santa Anna and Manuela Pérez de Lebrón. His family belonged to the criollo middle class, and his father served at one time as a subdelegate for the Spanish province of Vera Cruz. After a limited schooling the young Santa Anna worked for a merchant of Vera Cruz. In June 1810 he was appointed a cadet in the Fijo de Vera Cruz infantry regiment under the command of Joaquín de Arredondo. He spent the next five years battling insurgents and policing the Indian tribes of the Provincias Internas. Like most criollo officers in the Royalist army, he remained loyal to Spain for a number of years and fought against the movement for Mexican independence. He received his first wound, an Indian arrow in his left arm or hand, in 1811. In 1813 he served in Texas against the Gutiérrez-Magee expedition, and at the battle of Medina he was cited for bravery. In the aftermath of the rebellion the young officer witnessed Arredondo's fierce counterinsurgency policy of mass executions, and historians have speculated that Santa Anna modeled his policy and conduct in the Texas Revolution on his experience under Arredondo. He once again served under Arrendondo against the filibustering expedition of Francisco Xavier Mina in 1817. The young officer spent the next several years in building Indian villages and in occasional campaigns, while he acquired debts, some property, and promotions. In 1820 he was promoted to brevet captain, and he became a brevet lieutenant colonel the following year. |
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| In 1823, only two years after Anglo-American colonization formally began in Texas, empresario Stephen F. Austin hired ten experienced frontiersmen as "rangers" for a punitive expedition against a band of Indians. But not until November 24, 1835, did Texas lawmakers institute a specific force known as the Texas Rangers. The organization had a complement of fifty-six men in three companies, each officered by a captain and two lieutenants, whose immediate superior and leader had the rank of major and was subject to the commander-in-chief of the regular army. The major was responsible for enlisting recruits, enforcing rules, and applying discipline. Officers received the same pay as United States dragoons and privates-$1.25 a day; however, they supplied their own mounts, equipment, arms, and rations. At all times they had to be ready to ride, equipped "with a good and sufficient horse...[and] with one hundred rounds of powder and ball." |
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| Mariano Arista, Mexican general, was born at the city of San Luis Potosí, Mexico, on July 26, 1802. He entered the army as a cadet in the Puebla regiment about 1819 and rose to the rank of brigadier general. After an unsuccessful pronunciamento in favor of Centralism in 1833, he went in exile to the United States until he was repatriated and reinstated in the army in 1836. He served on the Supreme Tribunal of War and in the Supreme Military Court and in 1839 was made commandant general of Tamaulipas and general of the Mexican Army of the North. In that capacity he defeated the movement to establish the Republic of the Rio Grande in northern Tamaulipas in 1840. After a period in private life, he was recalled to active duty just before the outbreak of the Mexican War, was ordered to command the Army of the North, and was in command of Mexican troops in the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palmaqqv on May 8 and 9, 1846. After suffering defeat in both engagements and being criticized by subordinates, he relinquished his command to Francisco Mexía, requested trial by a court-martial, and was absolved of guilt. He became Mexican secretary of war in June 1848. In January 1851 he was declared by the Mexican Congress the constitutional president of Mexico. He resigned in January 1853, was forced into exile, and died near Lisbon, Portugal, on August 7, 1855. |
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| To yield or formally surrender to another. |
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The Mexican Cession of 1848 is a historical name in the United States for the region of the present day southwestern United States that Mexico ceded to the U.S. in 1848, excluding the areas east of the Rio Grande, which had been claimed by the Republic of Texas, though the Texas Annexation resolution two years earlier had not specified Texas's southern and western boundary.
The U.S. had taken actual control of the Mexican territories of Santa Fe de Nuevo México and Alta California in 1846 early in the Mexican-American War, and Mexico acknowledged the loss of Texas, New Mexico, and California in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which was signed on February 2, 1848, ratified by the U.S. Senate on March 10, 1848, and by the Mexican government on May 19, 1848. |
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| A mutual agreement in which eachside gives up something it wants in order to reach a settlement. |
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| To take vengance for or behalf of |
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| A person who wants to end slavery. |
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| A specific reguirement set by law. |
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A goverment body that has the power tomake or pass laws. |
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| The transfer of land from one country to another. |
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| The destiny to spread the U.S. boundries. |
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| The quality or state of being beneficicent. |
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| To provide justification or defence for. |
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| Erasmo Seguín, San Antonio political figure, postmaster, and businessman, the third of seven children of Santiago Seguín and María Guadalupe Fuentes, was born in San Antonio on May 26, 1782. Sometime after 1800 he married María Josefa Becerra, daughter of a noncommissioned officer of La Bahía Presidio. Of their three children, Juan Nepomuceno Seguín became an important military and political figure of the Texas Revolution and republic periods. Erasmo Seguín's public career began in 1807 when he became San Antonio postmaster, a position he held until October 1835 with only two interruptions. He opposed the Casas Revolt, which broke out in San Antonio in January 1811, helped lead the counterrevolt, and served on the local governing council until royalist officers returned. Nevertheless, during the 1812–13 Gutiérrez-Magee expedition, he came under suspicion of collaborating with revolutionaries, had his property confiscated, and was removed from office as postmaster. Unwilling to accept a pardon, he was exonerated in 1818 but did not regain the postmastership until 1822. Shortly before independence he was elected alcalde of San Antonio, the first of a number of local offices he held during the Mexican and early Republic of Texas periods. In 1825 he received an appointment from the federal government as quartermaster for the San Antonio garrison. |
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| John Slidell ( 1793 – July 29, 1871 ) was an American politician, lawyer and businessman. Originally a native of New York, Slidell moved to Louisiana as a young man and became a staunch defender of southern rights as a U.S. Representative and Senator.He was born to the merchant John Slidell and the former Margery Mackenzie, a Scot. He graduated from Columbia University (then "College") in 1810. In 1835, Slidell married the former Mathilde Deslonde, and they had three children, Alfred Slidell, Marie Rosine (later comtess de St. Roman), and Marguerite Mathilde (later baronness Frederic Emile d'Erlanger).[1] He died at age 78 |
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| Jacob Brown, United States Army officer, was born in Massachusetts and enlisted as a private in the Eleventh United States Infantry on August 3, 1812. By the time of his commissioning as an ensign in the Eleventh Infantry on April 15, 1814, he had risen to the rank of sergeant. Promotion to third lieutenant came on May 1 and to second lieutenant on September 1, 1814. On May 17, 1815, he was transferred to the Sixth Infantry, where he served as regimental quartermaster from April 16 to June 1, 1821. He was promoted to first lieutenant on August 18, 1819, to captain on April 7, 1825, and to major on February 27, 1843. |
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| Ben McCulloch, Indian fighter, Texas Ranger, United States marshal, and brigadier general in the Army of the Confederate States of America, was born in Rutherford County, Tennessee, on November 11, 1811, the fourth son of Alexander and Frances F. (LeNoir) McCulloch. His mother was the daughter of a prominent Virginia planter, and his father, a graduate of Yale College, was a major on Brig. Gen. John Coffee's staff during Andrew Jackson's campaign against the Creeks in Alabama. Ben was also the elder brother of Henry Eustace McCulloch. The McCullochs had been a prosperous and influential colonial North Carolina family but had lost much of their wealth as a result of the Revolutionary War and the improvidence of Alexander McCulloch, who so wasted his inheritance that he was unable to educate his younger sons. Two of Ben's older brothers briefly attended school taught by a close neighbor and family friend in Tennessee, Sam Houston. Like many families on the western frontier, the McCullochs moved often-from North Carolina to eastern Tennessee to Alabama and back to western Tennessee between 1812 and 1830. They settled at last near Dyersburg, Tennessee, where David Crockett was among their closest neighbors and most influential friends. After five years of farming, hunting, and rafting, but virtually no formal schooling, Ben agreed to follow Crockett to Texas, planning to meet him in Nacogdoches on Christmas Day, 1835. Ben and Henry arrived too late, however, and Ben followed Crockett alone toward San Antonio. When sickness from measles prevented him from reaching the Alamo before its fall, McCulloch joined Houston's army on its retreat into East Texas. At the battle of San Jacinto he commanded one of the famed Twin Sisters and won from Houston a battlefield commission as first lieutenant. He soon left the army, however, to earn his living as a surveyor in the Texas frontier communities of Gonzales and Seguin. He then joined the Texas Rangersqv and, as first lieutenant under John Coffee Hays, won a considerable reputation as an Indian fighter. In 1839 McCulloch was elected to the House of Representatives of the Republic of Texas in a campaign marred by a rifle duel with Reuben Ross. |
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Nicholas Philip Trist (June 2, 1800 - February 11, 1874) was an American diplomat.
Trist was born in Charlottesville, Virginia. He attended West Point and studied law under Thomas Jefferson, whose granddaughter (Virginia Jefferson Randolph, 1818-1875) he married. He was also private secretary to Andrew Jackson.
Through political connections, Trist was appointed U.S. consul in Havana, Cuba. Shortly after arriving there in 1833, Trist invested in a sugar plantation deal that went bad. He made no secret of his pro-slavery views. According to members of a British commission sent to Cuba to investigate violations of the treaty ending the African slave trade, Trist became corruptly involved in the creation of false documents designed to mask illegal sales of Africans into bondage. For a time Trist also served as the consul in Cuba for Portugal, another country whose nationals were active in the illegal slave trade. Meanwhile, Trist became very unpopular with New England ship captains who believed he was more interested in maintaining good relations with Cuban officials than in defending their interests. Captains and merchants pressed members of Congress for Trist's removal. In late 1838 or early 1839, the British commissioner Dr. Richard R. Madden wrote U.S. abolitionists about Trist's misuse of his post to promote slaving and earn fees from the fraudulent document schemes. A pamphlet detailing Madden's charges was published shortly before the beginning of the sensational Amistad affair, when Africans just sold into slavery in Cuba managed to seize control of the schooner in which they were being transported from Havana to provincial plantations. Madden traveled to the United States where he gave expert testimony in the trial of the Amistad Africans, explaining how false documents were used to make it appear that Africans were Cuban-born slaves. This exposure of the activities of the U.S. consul general, coupled with the angry complaints of ship captains, caused a Congressional investigation and eventual recall of Trist. (Neither Trist nor Madden appear in the film Amistad directed by Steven Spielberg, although there are brief Cuba scenes that suggest how the illegal slave trade was carried on there.)
During the Mexican-American War, President James K. Polk sent Trist to negotiate with the Government of Mexico. He was ordered to arrange an armistice with Santa Anna for $10,000,000 Mexican pesos.[citation needed] President Polk was unhappy with his envoy's conduct and prompted him to order Trist to return to the United States. General Winfield Scott was also unhappy with Trist's presence in Mexico, although he and Scott quickly reconciled and began a lifelong friendship. |
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| John Louis OSullivan (November 15, 1813 – March 24, 1895) was an American columnist and editor who used the term Manifest Destiny in 1845 to promote the annexation of Texas and the Oregon Country to the United States. OSullivan was an influential political writer and advocate for the Democratic Party at that time, but he faded from prominence soon thereafter. He was rescued from obscurity in the twentieth century after the famous phrase Manifest Destiny was traced back to him John L. OSullivan was born on the North Bald Atlantic Ocean during the War of 1812, his mother having taken refuge on a British ship to avoid plague in Gibraltar, where his father was engaged in business. His father, also named John, was a naturalized American citizen of Irish ancestry his mother Mary Rowly was English. OSullivan attended Columbia College in New York City, where he In 1837, OSullivan co-founded and served as editor for The United States Magazine and Democratic Review, a highly regarded journal meant to champion Jacksonian Democracy, a movement that had usually been disparaged in the more conservative North American Review. The magazine featured political essays—many of them penned by OSullivan—extolling the virtues of Jacksonian Democracy and criticizing what Democrats regarded as the aristocratic pretensions of their opponents. The journal supported Martin Van Buren in the 1840 presidential election and James K. Polk in the 1844 election. |
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Veracruz, formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave is one of the 31 states that constitute the United Mexican States. Veracruz is borderd by Tamaulipas to the north, the Gulf to the east, Tabasco to the southeast, Oaxaca and Chiapas to the south and Puebla, Hidalgo, and San Luis Potosi to the west. With a population of 7 million the state holds the third place in the nation.
The capital is Xalapa, other important cities include Veracruz, Coatzacoalcos and Orizaba. |
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Chapultepec (Chapoltepēc, "at the grasshopper's hill" in the Nahuatl language; cf. Mexican Spanish chapulín (grasshopper)) is a large hill on the outskirts of central Mexico City. It has been a special place for Mexicans throughout Mexican history, and it was on this hill that the Aztecs made a temporary home after arriving from northern Mexico in the 1200s.
Chapultepec Park, which consists of the hill and 1,600 acres (6.5 km2) of surrounding land, has many attractions, including Chapultepec Castle, where Maximilian I of Mexico and Empress Carlota of Mexico once lived. The castle's sumptuous interior now houses the National History Museum.
The eastern portion of the park has contained the official residences of the President of Mexico. Chapultepec Castle served as both military academy and presidential residence until 1934. At that time President Lázaro Cárdenas moved to the more modern Los Pinos residence and office complex, adjacent to Calle Molino del Rey, which remains the official residence today.
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| Palo Alto is a California charter city located in the northwest corner of Santa Clara County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, USA. It is named after a tree called El Palo Alto. The city includes portions of Stanford University and is headquarters to a number of Silicon Valley high-technology companies, including Hewlett-Packard, VMware and Facebook. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 58,598 residents. |
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| The city now known as Mexico City was founded by the Mexica, also called the Aztecs, in 1325. The old Mexica city is now referred to as Tenochtitlan. The Mexica were one of the last of the Nahuatl-speaking peoples who migrated to this part of the Valley of Mexico after the fall of the Toltec Empire. Their presence was resisted by the peoples who were already in the valley, but the Mexica were able to establish a city on a small island on the western side of Lake Texcoco. The Mexica themselves had a story about how their city was founded, after being led to the island by their principal god, Huitzilopochtli. According to the story, the god indicated their new home with a sign, an eagle perched on a nopal cactus with a snake in its beak. Between 1325 and 1521, Tenochtitlan grew in size and strength, eventually dominating the other city-states around Lake Texcoco, and in the Valley of Mexico. They took these people by force or conquer. When the Spaniards arrived, the Aztec Empire reached much of Mesoamerica, touching both the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. |
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Saltillo is the capital city of the northeastern Mexican state of Coahuila and the municipal seat of the municipality of the same name. The city is located about 400km south of the U.S. state of Texas, and 90km west of Monterrey, Nuevo León.
As of the 2005 census, Saltillo had a population of 633,667 people, rising to 725,259 if the full Metropolitan Area is considered, making it the 20th biggest metro area in the country. The metro area comprises the municipalities of Saltillo, Ramos Arizpe, and Arteaga. The municipality of Saltillo had a population of 648,929. The Gross Domestic Product per capita in the Metropolitan Zone of Saltillo is one of the highest in Mexico with $13,936 USD. According to the ranking of the Inversionista magazine of 2006, Saltillo is the best Mexican city to live in, chosen from more than 53 Mexican cities. |
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| Monterrey, is the capital city of the northeastern Mexican state of Nuevo León. It has the third largest metropolitan area in Mexico, after Mexico City and Guadalajara. In 2009, the city population was estimated to be 2,056,538 and its metropolitan area had a population of 5.1 million. The demonym of Monterrey is Regiomontano. |
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| The Battle of Buena Vista, also known as the Battle of Angostura, saw the United States Army use artillery to repulse the much larger Mexican army in the Mexican-American War. Buena Vista, a village of the state of Coahuila, is seven miles south of Saltillo, in northern Mexico. |
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| The Battle of Cerro Gordo or Sierra Gordo in the Mexican-American War saw Winfield Scott's US troops flank and drive Santa Anna's larger Mexican army from a strong defensive position General Antonio López de Santa Anna, commanding Mexican forces in the area, blocked Scott's march at Cerro Gordo, near Xalapa, with more than 12,000 soldiers in a fortified defile. Represented were the remnants of the Division of the North (5,650 total: 150 Artillery, 4,000 Infantry & 1,500 Cavalry: Ampudia Brigade (3d,4th,5th & 11th Line Infantry Regiments), Vasquez Brigade (1st,2d,3d & 4th Light Infantry Regiments) and Juvera Cavalry Brigade (5th, 9th Morelia & Coraceros Cavalry Regiments), plus reinforcements from the Capitol: Rangel Brigade (6th Infantry Regiment, Grenadiers of the Guard,Libertad & Galeana Battalions, two Cavalry Squadrons & 8 guns), Pinzon Brigade, Arteaga Brigade (Puebla Activo & Natl Guards Battalions)& Canalizo Special Cavalry Division. Army Corps of Engineers Capt. Robert E. Lee discovered a mountain trail around Santa Anna's position. General Scott quickly moved the main body of his command along the trail, flanking the Mexicans. A sharp action ensued on April 18, 1847, routing Santa Anna's force. |
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| The Battle of San Pasqual, also spelled San Pascual, was a military encounter that occurred during the Mexican-American War in what is now the San Pasqual Valley community of the city of San Diego, California. On December 6 and December 7, 1846, Stephen W. Kearny's US Army column, along with a smaller force of Marines, suffered one of the worst defeats of American forces during the Mexican-American War, at the hands of the Californios, and their Presidial Lancers, led by General Don Andrés Pico. |
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| [image]Resaca de la Palma |
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| At the Battle of Resaca de la Palma, one of the early engagements of the Mexican-American War, United States General Zachary Taylor engaged the retreating forces of the Mexican Ejército del Norte under General Mariano Arista on May 9, 1846Resistance on the part of the Mexicans was stiff, and the U.S. forces nearly suffered a reverse before a force of Dragoons commanded by Charles A. May surprised the flank of the Mexican lines and forced a retreat. Two counter-attacks on the American position were defeated, and the Mexican Army fled the field, leaving behind a number of artillery pieces, Arista's writing desk and silver service, the colors of Mexico's lauded Tampico Battalion, and other baggage. The following artillery pieces captured were two 8 pounder bronze guns, two 6 pounder bronze guns and four 4 pounder bronze guns |
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