La Guerra México-Estadounidense , [a] también conocida en los Estados Unidos como la Guerra Mexicana y en México como la Intervención Estadounidense en México ( intervención estadounidense en México ), [b] fue un conflicto armado entre los Estados Unidos y México desde 1846 a 1848. Siguió a la anexión estadounidense de Texas en 1845 , que México consideraba territorio mexicano ya que el gobierno mexicano no reconoció el tratado de Velasco firmado por el general mexicano Antonio López de Santa Anna cuando era prisionero de laEjército de Texas durante la Revolución de Texas de 1836 . La República de Texas era de facto un país independiente, pero la mayoría de sus ciudadanos deseaba ser anexada por Estados Unidos. [4] La política seccional nacional en los EE. UU. Impedía la anexión ya que Texas habría sido un estado esclavista, alterando el equilibrio de poder entre los estados libres del norte y los estados esclavistas del sur. [5] En las elecciones presidenciales de Estados Unidos de 1844 , el demócrata James K. Polk fue elegido sobre la base de una plataforma de expansión del territorio estadounidense en Oregón y Texas. Polk abogó por la expansión por medios pacíficos o por la fuerza armada, y la anexión de Texas en 1845 promovió ese objetivo por medios pacíficos. [6] Sin embargo, la frontera entre Texas y México fue disputada, con la República de Texas y los Estados Unidos afirmando que era el Río Grande y México afirmando que era el río Nueces más al norte . Tanto México como Estados Unidos reclamaron el área en disputa y enviaron tropas. Polk envió tropas del ejército estadounidense al área; también envió una misión diplomática a México para intentar negociar la venta del territorio. La presencia de las tropas estadounidenses fue diseñada para atraer a México a iniciar el conflicto, poniendo la responsabilidad sobre México y permitiendo a Polk argumentar ante el Congreso que debería emitirse una declaración de guerra. [7] Las fuerzas mexicanas atacaron a las fuerzas estadounidenses y el Congreso de los Estados Unidos declaró la guerra. [8]
Guerra México-Americana | |||||||||
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En el sentido de las agujas del reloj, desde la parte superior izquierda: Winfield Scott ingresando a la Plaza de la Constitución después de la Caída de la Ciudad de México , soldados estadounidenses enfrentándose a la fuerza mexicana en retirada durante la Batalla de Resaca de la Palma , victoria estadounidense en Churubusco en las afueras de la Ciudad de México, infantes de marina asaltando el castillo de Chapultepec bajo un gran Bandera de Estados Unidos, Batalla de Cerro Gordo | |||||||||
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Beligerantes | |||||||||
Estados Unidos República de California | México | ||||||||
Comandantes y líderes | |||||||||
James K. Polk Winfield Scott Zachary Taylor Stephen Kearney John Sloat William Worth Robert Stockton Joseph Lane Franklin Pierce David Conner Matthew Perry John Frémont Thomas Childs Henry Burton Edward Baker William Ide | Santa Anna Mariano Arista Pedro de Ampudia José Flores Mariano Vallejo Nicolás Bravo José de Herrera Andrés Pico Manuel Armijo Martín de Cos Pedro de Anaya Agustín y Huarte Joaquín Rea Manuel Muñoz Gabriel Valencia † José de Urrea | ||||||||
Fuerza | |||||||||
73.532 [1] | 82.000 [1] | ||||||||
Bajas y perdidas | |||||||||
1.733 muertos [1] 4.152 heridos [2] | 5.000 muertos [1] Miles de heridos [1] 4.000 civiles muertos | ||||||||
Incluyendo civiles muertos por violencia, militares muertos por enfermedades y muertes accidentales, el número de muertos en México puede haber llegado a 25.000 [1] y el número de muertos en Estados Unidos excedió los 13.283. [3] |
Más allá del área en disputa de Texas, las fuerzas estadounidenses ocuparon rápidamente la capital regional de Santa Fe de Nuevo México a lo largo del alto Río Grande , que tenía relaciones comerciales con los Estados Unidos a través del Camino de Santa Fe entre Missouri y Nuevo México. Las fuerzas estadounidenses también se movieron contra la provincia de Alta California y luego se trasladaron al sur. El Escuadrón del Pacífico de la Armada de los Estados Unidos bloqueó la costa del Pacífico más al sur en el Territorio de Baja California . El gobierno mexicano se negó a ser presionado para firmar un tratado de paz en este momento, haciendo de la invasión estadounidense del corazón de México bajo el mando del mayor general Winfield Scott y su captura de la capital, Ciudad de México, una estrategia para forzar las negociaciones de paz. Aunque México fue derrotado en el campo de batalla, políticamente la negociación de un tratado por parte de su gobierno siguió siendo un tema delicado, y algunas facciones se negaron a considerar cualquier reconocimiento de su pérdida de territorio. Aunque Polk relevó formalmente a su enviado de paz, Nicholas Trist , de su puesto como negociador, Trist ignoró la orden y concluyó con éxito el Tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo de 1848 . Terminó la guerra y México reconoció la Cesión Mexicana , áreas que no forman parte de la disputada Texas pero que fueron conquistadas por el Ejército de los Estados Unidos. Estos eran territorios del norte de Alta California y Santa Fe de Nuevo México. Estados Unidos acordó pagar $ 15 millones por los daños físicos de la guerra y asumió $ 3.25 millones de deuda que el gobierno mexicano ya tenía con ciudadanos estadounidenses. México reconoció la pérdida de lo que se convirtió en el Estado de Texas y aceptó el Río Bravo como su frontera norte con Estados Unidos.
La victoria y la expansión territorial que Polk imaginó [9] inspiraron patriotismo entre algunas secciones de los Estados Unidos, pero la guerra y el tratado generaron feroces críticas por las bajas, el costo monetario y la mano dura, [10] [11] particularmente al principio. La cuestión de cómo tratar las nuevas adquisiciones también intensificó el debate sobre la esclavitud en Estados Unidos . Aunque la Wilmot Proviso que prohibía explícitamente la extensión de la esclavitud al territorio mexicano conquistado no fue adoptada por el Congreso, los debates al respecto intensificaron las tensiones sectoriales. La mayoría de los académicos ven la Guerra México-Estadounidense como conducente a la Guerra Civil Estadounidense , con muchos oficiales entrenados en West Point desempeñando roles de liderazgo prominentes en cada lado.
En México, la guerra agravó la agitación política interna. Dado que la guerra se libró en su propio territorio, México sufrió una gran pérdida de vidas tanto de sus soldados como de su población civil. Bases financieras de la nación fueron socavados, el territorio estaba perdido y prestigio nacional dejaron en lo que un grupo de escritores mexicanos incluyendo Ramón Alcaraz y José María del Castillo Velasco
llama un "estado de degradación y ruina ... [En cuanto a ] el verdadero origen de la guerra, basta decir que la insaciable ambición de los Estados Unidos, favorecida por nuestra debilidad, la provocó ”. [12]Fondo
México después de la independencia
México obtuvo la independencia del Imperio español con el Tratado de Córdoba en 1821 después de una década de conflicto entre el ejército real y los insurgentes por la independencia, sin intervención extranjera. El conflicto arruinó los distritos mineros de plata de Zacatecas y Guanajuato , por lo que México comenzó como una nación soberana con su futura estabilidad financiera de su principal exportación destruida. México experimentó brevemente con la monarquía, pero se convirtió en república en 1824. Este gobierno se caracterizó por la inestabilidad, [13] dejándolo mal preparado para un gran conflicto internacional cuando estalló la guerra con los Estados Unidos en 1846. México había resistido con éxito los intentos españoles de reconquistar su ex colonia en la década de 1820 y resistió a los franceses en la llamada Guerra de la Pastelería de 1838, pero el éxito de los secesionistas en Texas y Yucatán contra el gobierno centralista de México mostró la debilidad del gobierno mexicano, que cambió de manos varias veces. El ejército mexicano y la Iglesia católica en México , ambas instituciones privilegiadas con puntos de vista políticos conservadores, eran políticamente más fuertes que el estado mexicano.
Expansionismo estadounidense
Desde principios del siglo XIX, Estados Unidos buscó expandir su territorio. La compra de Luisiana de Jefferson a Francia en 1803 dio a España y los Estados Unidos una frontera indefinida. Los jóvenes y débiles Estados Unidos lucharon en la Guerra de 1812 con Gran Bretaña , y Estados Unidos lanzó una infructuosa invasión al Canadá británico y Gran Bretaña lanzó una contrainvasión igualmente infructuosa. Con el Tratado Adams-Onis de 1818 se resolvieron algunos problemas de límites entre Estados Unidos y España. El negociador estadounidense John Quincy Adams quería una posesión clara del este de Florida y el establecimiento de reclamos estadounidenses por encima del paralelo 42, mientras que España buscaba limitar la expansión estadounidense en lo que es ahora el suroeste de Estados Unidos . Luego, Estados Unidos buscó comprar territorio de México, a partir de 1825. El presidente estadounidense Andrew Jackson hizo un esfuerzo sostenido para adquirir territorio del norte de México, sin éxito. [14]
El historiador Peter Guardino afirma que en la guerra "la mayor ventaja que tuvo Estados Unidos fue su prosperidad". [15] La prosperidad económica contribuyó a la estabilidad política en los EE. UU. A diferencia de la precariedad financiera de México, EE. UU. Era un país próspero con importantes recursos de los que México carecía. Su guerra de independencia había tenido lugar generaciones antes y fue un conflicto relativamente corto que terminó con la intervención francesa del lado de las 13 colonias. Después de la independencia, Estados Unidos creció rápidamente y se expandió hacia el oeste, marginando y desplazando a los nativos americanos a medida que los colonos despejaban tierras y establecían granjas. Con la Revolución Industrial al otro lado del Atlántico aumentando la demanda de algodón para las fábricas textiles, había un gran mercado externo de una mercancía valiosa producida por mano de obra esclava en los estados del sur. Esta demanda ayudó a impulsar la expansión hacia el norte de México. Aunque hubo conflictos políticos en los Estados Unidos, fueron contenidos en gran medida por el marco de la constitución y no resultaron en una revolución o rebelión en 1846, sino más bien en conflictos políticos seccionales. El expansionismo de los EE. UU. Fue impulsado en parte por la necesidad de adquirir nuevos territorios por razones económicas, en particular, dado que el algodón agotó el suelo en áreas del sur, se tuvieron que cultivar nuevas tierras para satisfacer la demanda. Los norteños en los Estados Unidos buscaron desarrollar los recursos existentes del país y expandir el sector industrial sin expandir el territorio de la nación. El equilibrio existente de intereses seccionales se vería interrumpido por la expansión de la esclavitud a un nuevo territorio. El Partido Demócrata apoyó firmemente la expansión, por lo que no es casualidad que Estados Unidos entrara en guerra con México bajo el presidente demócrata James K. Polk. [dieciséis]
Inestabilidad en el norte de México
Ni el México colonial ni el estado mexicano recientemente soberano controlaban efectivamente el extremo norte y oeste de México. Las capacidades militares y diplomáticas de México disminuyeron después de que logró su independencia de España en 1821 y dejó a la mitad norte del país vulnerable a los ataques de los nativos americanos Comanche , Apache y Navajo . [17] El Comanche, en particular, se aprovechó de la debilidad del estado mexicano para emprender incursiones a gran escala cientos de millas en el país para adquirir ganado para su propio uso y abastecer un mercado en expansión en Texas y Estados Unidos [18] ]
La zona norte de México estaba escasamente poblada debido a su clima y topografía. Era principalmente desierto con pocas precipitaciones, por lo que la agricultura sedentaria nunca se desarrolló allí durante los períodos prehispánico o colonial. Durante la era colonial (1521-1821) no había sido bien controlado políticamente. Después de la independencia, México se enfrentó a luchas internas que a veces rayaban en la guerra civil, y la situación en la frontera norte no era una alta prioridad para el gobierno en el centro de México. En el norte de México, el fin del dominio español estuvo marcado por el fin del financiamiento de los presidios y de los obsequios a los nativos americanos para mantener la paz. Los comanche y apache tuvieron éxito en asaltar ganado y saquear gran parte del norte de México fuera de las ciudades dispersas. Las redadas posteriores a 1821 resultaron en la muerte de muchos mexicanos, detuvieron la mayor parte del transporte y las comunicaciones y diezmaron la industria ganadera que era un pilar de la economía del norte. Como resultado, la desmoralizada población civil del norte de México opuso poca resistencia al ejército estadounidense invasor. [19]
La distancia y la actividad hostil de los nativos americanos también dificultaron las comunicaciones y el comercio entre el corazón de México y provincias como Alta California y Nuevo México . Como resultado, Nuevo México dependía del comercio terrestre de Santa Fe Trail con los Estados Unidos cuando estalló la guerra. [20]
La política del gobierno mexicano de asentamiento de ciudadanos estadounidenses en su provincia de Tejas tenía como objetivo expandir el control en tierras comanches, la Comanchería . En lugar de que los asentamientos ocurrieran en las peligrosas partes central y occidental de la provincia, la gente se estableció en el este de Texas , que poseía ricas tierras de cultivo contiguas a los estados esclavistas del sur de Estados Unidos . A medida que llegaban colonos de los EE. UU., El gobierno mexicano desalentó un mayor asentamiento con la abolición de la esclavitud en 1829.
Diseños extranjeros en California
Durante la época colonial española, las Californias (es decir, la península de Baja California y Alta California) estaban escasamente pobladas. Después de que México se independizó, cerró las misiones y redujo su presencia militar. En 1842, el ministro de Estados Unidos en México, Waddy Thompson Jr. , sugirió que México podría estar dispuesto a ceder Alta California a Estados Unidos para saldar deudas, diciendo: "En cuanto a Texas, lo considero de muy poco valor en comparación con California, el El país más rico, hermoso y saludable del mundo ... con la adquisición de la Alta California deberíamos tener la misma ascendencia en el Pacífico ... Francia e Inglaterra han puesto sus ojos en él ". [21]
La administración del presidente estadounidense John Tyler sugirió un pacto tripartito para resolver la disputa fronteriza de Oregón y estipular la cesión del puerto de San Francisco a México. Lord Aberdeen se negó a participar, pero dijo que Gran Bretaña no tenía objeciones a la adquisición territorial de Estados Unidos allí. [22] El ministro británico en México, Richard Pakenham , escribió en 1841 a Lord Palmerston instando a "establecer una población inglesa en el magnífico Territorio de la Alta California", diciendo que "ninguna parte del mundo ofrece mayores ventajas naturales para el establecimiento de una colonia inglesa ... por supuesto deseable ... que California, una vez que deje de pertenecer a México, no caiga en manos de ninguna potencia que no sea Inglaterra ... hay alguna razón para creer que los especuladores atrevidos y aventureros en el Estados Unidos ya ha dirigido sus pensamientos en esta dirección ". Sin embargo, cuando la carta llegó a Londres, el gobierno conservador de Sir Robert Peel , con su política de la Pequeña Inglaterra , había llegado al poder y rechazó la propuesta por considerarla costosa y una posible fuente de conflicto. [23] [24]
Un número significativo de californios influyentes apoyó la anexión, ya sea por los Estados Unidos o por el Reino Unido. Pío de Jesús Pico IV , el último gobernador de Alta California, apoyó la anexión británica. [25]
Revolución de Texas, república y anexión de Estados Unidos
En 1800, la provincia colonial española de Texas (Tejas) tenía pocos habitantes, con solo unos 7.000 colonos no indígenas. [26] La corona española desarrolló una política de colonización para controlar más eficazmente el territorio. Después de la independencia, el gobierno mexicano implementó la política, otorgando a Moses Austin , un banquero de Missouri, una gran extensión de tierra en Texas. Austin murió antes de que pudiera llevar a cabo su plan de reclutar colonos estadounidenses para la tierra, pero su hijo, Stephen F. Austin , trajo a más de 300 familias estadounidenses a Texas. [27] Esto inició la tendencia constante de migración de los Estados Unidos a la frontera de Texas. La colonia de Austin fue la más exitosa de varias colonias autorizadas por el gobierno mexicano. El gobierno mexicano tenía la intención de que los nuevos colonos actuaran como un amortiguador entre los residentes tejanos y los comanches, pero los colonos no hispanos tendían a establecerse en áreas con tierras agrícolas decentes y conexiones comerciales con Louisiana en lugar de más al oeste, donde habrían sido un efectivo amortiguador contra los indios.
En 1829, debido a la gran afluencia de inmigrantes estadounidenses, los no hispanos superaban en número a los hispanohablantes nativos en Texas. El presidente Vicente Guerrero , un héroe de la independencia mexicana, se movió para ganar más control sobre Texas y su afluencia de colonos no hispanos del sur de los Estados Unidos y desalentar una mayor inmigración al abolir la esclavitud en México. [26] [28] El gobierno mexicano también decidió restablecer el impuesto a la propiedad y aumentar los aranceles sobre los productos estadounidenses enviados. Los colonos y muchos empresarios mexicanos de la región rechazaron las demandas, lo que llevó a que México cerrara Texas a una inmigración adicional, que continuaba desde Estados Unidos hacia Texas ilegalmente.
En 1834, los conservadores mexicanos tomaron la iniciativa política y el general Antonio López de Santa Anna se convirtió en el presidente centralista de México. El Congreso, dominado por los conservadores, abandonó el sistema federal, reemplazándolo por un gobierno central unitario que quitó el poder a los estados. Dejando la política a los de la Ciudad de México, el general Santa Anna dirigió al ejército mexicano para reprimir la semiindependencia de Texas. Lo había hecho en Coahuila (en 1824, México había fusionado Texas y Coahuila en el enorme estado de Coahuila y Tejas ). Austin llamó a los texanos a las armas y declararon su independencia de México en 1836. Después de que Santa Anna derrotara a los texanos en la Batalla del Alamo , fue derrotado por el ejército texano comandado por el general Sam Houston y fue capturado en la batalla de San Jacinto ; se firmó un tratado con el presidente de Texas David Burnet para permitir Texas para defender su caso por la independencia con el gobierno mexicano, pero no se comprometió a nada o México más allá de eso. Negoció bajo coacción y como cautivo, y por lo tanto no estaba legitimado para comprometer a México con un tratado. El Congreso mexicano no lo ratificó. [29] Aunque México no reconoció la independencia de Texas, Texas consolidó su condición de república independiente y recibió el reconocimiento oficial de Gran Bretaña, Francia y Estados Unidos, todos los cuales aconsejaron a México que no intentara reconquistar la nueva nación. La mayoría de los texanos querían unirse a los Estados Unidos, pero la anexión de Texas fue polémica en el Congreso de los Estados Unidos, donde los whigs y abolicionistas se opusieron en gran medida, aunque ninguno de los grupos llegó a negar fondos para la guerra. [30] : 150-155 En 1845, Texas aceptó la oferta de anexión del Congreso de los Estados Unidos y se convirtió en el estado número 28 el 29 de diciembre de 1845, lo que sentó las bases para el conflicto con México. [31]
Preludio
Nueces Strip
Por los Tratados de Velasco hechos después de que los tejanos capturaron al General Santa Ana después de la Batalla de San Jacinto , la frontera sur de Texas se colocó en el "Río Grande del Norte". Los tejanos afirmaron que esto colocaba la frontera sur en el actual Río Grande . El gobierno mexicano disputó esta ubicación por dos motivos: primero, rechazó la idea de la independencia de Texas; y segundo, afirmó que el Río Bravo en el tratado era en realidad el Río Nueces , ya que el Río Bravo actual siempre ha sido llamado "Río Bravo" en México. Sin embargo, esta última afirmación desmentía el nombre completo del río en México: "Río Bravo del Norte". La desafortunada expedición texana a Santa Fe de 1841 intentó realizar el reclamo del territorio de Nuevo México al este del Río Grande, pero sus miembros fueron capturados por el ejército mexicano y encarcelados. En la resolución de anexión del Congreso de los Estados Unidos se omitió la referencia al límite de Texas en Río Grande para ayudar a asegurar el paso después de que el tratado de anexión fracasara en el Senado. El presidente Polk reclamó el límite del Río Grande, y cuando México envió fuerzas sobre el Río Grande, esto provocó una disputa. [32]
Gambitos de Polk
En julio de 1845, Polk envió al general Zachary Taylor a Texas, y en octubre, Taylor mandó a 3.500 estadounidenses en el río Nueces , listos para tomar por la fuerza la tierra en disputa. Polk quería proteger la frontera y también codiciaba para Estados Unidos el continente despejado hasta el Océano Pacífico. Al mismo tiempo, Polk escribió al cónsul estadounidense en el territorio mexicano de Alta California , renunciando a las ambiciones estadounidenses en California pero ofreciendo apoyar la independencia de México o la adhesión voluntaria a Estados Unidos, y advirtiendo que Estados Unidos se opondría a cualquier intento europeo. para hacerse cargo. [32]
Para poner fin a otro susto de guerra con el Reino Unido por el país de Oregón , Polk firmó el Tratado de Oregón que divide el territorio, lo que enfureció a los demócratas del norte que sentían que estaba dando prioridad a la expansión del sur sobre la expansión del norte.
En el invierno de 1845-1846, el explorador federal John C. Frémont y un grupo de hombres armados aparecieron en Alta California. Después de decirle al gobernador mexicano y al cónsul estadounidense Larkin que simplemente estaba comprando suministros en el camino a Oregón, en su lugar fue a la zona poblada de California y visitó Santa Cruz y el Valle de Salinas , explicando que había estado buscando una casa junto al mar para su hijo. mamá. [33] Las autoridades mexicanas se alarmaron y le ordenaron que se fuera. Frémont respondió construyendo un fuerte en Gavilan Peak y levantando la bandera estadounidense. Larkin envió un mensaje de que las acciones de Frémont eran contraproducentes. Frémont salió de California en marzo, pero regresó a California y tomó el control del Batallón de California después del estallido de la Revuelta de la Bandera del Oso en Sonoma. [34]
En noviembre de 1845, Polk envió a John Slidell , un representante secreto, a la Ciudad de México con una oferta al gobierno mexicano de $ 25 millones para la frontera de Río Grande en Texas y las provincias mexicanas de Alta California y Santa Fe de Nuevo México . Los expansionistas estadounidenses querían que California frustrara los intereses británicos en el área y ganara un puerto en el Océano Pacífico. Polk autorizó a Slidell a perdonar los $ 3 millones adeudados a ciudadanos estadounidenses por los daños causados por la Guerra de Independencia de México y pagar otros $ 25 a $ 30 millones por los dos territorios. [35] [36]
La respuesta de México
México no estaba dispuesto a negociar ni era capaz de hacerlo. Solo en 1846, la presidencia cambió de manos cuatro veces, el ministerio de guerra seis veces y el ministerio de finanzas dieciséis veces. [37] A pesar de eso, la opinión pública mexicana y todas las facciones políticas acordaron que vender los territorios a Estados Unidos empañaría el honor nacional. [38] [39] Los mexicanos que se oponían al conflicto directo con Estados Unidos, incluido el presidente José Joaquín de Herrera , eran considerados traidores. [40] Los militares opositores a De Herrera, apoyados por periódicos populistas, consideraron la presencia de Slidell en la Ciudad de México como un insulto. Cuando de Herrera consideró recibir a Slidell para resolver pacíficamente el problema de la anexión de Texas, fue acusado de traición y depuesto. Después de que un gobierno más nacionalista bajo el general Mariano Paredes y Arrillaga llegó al poder, reafirmó públicamente el reclamo de México sobre Texas; [40] Slidell, convencido de que México debe ser "castigado", regresó a los Estados Unidos. [41]
Preparación para la guerra
Desafíos en México
Ejército Mexicano
El Ejército Mexicano emergió de la guerra de independencia como una fuerza débil y dividida. Solo 7 de los 19 estados que formaron la federación mexicana enviaron soldados, armamento y dinero para el esfuerzo bélico, ya que la joven República aún no había desarrollado un sentido de identidad nacional unificadora. [42] Los soldados mexicanos no se fusionaron fácilmente en una fuerza de combate eficaz. Santa Anna dijo, "los líderes del ejército hicieron todo lo posible para entrenar a los hombres rudos que se ofrecieron como voluntarios, pero poco pudieron hacer para inspirarlos con patriotismo por el glorioso país al que tenían el honor de servir". [43] Según el principal político conservador mexicano, Lucas Alamán , "el dinero gastado en armar a las tropas mexicanas simplemente les permitió luchar entre sí y 'dar la ilusión' de que el país poseía un ejército para su defensa". [44] Sin embargo, un oficial criticó el entrenamiento de tropas de Santa Anna, "La caballería se ejercitaba solo en regimientos. La artillería casi nunca maniobraba y nunca disparaba un tiro en blanco. El general al mando nunca estaba presente en el campo de maniobras, por lo que no pudo apreciar las cualidades respectivas de los diversos órganos bajo su mando ... Si se llevaron a cabo reuniones de los principales comandantes para discutir las operaciones de la campaña, no se supo, ni se supo si algún plan de campaña se había formado ". [45]
Al comienzo de la guerra, las fuerzas mexicanas se dividieron entre las fuerzas permanentes ( permanentes ) y los milicianos activos ( activos ). Las fuerzas permanentes constaban de 12 regimientos de infantería (de dos batallones cada uno), tres brigadas de artillería, ocho regimientos de caballería, un escuadrón separado y una brigada de dragones. La milicia ascendía a nueve regimientos de infantería y seis de caballería. En los territorios del norte, las empresas presidiales ( presidiales ) protegían los asentamientos dispersos. [46] Desde que México libró la guerra en su territorio de origen, un sistema de apoyo tradicional para las tropas eran las mujeres, conocidas como soldaderas . No participaron en combates convencionales en los campos de batalla, pero algunas soldaderas se unieron a la batalla junto a los hombres. Estas mujeres participaron en combates durante la defensa de la Ciudad de México y Monterrey. Algunas mujeres como Dos Amandes y María Josefa Zozaya serían recordadas como heroínas. [47]
El ejército mexicano estaba usando mosquetes británicos excedentes (como el Brown Bess ), sobrantes de las guerras napoleónicas . Si bien al principio de la guerra los soldados más americanos todavía estaban equipados con los muy similares Springfield 1816 fusiles de chispa, más fiables caplock modelos obtuvieron grandes avances dentro de las bases a medida que avanzaba el conflicto. Algunas tropas estadounidenses portaban armas radicalmente modernas que les dieron una ventaja significativa sobre sus contrapartes mexicanas, como el rifle Springfield 1841 de los Mississippi Rifles y el revólver Colt Paterson de los Texas Rangers . En las últimas etapas de la guerra, los rifles montados estadounidenses recibieron revólveres Colt Walker , de los cuales el ejército estadounidense había ordenado 1.000 en 1846. Lo más significativo es que, durante la guerra, la superioridad de la artillería estadounidense prevaleció. Si bien la artillería tecnológicamente mexicana y estadounidense operaba en el mismo avión, el entrenamiento del ejército estadounidense, así como la calidad y confiabilidad de su logística, le dio a las armas y cañoneros estadounidenses una ventaja significativa. [ cita requerida ]
En sus memorias de 1885, el ex presidente de los Estados Unidos, Ulysses Grant (él mismo un veterano de la guerra de México) atribuyó la derrota de México a la mala calidad de su ejército, escribiendo:
"El ejército mexicano de esa época apenas era una organización. El soldado raso era elegido de la clase baja de los habitantes cuando se quería; no se le pidió su consentimiento; estaba mal vestido, peor alimentado y rara vez se le pagaba. Se quedó a la deriva cuando Los oficiales de los grados inferiores eran poco superiores a los hombres. Con todo esto, he visto tan valientes posiciones hechas por algunos de estos hombres como he visto jamás hechas por soldados. Ahora México tiene un ejército permanente más grande que Estados Unidos. Tienen una escuela militar inspirada en West Point. Sus oficiales son educados y, sin duda, muy valientes. La guerra mexicana de 1846-188 sería imposible en esta generación ". [48]
Divisiones politicas
Había importantes divisiones políticas en México, pero los mexicanos estaban unidos en su oposición a la agresión extranjera y defendían a México. Las diferencias políticas obstaculizaron seriamente a los mexicanos en la conducción de la guerra, pero no hubo desunión en su postura nacional. [49] Dentro de México, los centralistas conservadores y los federalistas liberales competían por el poder, y en ocasiones estas dos facciones dentro del ejército mexicano lucharon entre sí en lugar del ejército estadounidense invasor. Santa Anna comentó con amargura: "Por vergonzoso que pueda ser admitir esto, hemos traído esta desgraciada tragedia sobre nosotros mismos a través de nuestras interminables luchas internas". [50]
Durante el conflicto, los presidentes ocuparon sus cargos durante un período de meses, a veces solo semanas o incluso días. Justo antes del estallido de la guerra, el general liberal José Joaquín de Herrera era presidente (diciembre de 1844 - diciembre de 1845) y estaba dispuesto a entablar conversaciones siempre que no pareciera ceder ante los EE. UU., Pero fue acusado por muchos mexicanos. facciones de vender su país ( vendepatria ) por considerarlo. [51] Fue derrocado por el conservador Mariano Paredes (diciembre de 1845 - julio de 1846), quien dejó la presidencia para luchar contra el ejército estadounidense invasor y fue reemplazado por su vicepresidente Nicolás Bravo (28 de julio de 1846 - 4 de agosto de 1846). El conservador Bravo fue derrocado por los liberales federalistas que restablecieron la Constitución federal de 1824 . José Mariano Salas (6 de agosto de 1846 - 23 de diciembre de 1846) se desempeñó como presidente y celebró elecciones bajo el sistema federalista restaurado. El general Antonio López de Santa Anna ganó esas elecciones, pero como era su práctica, dejó la administración a su vicepresidente, que volvió a ser el liberal Valentín Gómez Farías (23 de diciembre de 1846 - 21 de marzo de 1847). En febrero de 1847, los conservadores se rebelaron contra el intento del gobierno liberal de tomar la propiedad de la Iglesia para financiar el esfuerzo de guerra. En la revuelta de los Polkos , la Iglesia católica y los conservadores pagaron a los soldados para que se levantaran contra el gobierno liberal. [52] Santa Anna tuvo que dejar su campaña para regresar a la capital y arreglar el lío político.
Santa Anna ocupó brevemente la presidencia nuevamente, del 21 de marzo de 1847 al 2 de abril de 1847. Sus tropas se vieron privadas del apoyo que les permitiría continuar la lucha. Los conservadores exigieron la destitución de Gómez Farías, y esto se logró con la abolición de la vicepresidencia. Santa Anna regresó al campo, reemplazado en la presidencia por Pedro María de Anaya (2 de abril de 1847 - 20 de mayo de 1847). Santa Anna regresó a la presidencia el 20 de mayo de 1847 cuando Anaya partió para combatir la invasión, sirviendo hasta el 15 de septiembre de 1847. Prefiriendo el campo de batalla a la administración, Santa Anna volvió a dejar el cargo, dejando el cargo a Manuel de la Peña y Peña (16 de septiembre de 1847). - 13 de noviembre de 1847).
Con las fuerzas estadounidenses ocupando la capital mexicana y gran parte del corazón, negociar un tratado de paz era un asunto exigente, y Peña y Peña dejó el cargo para hacerlo. Pedro María Anaya regresó a la presidencia el 13 de noviembre de 1847 - 8 de enero de 1848. Anaya se negó a firmar ningún tratado que cediera tierras a los Estados Unidos, a pesar de la situación sobre el terreno con los estadounidenses ocupando la capital, Peña y Peña retomó la presidencia el 8 de enero de 1848 - 3 de junio de 1848, tiempo durante el cual se firmó el Tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo, que puso fin a la guerra.
Desafíos en los Estados Unidos
Armada de Estados Unidos
Polk se había comprometido a buscar un territorio ampliado en Oregon y Texas, como parte de su campaña en 1844, pero el ejército regular no era lo suficientemente grande como para sostener conflictos prolongados en dos frentes. La disputa de Oregón con Gran Bretaña se resolvió pacíficamente mediante un tratado, lo que permitió que las fuerzas estadounidenses se concentraran en la frontera sur.
La guerra fue librada por regimientos de regulares y varios regimientos, batallones y compañías de voluntarios de los diferentes estados de la Unión, así como estadounidenses y algunos mexicanos en California y Nuevo México. En la costa oeste, la Marina de los Estados Unidos envió un batallón de marineros en un intento por recuperar Los Ángeles . [53] Aunque el Ejército y la Armada de los Estados Unidos no eran grandes al estallar la guerra, los oficiales estaban generalmente bien entrenados y el número de hombres alistados era bastante grande en comparación con el de México. Al comienzo de la guerra, el ejército estadounidense tenía ocho regimientos de infantería (tres batallones cada uno), cuatro regimientos de artillería y tres regimientos montados (dos dragones, uno de rifles montados). Estos regimientos se complementaron con 10 nuevos regimientos (nueve de infantería y uno de caballería) levantados para un año de servicio por la ley del Congreso del 11 de febrero de 1847. [54]
Aunque Polk esperaba evitar una guerra prolongada sobre Texas, el conflicto extendido estiró los recursos regulares del ejército, lo que requirió el reclutamiento de voluntarios con alistamientos a corto plazo. Algunos alistamientos fueron por un año, pero otros fueron por 3 o 6 meses. [55] Los mejores voluntarios se inscribieron para un año de servicio en el verano de 1846, y sus alistamientos expiraban justo cuando la campaña del general Winfield Scott estaba preparada para capturar la Ciudad de México. Muchos no se volvieron a alistar, decidiendo que preferirían regresar a casa antes que ponerse en peligro de enfermedad, amenaza de muerte o heridas en el campo de batalla o en la guerra de guerrillas. Algunos en Estados Unidos dudaban de su patriotismo, pero no se los contaba como desertores. [56] Los voluntarios eran mucho menos disciplinados que el ejército regular, y muchos de ellos cometían ataques contra la población civil, a veces derivados de prejuicios raciales anticatólicos y antimexicanos. [57] Las memorias de los soldados describen casos de saqueo y asesinato de civiles mexicanos, en su mayoría por voluntarios. El diario de un oficial registra: "Llegamos a Burrita alrededor de las 5 pm, muchos de los voluntarios de Luisiana estaban allí, una chusma de borrachos sin ley. Habían expulsado a los habitantes, tomado posesión de sus casas y se estaban imitando unos a otros para hacer bestias de sí mismos". " [58] John L. O'Sullivan , un defensor vocal del Destino Manifiesto, recordó más tarde "Los clientes habituales consideraban a los voluntarios con importancia y desprecio ... [Los voluntarios] robaban a los mexicanos su ganado y maíz, robaban sus cercas para leña, se emborrachó y mató a varios habitantes inofensivos del pueblo en las calles ". Muchos de los voluntarios no eran deseados y se los consideraba soldados pobres. La expresión "Al igual que el ejército de Gaines" llegó a referirse a algo inútil, la frase se originó cuando un grupo de tropas de Luisiana no capacitadas y reacias fue rechazado y enviado de regreso por el general Taylor al comienzo de la guerra. [59]
En sus memorias de 1885, Ulysses Grant evalúa de manera más favorable a las fuerzas armadas estadounidenses que enfrentan a México.
Las victorias en México fueron, en todos los casos, sobre números muy superiores. Hubieron dos razones para esto. Tanto el general Scott como el general Taylor tenían ejércitos que no suelen reunirse. En las batallas de Palo Alto y Resaca-de-la-Palma, el general Taylor tenía un pequeño ejército, pero estaba compuesto exclusivamente por tropas regulares, bajo el mejor ejercicio y disciplina. Cada oficial, desde el más alto hasta el más bajo, fue educado en su profesión, no necesariamente en West Point, sino en el campo, en la guarnición y muchos de ellos en las guerras contra la India. La base era probablemente inferior, como material con el que formar un ejército, a los voluntarios que participaron en todas las batallas posteriores de la guerra; pero eran hombres valientes, y luego el ejercicio y la disciplina sacaron a relucir todo lo que había en ellos. Un ejército mejor, hombre por hombre, probablemente nunca se enfrentó a un enemigo que el comandado por el general Taylor en los dos primeros enfrentamientos de la guerra mexicana. Los voluntarios que siguieron eran de mejor material, pero sin entrenamiento ni disciplina al principio. Estaban asociados con tantos hombres disciplinados y oficiales educados profesionalmente, que cuando entraban en compromisos era con una confianza que no habrían sentido de otra manera. Ellos mismos se convirtieron en soldados casi de inmediato. Todas estas condiciones las volveríamos a disfrutar en caso de guerra. [60]
Divisiones politicas
Estados Unidos había sido un país independiente desde la Revolución Americana , y era un país fuertemente dividido a lo largo de líneas seccionales. La ampliación del país, particularmente a través del combate armado contra una nación soberana, profundizó las divisiones seccionales. Polk había ganado por poco el voto popular en las elecciones presidenciales de 1844 y ganó decisivamente el Colegio Electoral, pero con la anexión de Texas en 1845 y el estallido de la guerra en 1846, los demócratas de Polk perdieron la Cámara de Representantes ante el Partido Whig, que se opuso a la guerra. A diferencia de México, que tenía instituciones formales de gobierno débiles y la intervención regular del ejército en la política y múltiples cambios de gobierno, Estados Unidos generalmente mantuvo sus divisiones políticas dentro de los límites de las instituciones de gobierno.
Estallido de hostilidades
Campaña de Texas
Asunto Thornton
El presidente Polk ordenó al general Taylor y sus fuerzas al sur hasta el Río Grande. Taylor ignoró las demandas mexicanas de retirarse a Nueces. Construyó un fuerte improvisado (más tarde conocido como Fort Brown / Fort Texas ) a orillas del Río Grande frente a la ciudad de Matamoros, Tamaulipas . [61]
Las fuerzas mexicanas se prepararon para la guerra. El 25 de abril de 1846, un destacamento de caballería mexicana de 2.000 hombres atacó a una patrulla estadounidense de 70 hombres comandada por el capitán Seth Thornton, que había sido enviada al territorio en disputa al norte del río Grande y al sur del río Nueces. En el caso Thornton , la caballería mexicana derrotó a la patrulla, matando a 11 soldados estadounidenses y capturando a 52. [62]
Asedio de Fort Texas
Unos días después del Asunto Thornton, el Asedio de Fort Texas comenzó el 3 de mayo de 1846. La artillería mexicana en Matamoros abrió fuego contra Fort Texas, que respondió con sus propios cañones. El bombardeo continuó durante 160 horas [63] y se expandió a medida que las fuerzas mexicanas rodearon gradualmente el fuerte. Trece soldados estadounidenses resultaron heridos durante el bombardeo y dos murieron. [63] Entre los muertos estaba Jacob Brown, de quien más tarde se nombró al fuerte. [64]
Batalla de Palo Alto
El 8 de mayo de 1846, Zachary Taylor y 2.400 soldados llegaron para relevar el fuerte. [65] Sin embargo, el general Arista se apresuró hacia el norte con una fuerza de 3.400 y lo interceptó a unas 5 millas (8 km) al norte del río Grande, cerca de la actual Brownsville, Texas . El ejército de los Estados Unidos empleó "artillería voladora", su término para la artillería a caballo , una artillería ligera móvil montada en carruajes de caballos con toda la tripulación a caballo en la batalla. La artillería de fuego rápido y el apoyo de fuego altamente móvil tuvieron un efecto devastador en el ejército mexicano. En contraste con la "artillería voladora" de los estadounidenses, los cañones mexicanos en la Batalla de Palo Alto tenían pólvora de menor calidad que disparaba a velocidades lo suficientemente lentas como para que los soldados estadounidenses pudieran esquivar los proyectiles de artillería. [66] Los mexicanos respondieron con escaramuzas de caballería y su propia artillería. La artillería voladora de los Estados Unidos desmoralizó un poco al lado mexicano y, buscando un terreno más a su favor, los mexicanos se retiraron al otro lado de un lecho de río seco ( resaca ) durante la noche y se prepararon para la próxima batalla. Proporcionó una fortificación natural, pero durante la retirada, las tropas mexicanas se dispersaron, dificultando la comunicación. [63]
Batalla de Resaca de la Palma
Durante la Batalla de Resaca de la Palma el 9 de mayo de 1846, los dos bandos entablaron un feroz combate cuerpo a cuerpo . La Caballería de los Estados Unidos logró capturar la artillería mexicana, lo que provocó que el lado mexicano se retirara, una retirada que se convirtió en una derrota. [63] Luchando en un terreno desconocido, sus tropas huyendo en retirada, Arista encontró imposible reunir sus fuerzas. Las bajas mexicanas fueron significativas y los mexicanos se vieron obligados a abandonar su artillería y su equipaje. Fort Brown causó bajas adicionales cuando las tropas que se retiraban pasaban por el fuerte, y más soldados mexicanos se ahogaron tratando de cruzar a nado el Río Grande. [67] Taylor cruzó el Río Grande y comenzó su serie de batallas en territorio mexicano.
Declaraciones de guerra, mayo de 1846
Polk recibió noticias del asunto Thornton, que, sumado al rechazo del gobierno mexicano a Slidell, creía Polk, constituía un casus belli . [68] Su mensaje al Congreso el 11 de mayo de 1846 afirmaba que "México ha traspasado la frontera de los Estados Unidos, ha invadido nuestro territorio y ha derramado sangre estadounidense sobre suelo estadounidense". [69] [70]
El Congreso de los Estados Unidos aprobó la declaración de guerra el 13 de mayo de 1846, después de unas horas de debate, con un fuerte apoyo de los demócratas del sur. Sesenta y siete whigs votaron en contra de la guerra sobre una enmienda clave sobre la esclavitud, [71] pero en el pasaje final solo 14 whigs votaron en contra [71], incluido el representante John Quincy Adams . Más tarde, un congresista whig de primer año de Illinois, Abraham Lincoln , desafió la afirmación de Polk de que se había derramado sangre estadounidense en suelo estadounidense, calificándola de "una audaz falsificación de la historia". [72] [73]
Con respecto al comienzo de la guerra, Ulysses S. Grant, quien se había opuesto a la guerra pero se desempeñó como teniente del ejército en el Ejército de Taylor, afirma en sus Memorias personales (1885) que el objetivo principal del avance del Ejército de los EE. UU. Desde el río Nueces hasta el río Grande debía provocar el estallido de la guerra sin atacar primero, para debilitar cualquier oposición política a la guerra.
La presencia de tropas estadounidenses en el límite del territorio en disputa más alejado de los asentamientos mexicanos, no fue suficiente para provocar hostilidades. Nos enviaron a provocar una pelea, pero era fundamental que México la iniciara. Era muy dudoso que el Congreso declarara la guerra; pero si México atacara a nuestras tropas, el Ejecutivo podría anunciar, "Considerando que la guerra existe por los hechos de, etc." y proseguir con vigor la contienda. Una vez iniciada, había pocos hombres públicos que tuvieran el coraje de oponerse a ella. ... México, sin ninguna disposición a venir a Nueces para expulsar a los invasores de su suelo, se hizo necesario que los "invasores" se acercaran a una distancia conveniente para ser atacados. En consecuencia, se iniciaron los preparativos para trasladar al ejército al Río Grande, a un punto cercano a Matamoras [sic]. Era deseable ocupar una posición cerca del mayor centro de población posible al que se pudiera llegar, sin invadir absolutamente un territorio al que no teníamos derecho alguno. [74]
En México, aunque el presidente Paredes emitió un manifiesto el 23 de mayo de 1846 y una declaración de guerra defensiva el 23 de abril, ambos considerados por algunos como el comienzo de facto de la guerra, México declaró oficialmente la guerra por el Congreso el 7 de julio. , 1846. [75] : 148
El regreso del general Santa Anna
Las derrotas de México en Palo Alto y Resaca de la Palma prepararon el escenario para el regreso de Santa Anna, quien al estallar la guerra, se encontraba exiliada en Cuba. Escribió al gobierno de la Ciudad de México, diciendo que no quería regresar a la presidencia, pero que le gustaría salir del exilio en Cuba para usar su experiencia militar para reclamar Texas para México. El presidente Farías fue llevado a la desesperación. Aceptó la oferta y permitió que Santa Anna regresara. Sin que Farías lo supiera, Santa Anna había estado negociando en secreto con representantes estadounidenses para discutir la venta de todo el territorio en disputa a Estados Unidos a un precio razonable, con la condición de que se le permitiera regresar a México a través de los bloqueos navales estadounidenses. Polk envió a su propio representante a Cuba, Alexander Slidell MacKenzie , para negociar directamente con Santa Anna. Las negociaciones fueron secretas y no hay registros escritos de las reuniones, pero hubo cierto entendimiento que surgió de las reuniones. Polk pidió al Congreso que se utilizaran 2 millones de dólares en la negociación de un tratado con México. Estados Unidos permitió que Santa Anna regresara a México, levantando el bloqueo naval de la costa del Golfo. Sin embargo, en México, Santa Anna negó tener conocimiento de reunirse con el representante de EE. UU. O de cualquier oferta o transacción. En lugar de ser el aliado de Polk, se embolsó el dinero que le habían dado y comenzó a planificar la defensa de México. Los estadounidenses estaban consternados, incluido el general Scott, ya que este era un resultado inesperado. "Santa Anna se regodeaba con la ingenuidad de sus enemigos: 'Estados Unidos se engañó al creer que yo sería capaz de traicionar a mi madre patria'". [76] Santa Anna evitó involucrarse en política, dedicándose a la defensa militar de México. Mientras los políticos intentaban restablecer el marco de gobierno en una república federal, Santa Anna partió hacia el frente para retomar el territorio perdido del norte. Aunque Santa Anna fue elegido presidente en 1846, se negó a gobernar, dejándolo en manos de su vicepresidente, mientras buscaba comprometerse con las fuerzas de Taylor. Con la república federal restaurada, algunos estados se negaron a apoyar la campaña militar nacional liderada por Santa Anna, quien había luchado directamente con ellos en la década anterior. Santa Anna instó al vicepresidente Gómez Farías a actuar como un dictador para conseguir los hombres y el material necesarios para la guerra. Gómez Farías forzó un préstamo de la Iglesia Católica, pero los fondos no estuvieron disponibles a tiempo para apoyar al ejército de Santa Anna. [77]
Reacción en los Estados Unidos
Oposición a la guerra
En Estados Unidos, cada vez más dividido por rivalidades seccionales , la guerra fue un tema partidista y un elemento esencial en los orígenes de la Guerra Civil estadounidense . La mayoría de los whigs del norte y del sur se opusieron; [78] la mayoría de los demócratas lo apoyaron. [79] Los demócratas del sur , animados por una creencia popular en el Destino Manifiesto, lo apoyaron con la esperanza de agregar territorio esclavista al Sur y evitar ser superados en número por el Norte de rápido crecimiento. John L. O'Sullivan , editor de Democratic Review , acuñó esta frase en su contexto, afirmando que debe ser "nuestro destino manifiesto extender el continente asignado por la Providencia para el libre desarrollo de nuestros millones que se multiplican anualmente". [80]
Los elementos antiesclavistas del norte temían la expansión del Poder Esclavo del Sur ; Los whigs generalmente querían fortalecer la economía con la industrialización, no expandirla con más tierra. Entre los que más se opusieron a la guerra en la Cámara de Representantes se encontraba el ex presidente de los Estados Unidos, John Quincy Adams , un representante de Massachusetts. Adams había expresado por primera vez su preocupación por la expansión en territorio mexicano en 1836 cuando se opuso a la anexión de Texas tras su independencia de facto de México. Continuó este argumento en 1846 por la misma razón. La guerra con México agregaría un nuevo territorio de esclavitud a la nación. Cuando la cuestión de ir a la guerra con México se sometió a votación el 13 de mayo de 1846, Adams pronunció un rotundo "¡No!" en la recámara. Solo otros 13 siguieron su ejemplo. A pesar de esa oposición, más tarde votó a favor de las asignaciones de guerra. [30] : 151
El ex esclavo Frederick Douglass se opuso a la guerra y estaba consternado por la debilidad del movimiento contra la guerra. "La determinación de nuestro presidente esclavista, y la probabilidad de que tenga éxito en arrancarle a la gente, hombres y dinero para continuar, se hace evidente por la insignificante oposición que se formó contra él. Ninguno parece dispuesto a defender la paz en todos los riesgos." [81]
En general, Polk pudo manipular a los whigs para que apoyaran las asignaciones para la guerra, pero solo una vez que ya había comenzado y luego "nubló la situación con una serie de declaraciones falsas sobre las acciones mexicanas". [82] No todo el mundo estuvo de acuerdo. Joshua Giddings encabezó un grupo de disidentes en Washington DC. Calificó la guerra con México como "una guerra agresiva, impía e injusta" y votó en contra del suministro de soldados y armas. Dijo: "En el asesinato de mexicanos en su propia tierra, o en el despojo de su país, no puedo tomar parte ni ahora ni en el futuro. La culpa de estos crímenes debe recaer en otros. No participaré en ellos". [83]
El compañero Whig Abraham Lincoln impugnó las causas de Polk para la guerra. Polk había dicho que México había "derramado sangre estadounidense sobre suelo estadounidense". Lincoln presentó ocho " resoluciones puntuales", exigiendo que Polk declarara el lugar exacto donde Thornton había sido atacado y donde se derramó sangre estadounidense, y que aclarara si ese lugar era suelo estadounidense o si había sido reclamado por España y México. Lincoln tampoco detuvo en realidad el dinero para hombres o suministros en el esfuerzo de guerra. [30] : 151
El senador Whig Thomas Corwin de Ohio pronunció un largo discurso acusando la guerra presidencial en 1847. En el Senado el 11 de febrero de 1847, el líder Whig Robert Toombs de Georgia declaró: "Esta guerra es indescriptible ... Acusamos al presidente de usurpar la guerra poder ... con apoderarse de un país ... que había sido durante siglos, y fue entonces en poder de los mexicanos. ... pongamos un freno a este deseo de dominio. habíamos territorio suficiente, cielo sabía. [ 84] El Representante Demócrata David Wilmot introdujo la Wilmot Proviso , que prohibiría la esclavitud en nuevos territorios adquiridos de México. La propuesta de Wilmot fue aprobada en la Cámara pero no en el Senado. [85] [86]
Los abolicionistas del norte atacaron la guerra como un intento de los dueños de esclavos de fortalecer el control de la esclavitud y así asegurar su influencia continua en el gobierno federal. Destacados artistas y escritores se opusieron a la guerra, incluido James Russell Lowell , cuyas obras sobre el tema " The Present Crisis " [87] y la satírica The Biglow Papers fueron inmediatamente populares. [88] Los escritores trascendentalistas Henry David Thoreau y Ralph Waldo Emerson también criticaron la guerra. Thoreau, quien cumplió condena en la cárcel por negarse a pagar un impuesto que respaldaría el esfuerzo bélico, convirtió una conferencia en un ensayo que ahora se conoce como Desobediencia civil . Emerson fue sucinto y predijo que "Estados Unidos conquistará a México, pero será como un hombre que se tragó el arsénico que lo derriba a su vez. México nos envenenará". Los acontecimientos le dieron la razón, ya que los argumentos sobre la expansión de la esclavitud en las tierras arrebatadas a México impulsarían la deriva hacia la guerra civil solo una docena de años después. [89] La Asociación de Trabajadores de Nueva Inglaterra condenó la guerra, y algunos inmigrantes irlandeses y alemanes desertaron del ejército de los Estados Unidos y formaron el Batallón de San Patricio para luchar por México. [30] : 152-157
Apoyo de la guerra
Además de alegar que las acciones de las fuerzas militares mexicanas dentro de las tierras fronterizas en disputa al norte del Río Bravo constituían un ataque en suelo estadounidense, los defensores de la guerra veían los territorios de Nuevo México y California como solo posesiones nominalmente mexicanas con vínculos muy tenues con México. Vieron los territorios como tierras fronterizas despobladas, sin gobierno y desprotegidas, cuya población no aborigen representaba un componente estadounidense sustancial. Además, los estadounidenses temían que los territorios estuvieran bajo una amenaza inminente de adquisición por parte del rival estadounidense en el continente, los británicos.
El presidente Polk repitió estos argumentos en su tercer mensaje anual al Congreso el 7 de diciembre de 1847. [90] Detalló escrupulosamente la posición de su administración sobre los orígenes del conflicto, las medidas que Estados Unidos había tomado para evitar hostilidades y la justificación para declarar la guerra. . También se refirió a las numerosas reclamaciones financieras pendientes de ciudadanos estadounidenses contra México y argumentó que, en vista de la insolvencia del país, la cesión de una gran parte de sus territorios del norte era la única indemnización disponible de manera realista como compensación. Esto ayudó a unir a los demócratas del Congreso a su lado, asegurando la aprobación de sus medidas de guerra y reforzando el apoyo a la guerra en los EE. UU.
El periodismo estadounidense durante la guerra
La Guerra México-Estadounidense fue la primera guerra de Estados Unidos que fue cubierta por los medios de comunicación , principalmente la prensa , y fue la primera guerra extranjera cubierta principalmente por corresponsales estadounidenses. [91] La cobertura de prensa en los Estados Unidos se caracterizó por el apoyo a la guerra y el interés público generalizado y la demanda de cobertura del conflicto. La cobertura mexicana de la guerra (tanto escrita por mexicanos como por estadounidenses radicados en México) se vio afectada por la censura de la prensa, primero por parte del gobierno mexicano y luego por el ejército estadounidense.
Walt Whitman respaldó con entusiasmo la guerra de 1846 y mostró su actitud desdeñosa hacia México y su apoyo al Destino Manifiesto: "¿Qué tiene al México miserable e ineficiente, con su superstición, su burla sobre la libertad, su tiranía real de unos pocos sobre la mayoría? ella que ver con la gran misión de poblar el nuevo mundo con una raza noble? ¡Sea la nuestra, para lograr esa misión! " [92]
La cobertura de la guerra fue un avance importante en los EE. UU., Con periodistas y soldados que escribían cartas dando al público en los EE. UU. "Su primera cobertura informativa independiente de la guerra en el país o en el extranjero". [93] Durante la guerra, inventos como el telégrafo crearon nuevos medios de comunicación que actualizaban a las personas con las últimas noticias de los reporteros en la escena. El más importante de ellos fue George Wilkins Kendall , un norteño que escribió para el Picayune de Nueva Orleans , y cuyos Despachos recopilados de la guerra mexicana constituyen una fuente primaria importante para el conflicto. [94] Con más de una década de experiencia informando sobre delitos urbanos, la "prensa de un centavo" se dio cuenta de la voraz demanda del público de noticias asombrosas sobre la guerra. Además, Shelley Streetby demuestra que la revolución de la imprenta, que precedió a la guerra entre Estados Unidos y México, hizo posible la distribución de periódicos baratos en todo el país. [95] Esta fue la primera vez en la historia de Estados Unidos que los relatos de los periodistas en lugar de las opiniones de los políticos tuvieron una gran influencia en la formación de las opiniones y actitudes de la gente hacia una guerra. Junto con los relatos escritos de la guerra, los artistas de la guerra proporcionaron una dimensión visual a la guerra en ese momento e inmediatamente después. Las representaciones visuales de Carl Nebel de la guerra son bien conocidas. [96]
Al recibir informes constantes del campo de batalla, los estadounidenses se unieron emocionalmente como comunidad. Las noticias sobre la guerra causaron un extraordinario entusiasmo popular. En la primavera de 1846, la noticia de la victoria de Taylor en Palo Alto hizo que surgiera una gran multitud que se reunió en la ciudad textil algodonera de Lowell, Massachusetts . En Chicago , una gran concurrencia de ciudadanos se reunió en abril de 1847 para celebrar la victoria de Buena Vista. [97] Nueva York celebró las victorias gemelas en Veracruz y Buena Vista en mayo de 1847. Los generales Taylor y Scott se convirtieron en héroes para su pueblo y luego se convirtieron en candidatos presidenciales. Polk se había comprometido a ser presidente por un período, pero su último acto oficial fue asistir a la toma de posesión de Taylor como presidente. [98]
Invasiones estadounidenses en la periferia de México
New Mexico campaign
After the declaration of war on May 13, 1846, United States Army General Stephen W. Kearny moved southwest from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in June 1846 with about 1,700 men in his Army of the West. Kearny's orders were to secure the territories Nuevo México and Alta California.[99]
In Santa Fe, Governor Manuel Armijo wanted to avoid battle, but on August 9, Colonel Diego Archuleta and militia officers Manuel Chaves and Miguel Pino forced him to muster a defense.[100] Armijo set up a position in Apache Canyon, a narrow pass about 10 miles (16 km) southeast of the city.[101] However, on August 14, before the American army was even in view, he decided not to fight. An American named James Magoffin claimed he had convinced Armijo and Archuleta to follow this course;[102] an unverified story says he bribed Armijo.[103] When Pino, Chaves, and some of the militiamen insisted on fighting, Armijo ordered the cannon pointed at them.[100] The New Mexican army retreated to Santa Fe, and Armijo fled to Chihuahua.
Kearny and his troops encountered no Mexican forces when they arrived on August 15. Kearny and his force entered Santa Fe and claimed the New Mexico Territory for the United States without a shot fired. Kearny declared himself the military governor of the New Mexico Territory on August 18 and established a civilian government. American officers drew up a temporary legal system for the territory called the Kearny Code.[104]
Kearny then took the remainder of his army west to Alta California;[99] he left Colonel Sterling Price in command of U.S. forces in New Mexico. He appointed Charles Bent as New Mexico's first territorial governor. Following Kearny's departure, dissenters in Santa Fe plotted a Christmas uprising. When the plans were discovered by the U.S. authorities, the dissenters postponed the uprising. They attracted numerous Indian allies, including Puebloans, who also wanted to push the Americans from the territory. On the morning of January 19, 1847, the insurrectionists began the revolt in Don Fernando de Taos, present-day Taos, New Mexico, which later gave it the name the Taos Revolt. They were led by Pablo Montoya, a New Mexican, and Tomás Romero, a Taos pueblo Indian also known as Tomasito (Little Thomas).
Romero led an Indian force to the house of Governor Charles Bent, where they broke down the door, shot Bent with arrows, and scalped him in front of his family. They moved on, leaving Bent still alive. With his wife Ignacia and children, and the wives of friends Kit Carson and Thomas Boggs, the group escaped by digging through the adobe walls of their house into the one next door. When the insurgents discovered the party, they killed Bent but left the women and children unharmed.
The next day a large armed force of approximately 500 New Mexicans and Pueblo attacked and laid siege to Simeon Turley's mill in Arroyo Hondo, several miles outside of Taos. Charles Autobees, an employee at the mill, saw the men coming. He rode to Santa Fe for help from the occupying U.S. forces. Eight to ten mountain men were left at the mill for defense. After a day-long battle, only two of the mountain men survived, John David Albert and Thomas Tate Tobin, Autobees' half-brother. Both escaped separately on foot during the night. The same day New Mexican insurgents killed seven American traders passing through the village of Mora. At most, 15 Americans were killed in both actions on January 20.
The U.S. military moved quickly to quash the revolt; Colonel Price led more than 300 U.S. troops from Santa Fe to Taos, together with 65 volunteers, including a few New Mexicans, organized by Ceran St. Vrain, the business partner of William and Charles Bent. Along the way, the combined forces beat back a force of some 1,500 New Mexicans and Pueblo at Santa Cruz de la Cañada and at Embudo Pass. The insurgents retreated to Taos Pueblo, where they took refuge in the thick-walled adobe church. During the ensuing battle, the U.S. breached a wall of the church and directed cannon fire into the interior, inflicting many casualties and killing about 150 rebels. They captured 400 more men after close hand-to-hand fighting. Only seven Americans died in the battle.[105]
A separate force of U.S. troops under captains Israel R. Hendley and Jesse I. Morin campaigned against the rebels in Mora. The First Battle of Mora ended in a New Mexican victory. The Americans attacked again in the Second Battle of Mora and won, which ended their operations against Mora. New Mexican rebels engaged U.S. forces three more times in the following months. The actions are known as the Battle of Red River Canyon, the Battle of Las Vegas, and the Battle of Cienega Creek. After the U.S. forces won each battle, the New Mexicans and Indians ended open warfare.[citation needed]
California campaign
Word of Congress' declaration of war reached California by August 1846.[106] American consul Thomas O. Larkin, stationed in Monterey, worked successfully during the events in that vicinity to avoid bloodshed between Americans and the Mexican military garrison commanded by General José Castro, the senior military officer in California.[107]
Captain John C. Frémont, leading a U.S. Army topographical expedition to survey the Great Basin, entered Sacramento Valley in December 1845.[108] Frémont's party was at Upper Klamath Lake in the Oregon Territory when it received word that war between Mexico and the U.S. was imminent;[109] the party then returned to California.[110]
Mexico had issued a proclamation that unnaturalized foreigners were no longer permitted to have land in California and were subject to expulsion.[111] With rumors swirling that General Castro was massing an army against them, American settlers in the Sacramento Valley banded together to meet the threat.[112] On June 14, 1846, 34 American settlers seized control of the undefended Mexican government outpost of Sonoma to forestall Castro's plans.[113] One settler created the Bear Flag and raised it over Sonoma Plaza. Within a week, 70 more volunteers joined the rebels' force,[114] which grew to nearly 300 in early July.[115] This event, led by William B. Ide, became known as the Bear Flag Revolt.
On June 25, Frémont's party arrived to assist in an expected military confrontation.[116] San Francisco, then called Yerba Buena, was occupied by the Bear Flaggers on July 2.[117] On July 5, Frémont's California Battalion was formed by combining his forces with many of the rebels.[118]
Commodore John D. Sloat, commander of the U.S. Navy's Pacific Squadron, near Mazatlan, Mexico, had received orders to seize San Francisco Bay and blockade California ports when he was positive that war had begun.[119] Sloat set sail for Monterey, reaching it on July 1.[120] Sloat, upon hearing of the events in Sonoma and Frémont's involvement, erroneously believed Frémont to be acting on orders from Washington and ordered his forces to occupy Monterey on July 7 and raise the U.S. flag.[121] On July 9, 70 sailors and Marines landed at Yerba Buena and raised the American flag. Later that day in Sonoma, the Bear Flag was lowered, and the American flag was raised in its place.[122]
On Sloat's orders, Frémont brought 160 volunteers to Monterey, in addition to the California Battalion.[123] On July 15, Sloat transferred his command of the Pacific Squadron to Commodore Robert F. Stockton, who was more militarily aggressive.[124] He mustered the willing members of the California Battalion into military service with Frémont in command.[124] Stockton ordered Frémont to San Diego to prepare to move northward to Los Angeles.[125] As Frémont landed, Stockton's 360 men arrived in San Pedro.[126] General Castro and Governor Pío Pico wrote farewells and fled separately to the Mexican state of Sonora.[127]
Stockton's army entered Los Angeles unopposed on August 13, whereupon he sent a report to the secretary of state that "California is entirely free from Mexican dominion."[128] Stockton, however, left a tyrannical officer in charge of Los Angeles with a small force.[129] The Californios under the leadership of José María Flores, acting on their own and without federal help from Mexico, in the Siege of Los Angeles, forced the American garrison to retreat on September 29.[130] They also forced small U.S. garrisons in San Diego and Santa Barbara to flee.[131]
Captain William Mervine landed 350 sailors and Marines at San Pedro on October 7.[132] They were ambushed and repulsed at the Battle of Dominguez Rancho by Flores' forces in less than an hour.[133] Four Americans died, with 8 severely injured. Stockton arrived with reinforcements at San Pedro, which increased the American forces there to 800.[134] He and Mervine then set up a base of operations at San Diego.[135]
Meanwhile, Kearny and his force of about 115 men, who had performed a grueling march across the Sonoran Desert, crossed the Colorado River in late November 1846.[136] Stockton sent a 35-man patrol from San Diego to meet them.[137] On December 7, 100 lancers under General Andrés Pico (brother of the governor), tipped off and lying in wait, fought Kearny's army of about 150 at the Battle of San Pasqual, where 22 of Kearny's men (one of whom later died of wounds), including three officers, were killed in 30 minutes of fighting.[138] The wounded Kearny and his bloodied force pushed on until they had to establish a defensive position on "Mule Hill".[139] However, General Pico kept the hill under siege for four days until a 215-man American relief force arrived.[140]
Frémont and the 428-man California Battalion arrived in San Luis Obispo on December 14[141] and Santa Barbara on December 27.[142] On December 28, a 600-man American force under Kearny began a 150-mile march to Los Angeles.[143][144] Flores then moved his ill-equipped 500-man force to a 50-foot-high bluff above the San Gabriel River.[145] On January 8, 1847, the Stockton-Kearny army defeated the Californio force in the two-hour Battle of Rio San Gabriel.[146][147] That same day, Frémont's force arrived at San Fernando.[148] The next day, January 9, the Stockton-Kearny forces fought and won the Battle of La Mesa.[149] On January 10, the U.S. Army entered Los Angeles to no resistance.[150]
On January 12, Frémont and two of Pico's officers agreed to terms for a surrender.[151] Articles of Capitulation were signed on January 13 by Frémont, Andrés Pico and six others at a ranch at Cahuenga Pass (modern-day North Hollywood).[151] This became known as the Treaty of Cahuenga, which marked the end of armed resistance in California.[151]
Pacific Coast campaign
Entering the Gulf of California, Independence, Congress, and Cyane seized La Paz, then captured and burned the small Mexican fleet at Guaymas on October 19, 1847. Within a month, they cleared the gulf of hostile ships, destroying or capturing 30 vessels. Later, their sailors and Marines captured the port of Mazatlán on November 11, 1847. After upper California was secure, most of the Pacific Squadron proceeded down the California coast, capturing all major cities of the Baja California Territory and capturing or destroying nearly all Mexican vessels in the Gulf of California.
A Mexican campaign under Manuel Pineda Muñoz to retake the various captured ports resulted in several small clashes and two sieges in which the Pacific Squadron ships provided artillery support. U.S. garrisons remained in control of the ports. Following reinforcement, Lt. Col. Henry S. Burton marched out. His forces rescued captured Americans, captured Pineda, and on March 31 defeated and dispersed remaining Mexican forces at the Skirmish of Todos Santos, unaware that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo had been signed in February 1848 and a truce agreed to on March 6. When the U.S. garrisons were evacuated to Monterey following the treaty ratification, many Mexicans went with them: those who had supported the U.S. cause and had thought Lower California would also be annexed along with Upper California.
Northeastern Mexico
- Battle of Monterrey
Led by Zachary Taylor, 2,300 U.S. troops crossed the Rio Grande after some initial difficulties in obtaining river transport. His soldiers occupied the city of Matamoros, then Camargo (where the soldiery suffered the first of many problems with disease) and then proceeded south and besieged the city of Monterrey, Nuevo León. The hard-fought Battle of Monterrey resulted in serious losses on both sides. The U.S. light artillery was ineffective against the stone fortifications of the city, as the American forces attacked in frontal assaults. The Mexican forces under General Pedro de Ampudia repulsed Taylor's best infantry division at Fort Teneria.[152]
American soldiers, including many West Point graduates, had never engaged in urban warfare before, and they marched straight down the open streets, where they were annihilated by Mexican defenders well-hidden in Monterrey's thick adobe homes.[152] They quickly learned, and two days later, they changed their urban warfare tactics. Texan soldiers had fought in a Mexican city before (the Siege of Béxar in December 1835) and advised Taylor's generals that the Americans needed to "mouse hole" through the city's homes. They needed to punch holes in the side or roofs of the homes and fight hand to hand inside the structures. Mexicans called the Texas soldiers the Diabólicos Tejanos (the Devil Texans).[153] This method proved successful.[154] 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 eight-week armistice in return for the surrender of the city. Taylor broke the armistice and occupied the city of Saltillo, southwest of Monterrey. Santa Anna blamed the loss of Monterrey and Saltillo on Ampudia and demoted him to command a small artillery battalion. Similarly, Polk blamed Taylor both for suffering heavy losses and failing to imprison Ampudia's entire force. Taylor's army was subsequently stripped of most of its troops in order to support the coming coastal operations by Scott against Veracruz and the Mexican heartland.
- Battle of Buena Vista
On February 22, 1847, having heard of this weakness from the written orders found on an ambushed U.S. scout, Santa Anna seized the initiative and marched Mexico's entire army north to fight Taylor with 20,000 men, hoping to win a smashing victory before Scott could invade from the sea. The two armies met and fought the largest battle of the war at the Battle of Buena Vista. Taylor, with 4,600 men, had entrenched at a mountain pass called La Angostura, or "the narrows", several miles south of Buena Vista ranch. Santa Anna, having little logistics to supply his army, suffered desertions all the long march north and arrived with only 15,000 men in a tired state.
Having demanded and been refused the surrender of the U.S. Army, Santa Anna's army attacked the next morning, using a ruse in the battle with the U.S forces. Santa Anna flanked the U.S. 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 to distract and draw out the U.S. forces along the road leading to Buena Vista. Furious fighting ensued, during which the U.S. troops were nearly routed but managed to cling to their entrenched position, thanks to the Mississippi Rifles, a volunteer regiment led by Jefferson Davis, who formed them into a defensive V formation.[155] The Mexicans had nearly broken the American lines at several points, but their infantry columns, navigating the narrow pass, suffered heavily from the American horse artillery, which fired point-blank canister shots to break up the attacks.
Initial reports of the battle, as well as propaganda from the Santanistas, credited the victory to the Mexicans, much to the joy of the Mexican populace, but rather than attack the next day and finish the battle, Santa Anna retreated, losing men along the way, having heard word of rebellion and upheaval in Mexico City. Taylor was left in control of part of northern Mexico, and Santa Anna later faced criticism for his withdrawal. Mexican and American military historians alike agree that the U.S. Army could likely have been defeated if Santa Anna had fought the battle to its finish.[156]
Polk mistrusted Taylor, who he felt had shown incompetence in the Battle of Monterrey by agreeing to the armistice. Taylor later used the Battle of Buena Vista as the centerpiece of his successful 1848 presidential campaign.
Northwestern Mexico
Northwestern Mexico was essentially tribal Indian territory, but on November 21, 1846, the Bear Springs Treaty was signed, ending a large-scale insurrection by the Ute, Zuni, Moquis, and Navajo tribes.[157] In December 1846, after the successful conquest of New Mexico, part of Kearney's Army of the West, the First Missouri Mounted Volunteers, moved into modern-day northwest Mexico. They were led by Alexander W. Doniphan, continuing what ended up being a year-long 5,500 mile campaign. It was described as rivaling Xenophon's march across Anatolia during the Greco-Persian Wars.[158][159][160]
On Christmas day, they won the Battle of El Brazito, outside the modern-day El Paso, Texas.[161] On March 1, 1847, Doniphan occupied Chihuahua City. British consul John Potts did not want to allow Doniphan to search Governor Trías's mansion and unsuccessfully asserted it was under British protection. American merchants in Chihuahua wanted the American force to stay in order to protect their business. Major William Gilpin advocated a march on Mexico City and convinced a majority of officers, but Doniphan subverted this plan. Then in late April, Taylor ordered the First Missouri Mounted Volunteers to leave Chihuahua and join him at Saltillo. The American merchants either followed or returned to Santa Fe. Along the way, the townspeople of Parras enlisted Doniphan's aid against an Indian raiding party that had taken children, horses, mules, and money.[162] The Missouri Volunteers finally made their way to Matamoros, from which they returned to Missouri by water.[159]
The civilian population of northern Mexico offered little resistance to the American invasion, possibly because the country had already been devastated by Comanche and Apache Indian raids. Josiah Gregg, who was with the American army in northern Mexico, said "the whole country from New Mexico to the borders of Durango is almost entirely depopulated. The haciendas and ranchos have been mostly abandoned, and the people chiefly confined to the towns and cities."[163]
Southern Mexico
Southern Mexico had a large indigenous population and was geographically distant from the capital, over which the central government had weak control. Yucatán in particular had closer ties to Cuba and to the United States than it did to central Mexico. On a number of occasions in the early era of the Mexican Republic, Yucatán seceded from the federation. There were also rivalries between regional elites, with one faction based in Mérida and the other in Campeche. These issues factored into the Mexican–American War, as the U. S. had designs on this part of the coast.[164]
The U.S. Navy contributed to the war by controlling the coast and clearing the way for U.S. troops and supplies, especially to Mexico's main port of Veracruz. Even before hostilities began in the disputed northern region, the U.S. Navy created a blockade. Given the shallow waters of that portion of the coast, the U.S. Navy needed ships with a shallow draft rather than large frigates. Since the Mexican Navy was almost non-existent, the U.S. Navy could operate unimpeded in gulf waters.[165] The U.S. fought two battles in Tabasco in October 1846 and in June 1847.
In 1847, the Maya revolted against the Mexican elites of the peninsula in a caste war known as the Caste War of Yucatan. Jefferson Davis, then a senator from Mississippi, argued in Congress that the president needed no further powers to intervene in Yucatan since the war with Mexico was underway. Davis's concern was strategic and part of his vision of Manifest Destiny, considering the Gulf of Mexico "a basin of water belonging to the United States" and "the cape of Yucatan and the island of Cuba must be ours".[166] In the end, the U.S. did not intervene in Yucatán, but it had figured in congressional debates about the Mexican–American War. At one point, the government of Yucatán petitioned the U.S. for protection during the Caste War,[167] but the U.S. did not respond.
La invasión de Scott al corazón de México
Landings and siege of Veracruz
Rather than reinforce Taylor's army for a continued advance, President Polk sent a second army under General Winfield Scott. Polk had decided that the way to bring the war to an end was to invade the Mexican heartland from the coast. General Scott's army was transported to the port of Veracruz by sea to begin an invasion to take the Mexican capital.[168] On March 9, 1847, Scott performed the first major amphibious landing in U.S. history in preparation for a siege.[169] A group of 12,000 volunteer and regular soldiers successfully offloaded supplies, weapons, and horses near the walled city using specially designed landing crafts. Included in the invading force were several future generals: Robert E. Lee, George Meade, Ulysses S. Grant, James Longstreet, and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson.
Veracruz 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 bombardment on March 24, 1847, opened in the walls of Veracruz a thirty-foot gap.[170] The defenders in the city replied with its own artillery, but the extended barrage destroyed the will of the Mexicans to fight against a numerically superior force, and they surrendered the city after 12 days under siege. U.S. troops suffered 80 casualties, while the Mexicans had around 180 killed and wounded, with hundreds of civilians killed.[171] During the siege, the U.S. soldiers began to fall victim to yellow fever.
Advance on Puebla
Santa Anna allowed Scott's army to march inland, counting on yellow fever and other tropical diseases to take their toll before Santa Anna chose a place to engage the enemy. Mexico had used this tactic before, including when Spain attempted to reconquer Mexico in 1829. Disease could be a decisive factor in the war. Santa Anna was from Veracruz, so he was on his home territory, knew the terrain, and had a network of allies. He could draw on local resources to feed his ill-fed army and gain intelligence on the enemy's movement. From his experience in the northern battles on open terrain, Santa Anna sought to negate the U.S. Army's advantage of the use of artillery.
Santa Anna chose Cerro Gordo to engage, calculating it would have the maximum advantage for the Mexican forces.[172] Scott marched westward on April 2, 1847, toward Mexico City with 8,500 initially healthy troops, while Santa Anna set up a defensive position in a canyon around the main road and prepared fortifications. Santa Anna had entrenched with what the U.S. Army believed were 12,000 troops but in fact was around 9,000.[173] He had artillery trained on the road where he expected Scott to appear. However, Scott had sent 2,600 mounted dragoons ahead, and they reached the pass on April 12. The Mexican artillery prematurely fired on them and therefore revealed their positions, beginning the skirmish.
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 positions of U.S. troops, Santa Anna and his troops were unprepared for the onslaught that followed. In the battle fought on April 18, the Mexican army was routed. The U.S. Army suffered 400 casualties, while the Mexicans suffered over 1,000 casualties with 3,000 taken prisoner. In August 1847, Captain Kirby Smith, of Scott's 3rd Infantry, reflected on the resistance of the Mexican army:
They can do nothing and their continued defeats should convince them of it. They have lost six great battles; we have captured six hundred and eight cannon, nearly one hundred thousand stands of arms, made twenty thousand prisoners, have the greatest portion of their country and are fast advancing on their Capital which must be ours,—yet they refuse to treat [i.e., negotiate terms]![174]
The U.S. Army had expected a quick collapse of the forces of the Mexicans. Santa Anna, however, was determined to fight to the end, and Mexican soldiers continued to regroup after battles to fight yet again.
Pause at Puebla
On May 1, 1847, Scott pushed on to Puebla, the second-largest city in Mexico. The city capitulated without resistance. The Mexican defeat at Cerro Gordo had demoralized Puebla's inhabitants, and they worried about harm to their city and inhabitants. It was standard practice in Western warfare for victorious soldiers to be let loose to inflict horrors on civilian populations if they resisted; the threat of this was often used as a bargaining tool to secure surrender without a fight. Scott had orders which aimed to prevent his troops from such violence and atrocities. Puebla's ruling elite also sought to prevent violence, as did the Catholic Church, but Puebla's poor and working-class wanted to defend the city. U.S. Army troops who strayed outside at night were often killed. Enough Mexicans were willing to sell supplies to the U.S. Army to make local provisioning possible.[175] During the following months, Scott gathered supplies and reinforcements at Puebla and sent back units whose enlistments had expired. Scott also made strong efforts to keep his troops disciplined and treat the Mexican people under occupation justly, to keep good order and prevent any popular uprising against his army.
Advance on Mexico City and its capture
With guerrillas harassing his line of communications back to Veracruz, Scott decided not to weaken his army to defend Puebla but, leaving only a garrison at Puebla to protect the sick and injured recovering there, advanced on Mexico City on August 7 with his remaining force. The capital was laid open in a series of battles around the right flank of the city defenses, the Battle of Contreras and Battle of Churubusco. After Churubusco, fighting halted for an armistice and peace negotiations, which broke down on September 6, 1847. With the subsequent battles of Molino del Rey and of Chapultepec, and the storming of the city gates, the capital was occupied. Scott became military governor of occupied Mexico City. His victories in this campaign made him an American national hero.
The Battle of Chapultepec in September 1847 was a siege on the castle of Chapultepec, built on a hill in Mexico City in the colonial era. At this time, this castle was a renowned military school in the capital. After the battle, which ended in a victory for the U.S., the legend of "Los Niños Héroes" was born. Although not confirmed by historians, six military cadets between the ages of 13 and 17 stayed in the school instead of evacuating.[176] They decided to stay and fight for Mexico. These Niños Héroes (boy heroes) became icons in Mexico's patriotic pantheon. Rather than surrender to the U.S. Army, some military cadets leaped from the castle walls. A cadet named Juan Escutia wrapped himself in the Mexican flag and jumped to his death.[176][177][178]
Santa Anna's last campaign
In late September 1847, Santa Anna made one last attempt to defeat the U.S. Army, by cutting them off from the coast. General Joaquín Rea began the Siege of Puebla, soon joined by Santa Anna. Scott had left some 2,400 soldiers in Puebla, of whom around 400 were fit. After the fall of Mexico City, Santa Anna hoped to rally Puebla's civilian population against the U.S. soldiers under siege and subject to guerrilla attacks. Before the Mexican army could wipe out the Americans in Puebla, more troops landed in Veracruz under the command of Brigadier General Joseph Lane. At Puebla, they sacked the town. Santa Anna was not able to provision his troops, who effectively dissolved as a fighting force to forage for food.[179] Puebla was relieved by Lane on October 12, following his defeat of Santa Anna at the Battle of Huamantla on October 9. The battle was Santa Anna's last. Following the defeat, the new Mexican government led by Manuel de la Peña y Peña asked Santa Anna to turn over command of the army to General José Joaquín de Herrera.[citation needed]
Occupation of Mexico City
Following the capture of the capital, the Mexican government moved to the temporary capital at Querétaro. In Mexico City, U.S. forces became an army of occupation and subject to stealth attacks from the urban population. Conventional warfare gave way to guerrilla warfare by Mexicans defending their homeland. They inflicted significant casualties on the U.S. Army, particularly on soldiers slow to keep up.
General Scott sent about a quarter of his strength to secure his line of communications to Veracruz from the Light Corps of General Rea and other Mexican guerrilla forces that had made stealth attacks since May. Mexican guerrillas often tortured and mutilated the bodies of the American troops, as revenge and warning. Americans interpreted these acts not as Mexicans' defense of their patria, but as evidence of Mexicans' brutality as racial inferiors. For their part, U.S. soldiers took revenge on Mexicans for the attacks, whether or not they were individually suspected of guerrilla acts.
Scott had planned to make total war on the Mexican population, but since he was losing soldiers to guerrilla attacks, he had to make some decisions. He viewed guerrilla attacks as contrary to the "laws of war" and threatened the property of populations that appeared to harbor the guerrillas. Captured guerrillas were to be shot, including helpless prisoners, with the reasoning that the Mexicans did the same. Historian Peter Guardino contends that the U.S. Army command was complicit in the attacks against Mexican civilians. By threatening the civilian populations' homes, property, and families with burning whole villages, looting, and raping women, the U.S. Army separated guerrillas from their base. "Guerrillas cost the Americans dearly, but indirectly cost Mexican civilians more."[180]
Scott strengthened the garrison of Puebla and by November had added a 1,200-man garrison at Jalapa, established 750-man posts along the main route between the port of Veracruz and the capital, at the pass between Mexico City and Puebla at Rio Frio, at Perote and San Juan on the road between Jalapa and Puebla, and at Puente Nacional between Jalapa and Veracruz.[181] He had also detailed an anti-guerrilla brigade under Lane to carry the war to the Light Corps and other guerrillas. He ordered that convoys would travel with at least 1,300-man escorts. Victories by Lane over the Light Corps at Atlixco (October 18, 1847), at Izúcar de Matamoros (November 23, 1847), and at Galaxara Pass (November 24, 1847) weakened General Rea's forces.[citation needed]
Later a raid against the guerrillas of Padre Jarauta at Zacualtipan (25 February 1848) further reduced guerrilla raids on the American line of communications. After the two governments concluded a truce to await ratification of the peace treaty, on March 6, 1848, formal hostilities ceased. However, some bands continued in defiance of the Mexican government until the U.S. Army's evacuation in August.[182] Some were suppressed by the Mexican Army or, like Padre Jarauta, executed.[183][184]
Desertions
Desertion was a major problem for both armies. In the Mexican Army, desertions depleted forces on the eve of battle. Most soldiers were peasants who had a loyalty to their village and family but not to the generals who had conscripted them. Often hungry and ill, underequipped, only partially trained, and under-paid, the soldiers were held in contempt by their officers and had little reason to fight the Americans. Looking for their opportunity, many slipped away from camp to find their way back to their home village.[185]
The desertion rate in the U.S. Army was 8.3% (9,200 out of 111,000), compared to 12.7% during the War of 1812 and usual peacetime rates of about 14.8% per year.[186] Many men deserted to join another U.S. unit and get a second enlistment bonus. Some deserted because of the miserable conditions in camp. It has been suggested that others used the army to get free transportation to California, where they deserted to join the gold rush;[187] this, however, is unlikely as gold was only discovered in California on January 24, 1848, less than two weeks before the war concluded. By the time word reached the eastern U.S. that gold had been discovered, word also reached it that the war was over.
Hundreds of U.S. deserters went over to the Mexican side. Nearly all were recent immigrants from Europe with weak ties to the U.S. The Mexicans issued broadsides and leaflets enticing U.S. soldiers with promises of money, land bounties, and officers' commissions. Mexican guerrillas shadowed the U.S. Army and captured men who took unauthorized leave or fell out of the ranks. The guerrillas coerced these men to join the Mexican ranks. The generous promises proved illusory for most deserters, who risked execution if captured by U.S. forces.[citation needed]
San Patricios
The most famous group of deserters from the U. S. Army, was the Saint Patrick's Battalion or (San Patricios), composed primarily of several hundred immigrant soldiers, the majority Catholic Irish and German immigrants, who deserted the U.S. Army because of ill-treatment or sympathetic leanings to fellow Mexican Catholics and joined the Mexican army. The battalion also included Canadians, English, French, Italians, Poles, Scots, Spaniards, Swiss, and Mexican people, many of whom were members of the Catholic Church.[188]
Most of the battalion were killed in the Battle of Churubusco; about 100 were captured by the U.S., and roughly half of the San Patricios were tried and were hanged as deserters following their capture at Churubusco in August 1847.[187] The leader, John Riley, was branded.[189] A bust of John Riley and a plaque on the façade of a building in Plaza San Jacinto, San Angel commemorates the place where they were hanged.[190]
Fin de la guerra, términos de paz
Outnumbered militarily and with many large cities of the Mexican heartland including its capital occupied, Mexico could not defend itself in conventional warfare. Mexico faced many continuing internal divisions between factions so that bringing the war to a formal end was not straightforward. There were also complications in the U.S. for negotiating the peace. Peace came in Alta California in January 1847 with the Treaty of Cahuenga, with the Californios (Mexican residents of Alta California) capitulating to the American forces.[191] A more comprehensive peace treaty was needed to end the conflict.
The U.S. forces had gone from being an army of conquest on the periphery for territory it desired to incorporate, to an invading force in central Mexico, potentially making it an army of long-term occupation. Mexico did not necessarily have to sign a peace treaty but could have continued with long-term guerrilla warfare against the U.S. Army. However, it could not expel the invaders, so negotiating a treaty became more necessary.[192] Polk's wish for a short war of conquest against a perceived weak enemy with no will to fight had turned into a long and bloody conflict in Mexico's heartland. Negotiating a treaty was in the best interest of the United States. It was not easy to achieve. Polk lost confidence in his negotiator Nicholas Trist and dismissed him as peace negotiations dragged on. Trist ignored the fact that he no longer had the authorization to act for the United States. When Trist managed to get yet another Mexican government to sign the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Polk was presented with an accomplished fact and decided to take it to Congress for ratification. Ratification was fraught, since the Democrats had lost the elections of 1846, and Whigs opposed to the war were now in ascendance.
All-Mexico Movement
Having won a decisive victory, the U.S. was divided on what the peace should entail. Now that the U.S. had gone far beyond the territorial gains it initially envisioned by invading central Mexico with its dense population, the question was raised whether to annex the entirety of Mexico. After the Wilmot Proviso, there was a lessening of fervor for the idea, but the taking of Mexico City had revived enthusiasm.[193] There were fierce objections in Congress to that on racial grounds. South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun argued that absorbing Mexico would threaten U.S. institutions and the character of the country. "We have never dreamt of incorporating into our Union any but the Caucasian race—the free white race. To incorporate Mexico, would be the first instance of the kind, of incorporating an Indian race; for more than half of the Mexicans are Indians, and the other is composed chiefly of mixed tribes. I protest against such a union as that! Ours, sir, is the Government of a white race.... We are anxious to force free government on all; and I see that it has been urged ... that it is the mission of this country to spread civil and religious liberty over all the world, and especially over this continent. It is a great mistake."
Beyond the racial argument, Calhoun contended that the U.S. could not be both an empire and a republic, and he argued that being an empire would strengthen the central government and be detrimental to individual states.[194] Rhode Island Whig Senator John Clarke also objected to annexing all of Mexico. "To incorporate such a disjointed and degraded mass into even a limited participation with our social and political rights, would be fatally destructive to the institutions. of our country. There is a moral pestilence to such a people which is contagious – a leprosy that will destroy [us]."[195]
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed on February 2, 1848, by diplomat Nicholas Trist and Mexican plenipotentiary representatives Luis G. Cuevas, Bernardo Couto, and Miguel Atristain, ended the war. The treaty gave the U.S. undisputed control of Texas, established the U.S.-Mexican border along the Rio Grande, and ceded to the United States the present-day states of California, Nevada, and Utah, most of New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming. In return, Mexico received $15 million[196] ($449 million today) – less than half the amount the U.S. had attempted to offer Mexico for the land before the opening of hostilities[197] – and the U.S. agreed to assume $3.25 million ($97 million today) in debts that the Mexican government owed to U.S. citizens.[198] The area of domain acquired was given by the Federal Interagency Committee as 338,680,960 acres. The cost was $16,295,149 or approximately 5 cents per acre.[199] The area amounted to one-third of Mexico's original territory from its 1821 independence.
The treaty was ratified by the U.S. Senate by a vote of 38 to 14 on March 10 and by Mexico through a legislative vote of 51–34 and a Senate vote of 33–4, on May 19. News that New Mexico's legislative assembly had passed an act for the organization of a U.S. territorial government helped ease Mexican concern about abandoning the people of New Mexico.[200] The acquisition was a source of controversy, especially among U.S. politicians who had opposed the war from the start. A leading anti-war U.S. newspaper, the Whig National Intelligencer, sardonically concluded that "We take nothing by conquest ... Thank God."[10][11]
The acquired lands west of the Rio Grande are traditionally called the Mexican Cession in the U.S., as opposed to the Texas Annexation two years earlier, though the division of New Mexico down the middle at the Rio Grande never had any basis either in control or Mexican boundaries. Mexico never recognized the independence of Texas[201] before the war and did not cede its claim to territory north of the Rio Grande or Gila River until this treaty.
Before ratifying the treaty, the U.S. Senate made two modifications: changing the wording of Article IX (which guaranteed Mexicans living in the purchased territories the right to become U.S. citizens) and striking out Article X (which conceded the legitimacy of land grants made by the Mexican government). On May 26, 1848, when the two countries exchanged ratifications of the treaty, they further agreed to a three-article protocol (known as the Protocol of Querétaro) to explain the amendments. The first article claimed that the original Article IX of the treaty, although replaced by Article III of the Treaty of Louisiana, would still confer the rights delineated in Article IX. The second article confirmed the legitimacy of land grants under Mexican law.[202] The protocol was signed in the city of Querétaro by A. H. Sevier, Nathan Clifford, and Luis de la Rosa.[202]
Article XI offered a potential benefit to Mexico, in that the U.S. pledged to suppress the Comanche and Apache raids that had ravaged the region and pay restitution to the victims of raids it could not prevent.[203] However, the Indian raids did not cease for several decades after the treaty, although a cholera epidemic in 1849 greatly reduced the numbers of the Comanche.[204] Robert Letcher, U.S. Minister to Mexico in 1850, was certain "that miserable 11th article" would lead to the financial ruin of the U.S. if it could not be released from its obligations.[205] The U.S. was released from all obligations of Article XI five years later by Article II of the Gadsden Purchase of 1853.[206]
Secuelas
Altered territories
Before the secession of Texas, Mexico comprised almost 1,700,000 sq mi (4,400,000 km2), but by 1849 it was just under 800,000 square miles (2,100,000 km2). Another 30,000 square miles (78,000 km2) were sold to the U.S. in the Gadsden Purchase of 1853, so the total reduction of Mexican territory was more than 55%, or 900,000 square miles (2,300,000 km2).[207] Although the annexed territory was about the size of Western Europe, it was sparsely populated. The land contained about 14,000 non-indigenous people in Alta California[208] and about 60,000 in Nuevo México,[209] as well as large Indian nations, such as the Papago, Pima, Puebloan, Navajo, Apache and many others. Although some native people relocated farther south in Mexico, the great majority remained in the U.S. territory.
The U.S. settlers surging into the newly conquered Southwest were openly contemptuous of Mexican law (a civil law system based on the law of Spain) as alien and inferior and disposed of it by enacting reception statutes at the first available opportunity. However, they recognized the value of a few aspects of Mexican law and carried them over into their new legal systems. For example, most of the Southwestern states adopted community property marital property systems, as well as water law.
Mexicans and Indians in the annexed territories faced a loss of civil and political rights, even though the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo promised U.S. citizenship to all Mexican citizens living in the territory of the Mexican Cession. The U.S. government withheld citizenship from Indians in the Southwest until the 1930s, although they were citizens under Mexican law.[210]
Impact on the United States
In much of the United States, victory and the acquisition of new land brought a surge of patriotism. Victory seemed to fulfill Democrats' belief in their country's Manifest Destiny. Although the Whigs had opposed the war, they made Zachary Taylor their presidential candidate in the election of 1848, praising his military performance while muting their criticism of the war.
Has the Mexican War terminated yet, and how? Are we beaten? Do you know of any nation about to besiege South Hadley [Massachusetts]? If so, do inform me of it, for I would be glad of a chance to escape, if we are to be stormed. I suppose [our teacher] Miss [Mary] Lyon [founder of Mount Holyoke College] would furnish us all with daggers and order us to fight for our lives ...
— The sixteen-year-old Emily Dickinson, writing to her older brother, Austin in the fall of 1847, shortly after the Battle of Chapultepec[211]
A month before the end of the war, Polk was criticized in a United States House of Representatives amendment to a bill praising 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 with his Spot Resolutions, followed congressional scrutiny of the war's beginnings, including factual challenges to claims made by President Polk.[212][213] The vote followed party lines, with all Whigs supporting the amendment. Lincoln's attack won lukewarm support from fellow Whigs in Illinois but was harshly counter-attacked by Democrats, who rallied pro-war sentiments in Illinois; Lincoln's Spot Resolutions haunted his future campaigns in the heavily Democratic state of Illinois and were cited by his rivals well into his presidency.[214]
While Whig Ralph Waldo Emerson rejected war "as a means of achieving America's destiny," toward the end of the war he wrote: "The United States will conquer Mexico, but it will be as the man swallows the arsenic, which brings him down in turn. Mexico will poison us."[215] He later accepted that "most of the great results of history are brought about by discreditable means."[216]
Veterans of the war were often broken men. "As the sick and wounded from Taylor's and Scott's campaigns made their way back from Mexico to the United States, their condition shocked the folks at home. Husbands, sons, and brothers returned in broken health, some with missing limbs."[217] The 1880 "Republican Campaign Textbook" by the Republican Congressional Committee[218] describes the war as "Feculent, reeking Corruption" and "one of the darkest scenes in our history—a war forced upon our and the Mexican people by the high-handed usurpations of Pres't Polk in pursuit of territorial aggrandizement of the slave oligarchy."
Following the signing of the 1848 treaty, Polk sought to send troops to Yucatan, where there was a civil war between secessionists and those supporting the Mexican government. The U.S. Congress refused his request. The Mexican War was supposed to be short and nearly bloodless. It was neither. Congress did not support more foreign conflict.[219]
Effect on the American military in the Civil War
Many of the military leaders on both sides of the American Civil War of 1861–1865 had trained at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and had fought as junior officers in Mexico. This list includes military men fighting for the Union: Ulysses S. Grant, George B. McClellan, William T. Sherman, George Meade, and Ambrose Burnside. Military men who joined the Southern secessionists of the Confederacy included Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, James Longstreet, Joseph E. Johnston, Braxton Bragg, Sterling Price, and the future Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Both sides had leaders with significant experience in active combat, strategy, and tactics.
For Grant, who went on to lead Union forces in the Civil War and later was elected president, "it also tutored him in the manifold ways wars are shot through with political calculations."[220] Grant had served in Mexico under General Zachary Taylor and was appointed acting assistant quartermaster for Taylor's army, a post he tried to decline since it took him away from the battlefield. However, "The appointment was actually a godsend for Grant, turning him into a complete soldier, adept at every facet of army life, especially logistics... This provided invaluable training for the Civil War when Grant would need to sustain gigantic armies in the field, distant from northern supply depots."[221] Grant saw considerable combat and demonstrated his coolness under fire. In the Battle of Chapultepec, he and his men hoisted a howitzer into a church belfry that had a commanding view of the San Cosme gate. The action brought him the honorary rank of brevet captain, for "gallant and meritorious conduct in the battle of Chapultepec."[222]
Grant later recalled in his Memoirs, published in 1885, that "Generally, the officers of the army were indifferent whether the annexation [of Texas] was consummated or not; but not so all of them. For myself, I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory."[223] Grant also expressed the view that the war against Mexico had brought punishment on the United States 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."[224]
Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate forces through the end of the Civil War, began building his reputation as a military officer in America's war against Mexico. At the start of the Mexican–American War, Captain Lee invaded Mexico with General Wool's engineering department from the North. By early 1847, he helped take the Mexican cities of Vera Cruz, Cerro Gordo, Contreras, Churubusco, Molino del Rey, and Chapultepec. Lee was wounded in Chapultepec. General Scott described Robert E. Lee as "gallant and indefatigable", saying that Lee had displayed the "greatest feat of physical and moral courage performed by any individual in [his] knowledge during the campaign".[225] Grant gained insight into Robert E. Lee, as his memoir states, "I had known him personally, and knew that he was mortal; and it was just as well that I felt this."[226]
In 1861, General Scott advised Abraham Lincoln to ask Lee to command U.S. forces. Lee declined and later recounted "I declined the offer he made me to take command of the army that was brought into the field, stating candidly and as courteously as I could that though opposed to secession and deprecating war, I could take no part in the invasion of the southern states."[227]
Social and political context
Despite initial objections from the Whigs and from abolitionists, the Mexican war nevertheless united the U.S. in a common cause and was fought almost entirely by volunteers. The United States Army swelled from just over 6,000 to more than 115,000. The majority of 12-month volunteers in Scott's army decided that a year's fighting was enough and returned to the U.S.[228]
Anti-slavery elements fought for the exclusion of slavery from any territory absorbed by the U.S.[229] In 1847, the House of Representatives passed the Wilmot Proviso, stipulating that none of the territory acquired should be open to slavery. If successful, the Wilmot Proviso would have effectively cancelled out the 1820 Missouri Compromise, since it would have prohibited slavery in an area below the parallel 36°30′ north. The Senate avoided the issue, and a late attempt to add it to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was defeated because Southern Senators had the votes to prevent its addition. The House of Representatives is apportioned by population, and the North's was growing, allowing it to win the majority of the House in the 1846 elections; but the Senate representation is two per state and Southerners had enough votes to block the addition.
The war proved a decisive event for the U.S., marking a significant turning point for the nation as a growing military power. It is also a milestone in the U.S. narrative of Manifest Destiny. The war did not resolve the issue of slavery in the U.S. but rather in many ways inflamed it, as potential westward expansion of the institution became an increasingly central and heated theme in national debates preceding the American Civil War.[230][need quotation to verify] By extending the territory of the United States to the Pacific Ocean, the end of the Mexican–American War marked a new step in the huge migrations of Americans to the West, which culminated in transcontinental railroads and the Indian wars later in the same century.[231][need quotation to verify]
Veterans of the war
Following the Civil War, veterans of the Mexican war began to organize themselves as veterans regardless of rank and lobbied for their service.[232] Initially they sought to create a soldiers' home for aged and ailing veterans, but then began pushing for pensions in 1874. There was resistance in Congress since veterans had received warrants for up to 160 acres of land for their service; pensions would have put a fiscal strain on the government.[233] The politics were complicated since so many veterans of the Mexican war fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War. Republican Congressmen accused them of attempting to give federal aid to former Confederates. This led to a thirteen-year Congressional debate over the loyalty of the veterans and their worthiness to receive federal assistance in their declining years.[234]
In 1887, the Mexican Veteran Pension Law went into effect, making veterans eligible for a pension for their service. Surviving officers and enlisted men were placed on a pension roll, which included volunteers, militias, and marines who had served at least 60 days and were at least 62 years old. Widows of veterans who had not remarried were eligible for their late husband's pension. Excluded were "any person while under the political disabilities imposed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution", that is, veterans who had fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War.[235]
Effects on Mexico
For Mexico, the war had remained a painful historical event for the country, losing territory and highlighting the domestic political conflicts that were to continue for another 20 years. The Reform War between liberals and conservatives was followed by the invasion of the French, who set up the puppet monarchy. The war caused Mexico to enter "a period of self-examination ... as its leaders sought to identify and address the reasons that had led to such a debacle."[236] In the immediate aftermath of the war, a group of Mexican writers including Ignacio Ramírez, Guillermo Prieto, José María Iglesias, and Francisco Urquidi compiled an assessment of the reasons for the war and Mexico's defeat, edited by Mexican army officer Ramón Alcaraz. They wrote that for "the true origin of the war, it is sufficient to say that the insatiable ambition of the United States, favored by our weakness, caused it."[12] The work was translated to English by Colonel Albert Ramsey, a veteran of the Mexican–American War, and published in 1850.[237]
Despite his being vilified and scapegoated for Mexico's loss in the war, Santa Anna returned to power for one last term as president. After he sold the Mesilla Valley in 1853 to the U.S., (the Gadsden Purchase) that allowed construction of a transcontinental railway on a better route, he was ousted and went into a lengthy exile. In exile he drafted his version of events, which were not published until much later.
Legado
Mexico
Once the French were expelled in 1867 and the liberal republic re-established, Mexico began reckoning with the legacy of the war. The story of the Niños Héroes became the narrative that helped Mexicans to come to terms with the war. Boy cadets sacrificing themselves for the patria as martyrs in the Battle of Chapultepec was inspiring, but their sacrifice was not commemorated until 1881 when surviving cadets formed an organization to support the Military Academy of Mexico. One of the cadets taken prisoner designed the monument, a small cenotaph was erected at the base of Chapultepec hill on which the castle is built.
Annual commemorations at the cenotaph were attended by General Porfirio Díaz, who saw the opportunity to build his relationship with the Federal Army. Even during the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920) the commemoration was continued and attended by presidents at the time. After the end of the military phase, the Mexican government renewed the narrative of the boy heroes as the embodiment of sacrifice for the patria. Plans were drawn up for a much larger commemoration of their sacrifice, which was built at the entrance to Mexico City's Chapultepec Park. The Monument to the Heroic Cadets was inaugurated in 1952. By then, the relations between the U.S. and Mexico had improved so much that they had been allies in World War II and their post-war economies became increasingly intertwined. Some war trophies taken by the U.S., such as Mexican battle flags, were returned to Mexico with considerable ceremony but captured U.S. flags remain in Mexico.
In 1981, the Mexican government established the Museo Nacional de las Intervenciones (National Museum of Interventions) in a former convent that was the site of the Battle of Churubusco. It chronicles the attempts by the Spanish to reconquer Mexico after its independence as well as the French interventions. The museum has an exhibition on the Intervención norteamericana de 1846–1848 that chronicles the Anglo-American settlement of Texas and their rebellion after characterizing themselves as victims of Mexican oppression. It goes on to blame the war on President Polk and Santa Anna. "The [museum's] interpretation concedes U.S. military superiority in arms and commanders while disparaging General Santa Anna's costly mistakes and retreat from the capital city."[238]
United States
In the U.S. the war was almost forgotten after the cataclysm of the Civil War.[239] However, one of the first monuments was erected on the State House grounds in South Carolina in 1858, celebrating the Palmetto Regiment. As veterans of the Civil War saw the scale of commemorations of that war, Mexican war veterans sought remembrance for their service. In 1885, a tableau of the U.S. Army's entry into Mexico City was painted in the U.S. Capitol Building by Filippo Constaggini. The Marine Corps Hymn, which includes the phrase "From the Halls of Montezuma" is an acknowledgment of the war, but there are no major monuments or memorials.
Mexico City is the site of a cemetery created in 1851, still maintained by the American Battle Monuments Commission. It holds the remains of 1,563 U.S. soldiers who mainly died in the conflict and were placed in a mass grave. Many more U.S. soldiers died in Mexico, but to transfer bodies there from shallow graves was expensive. A few of those interred died in Mexico City long after the war. The Mexico City military cemetery "signaled a transition in what the United States understood to be its obligations to its war dead," a pressing issue with the dead of the Civil War.[240]
The Mormon Battalion, the only faith-based unit in the war, raised several monuments commemorating their contributions to the war. At the time of the war, most Mormons had left the jurisdiction of the U.S. because of persecution and had relocated to Utah. The Mormon leadership realized that stressing their contributions to the war and to realizing manifest destiny was a way to be included in the nation's narrative. A monument to the battalion was dedicated in 1927 on the grounds of the Utah State Capitol grounds in 1927 and one erected in Los Angeles in 1950.[241]
Ver también
- American propaganda in the Mexican–American War
- List of battles of the Mexican–American War
- Reconquista (Mexico)
- Republic of Texas–United States relations
- Territories of Mexico
General
- History of Mexico
- History of New Mexico
- History of the United States
- List of conflicts in the United States
- List of wars involving Mexico
- List of wars involving the United States
- Mexico–United States relations
Notas
- ^ Variations include U.S.–Mexican War, the U.S.–Mexico War.
- ^ Spanish: Intervención americana en México, or Intervención estadounidense en México. In Mexico, it may also be called the War of United States-Mexico (Guerra de Estados Unidos-México).
Referencias
- ^ a b c d e f Clodfelter 2017, p. 249.
- ^ "Official DOD data". Archived from the original on February 28, 2014. Retrieved March 8, 2014.
- ^ White, Ronald Cedric (2017). American Ulysses: a life of Ulysses S. Grant (Random House trade paperback ed.). New York: Random House. p. 96. ISBN 9780812981254. OCLC 988947112.
The Mexican War of 1846-1848, largely forgotten today, was the second costliest war in American history in terms of the percentage of soldiers who died. Of the 78, 718 American soldiers who served, 13,283 died, constituting a casualty rate of 16.87 percent. By comparison, the casualty rate was 2.5 percent in World War I and World War II, 0.1 percent in Korea and Vietnam, and 21 percent for the Civil War. Of the casualties, 11,562 died of illness, disease, and accidents.
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Indian raids multiplied Mexico's problems, in the generation before her war with the United States, to a degree not generally realized today. They upset her agricultural, commercial, mineral, and ranch life over hundreds of thousands of square miles. Consequently, the country's capacity for defense declined at a time when centralism, clericalism, militarism, and American imperialism were debilitating the nation. The chief offending mountain tribes were Apache, Navajo, and Ute; and the most troublesome plains Indians were Comanche and Kiowa.
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Bibliografía
Reference works
- Crawford, Mark; Heidler, Jeanne; Heidler (eds.), David Stephen (1999). Encyclopedia of the Mexican War. ISBN 978-1-57607-059-8.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
- Frazier, Donald S. ed. The U.S. and Mexico at War, (1998), 584; an encyclopedia with 600 articles by 200 scholars
General histories
- Bauer, Karl Jack (1992). The Mexican War: 1846–1848. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-6107-5.
- De Voto, Bernard, Year of Decision 1846 (1942), well written popular history
- Greenberg, Amy S. A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico (2012). ISBN 9780307592699 and Corresponding Author Interview at the Pritzker Military Library on December 7, 2012
- Guardino, Peter. The Dead March: A History of the Mexican-American War. Cambridge: Harvard University Press (2017). ISBN 978-0-674-97234-6
- Henderson, Timothy J. A Glorious Defeat: Mexico and Its War with the United States (2008)
- Meed, Douglas. The Mexican War, 1846–1848 (2003). A short survey.
- Merry Robert W. A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War and the Conquest of the American Continent (2009)
- Smith, Justin Harvey. The War with Mexico, Vol 1. (2 vol 1919), full text online.
- Smith, Justin Harvey. The War with Mexico, Vol 2. (1919). full text online.
Military
- Bauer K. Jack. Zachary Taylor: Soldier, Planter, Statesman of the Old Southwest. Louisiana State University Press, 1985.
- DeLay, Brian. "Independent Indians and the U.S. Mexican War," American Historical Review 112, no. 1 (Feb. 2007)
- DeLay, Brian. War of a Thousand Deserts: Indian Raids and the Mexican-American War. New Haven: Yale University Press 2009.
- Dishman, Christopher, A Perfect Gibraltar: The Battle for Monterrey, Mexico, University of Oklahoma Press, 2010 ISBN 0-8061-4140-9.
- Eisenhower, John. So Far From God: The U.S. War with Mexico, Random House (1989).
- Eubank, Damon R., Response of Kentucky to the Mexican War, 1846–1848. (Edwin Mellen Press, 2004), ISBN 978-0-7734-6495-7.
- Foos, Paul. A Short, Offhand, Killing Affair: Soldiers and Social Conflict during the Mexican-War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 2002.
- Fowler, Will. Santa Anna of Mexico (2007) 527pp; a major scholarly study
- Frazier, Donald S. The U.S. and Mexico at War, Macmillan (1998).
- Hamilton, Holman, Zachary Taylor: Soldier of the Republic, (1941).
- Huston, James A. The Sinews of War: Army Logistics, 1775–1953 (1966), U.S. Army; 755p. pp 125–58
- Johnson, Timothy D. Winfield Scott: The Quest for Military Glory (1998)
- Johnson, Timothy D. A Gallant Little Army: The Mexico City Campaign. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press 2007.
- Levinson, Irving. Wars within War: Mexican Guerrillas, Domestic Elites and the United States of America 1846–1848. Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press 2005.
- Lewis, Felice Flannery. Trailing Clouds of Glory: Zachary Taylor's Mexican War Campaign and His Emerging Civil War Leaders. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press 2010.
- Lewis, Lloyd. Captain Sam Grant (1950).
- Martinez, Orlando. The Great Landgrab. Quartet Books (London, 1975)
- McCaffrey, James M. Army of Manifest Destiny: The American Soldier in the Mexican War, 1846–1848 (1994) excerpt and text search
- Smith, Justin H. (1918). "American Rule in Mexico". The American Historical Review. 23 (2): 287–302. doi:10.2307/1836568. ISSN 1937-5239. JSTOR 1836568.
- Murphy, Douglas. Two Armies on the Rio Grande: The First Campaign of the U.S. Mexican War (College Station: Texas A&M Press) 2015.
- Smith, Justin Harvey. The War with Mexico. 2 vol (1919). Pulitzer Prize winner. full text online.
- Winders, Richard Price. Mr. Polk's Army: The American Military Experience in the Mexican War. College Station" Texas A&M Press (1997)
- Clodfelter, M. (2017). Warfare and Armed Conflicts: A Statistical Encyclopedia of Casualty and Other Figures, 1492–2015 (4th ed.). McFarland. ISBN 978-0786474707.
Political and diplomatic
- Beveridge, Albert J. 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).
- Fowler, Will. Santa Anna of Mexico (2007) 527pp; the major scholarly study excerpt and text search
- 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. (1955).
- Graebner, Norman A. (1978). "Lessons of the Mexican War". Pacific Historical Review. 47 (3): 325–42. doi:10.2307/3637470. ISSN 1533-8584. JSTOR 3637470.
- Graebner, Norman A. (1980). "The Mexican War: A Study in Causation". Pacific Historical Review. 49 (3): 405–26. doi:10.2307/3638563. ISSN 1533-8584. JSTOR 3638563.
- Greenberg, Amy. A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln and the 1846 Invasion of Mexico. New York: Knopf 2012.
- Henderson, Timothy J. A Glorious Defeat: Mexico and Its War with the United States (2007), survey
- Krauze, Enrique. Mexico: Biography of Power, (1997), textbook.
- Linscott, Robert N., Editor. 1959. Selected Poems and Letters of Emily Dickinson. Anchor Books, New York. ISBN 0-385-09423-X
- 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.
- Pinheiro, John C. Manifest Ambition: James K. Polk and Civil-Military Relations during the Mexican War (2007).
- 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.
- Reeves, Jesse S. (1905). "The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo". The American Historical Review. 10 (2): 309–24. doi:10.2307/1834723. hdl:10217/189496. ISSN 1937-5239. JSTOR 1834723.
- Reilly, Tom. War with Mexico! America's Reporters Cover the Battlefront. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press 2010.
- Rives, George Lockhart (1913). The United States and Mexico, 1821–1848: a history of the relations between the two countries from the independence of Mexico to the close of the war with the United States. 2. New York: C. Scribner's Sons.
- 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.
- Ruiz, Ramon Eduardo. Triumph and Tragedy: A History of the Mexican People, Norton 1992, textbook
- Santoni, Pedro. Mexicans at Arms: Puro Federalists and the Politics of War, 1845–1848. Fort Worth: Texas Christian Press 1996.
- 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 (1966), the standard biography vol 1 and 2 are online at ACLS e-books
- Smith, Justin Harvey. The War with Mexico. 2 vol (1919). Pulitzer Prize winner. full text online.
- Stephenson, Nathaniel Wright. Texas and the Mexican War: A Chronicle of Winning the Southwest. Yale University Press (1921).
- 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).
Historiography, Memory and Religion
- Benjamin, Thomas. "Recent Historiography of the Origins of the Mexican War," New Mexico Historical Review, Summer 1979, Vol. 54 Issue 3, pp 169–181
- Connors, Thomas G. and Raúl Isaí Muñoz. "Looking for the North American Invasion in Mexico City." American Historical Review, vol. 125, no. 2, April 2020, pp. 498–516.
- Faulk, Odie B., and Stout, Joseph A., Jr., eds. The Mexican War: Changing Interpretations (1974)
- Johannsen, Robert. To the Halls of Montezuma: The Mexican War in the American Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press 1985.
- Pinheiro, John C. Missionaries of Republicanism: A Religious History of the Mexican-American War. New York: Oxford University Press 2014.
- Rodriguez, Jaime Javier. The Literatures of the U.S.-Mexican War: Narrative, Time, and Identity (University of Texas Press; 2010) 306 pages. Covers works by Anglo, Mexican, and Mexican-American writers.
- Van Wagenen, Michael. Remembering the Forgotten War: The Enduring Legacies of the U.S.-Mexican War. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press 2012.
- Vázquez, Josefina Zoraida. "La Historiografia Sobre la Guerra entre Mexico y los Estados Unidos," ["The historiography of the war between Mexico and the United States"] Histórica (02528894), 1999, Vol. 23 Issue 2, pp 475–485
Primary sources
- Calhoun, John C. The Papers of John C. Calhoun. Vol. 23: 1846, ed. by Clyde N. Wilson and Shirley Bright Cook. (1996). 598 pp
- Calhoun, John C. The Papers of John C. Calhoun. Vol. 24: December 7, 1846 – December 5, 1847 ed. by Clyde N. Wilson and Shirley Bright Cook, (1998). 727 pp.
- Conway, Christopher, ed. The U.S.-Mexican War: A Binational Reader (2010)
- Coulter, Richard. Volunteers: The Mexican War Journals of Private Richard Coulter and Sargeant Thomas Barclay, ed. Allan Peskin. Kent: Kent State University Press 1991.
- Dana, Napoleon Jackson Tecumseh (1990). Ferrell, Robert H. (ed.). Monterrey Is Ours!: The Mexican War Letters of Lieutenant Dana, 1845–1847. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0813117034. LCCN 89029351.
- Grant, Ulysses S. (1885). Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant. New York: Charles L. Webster & Co.
- Hill, Daniel Harvey. A Fighter from Way Back: The Mexican War Diary of Lt. Daniel Harvey Hill, 4th Artillery USA. NCC Hughes and TD Johnson, eds. Kent OH: Kent State University Press 2003.
- Kendall, George Wilkins.Dispatches from the Mexican War. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press 1999.
- Laidley, Theodore. Surrounded by Dangers of All Kinds: The Mexican War Letter of Lieutenant Theodore Laidley. Denton: University of North Texas 1997.
- McAfee, Ward and J. Cordell Robinson, eds. Origins of the Mexican War: A Documentary Source Book. 2 vols. 1982.
- McClellan, George. The Mexican War Diary and Correspondence of George B. McClellan. ed. Thomas Cutrer. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press 2009.
- Polk, James, K. (2017) [1910]. Quaiff, Milo Milton (ed.). The Diary of James K. Polk During his Presidency, 1845 to 1849. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co. ISBN 978-1-5033-7428-7.
- Robinson, Cecil, The View From Chapultepec: Mexican Writers on the Mexican War, University of Arizona Press (Tucson, 1989).
- Smith, Franklin (1991). Joseph E. Chance (ed.). The Mexican War Journal of Captain Franklin Smith. Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi.
- George Winston Smith and Charles Judah, ed. (1968). Chronicles of the Gringos: The U.S. Army in the Mexican War, 1846–1848, Accounts of Eyewitnesses and Combatants. Albuquerque, New Mexico: The University of New Mexico Press.
- Tennery, Thomas. The Mexican War Diary of Thomas D. Tennery. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press 1970
- Webster, Daniel (1984). Charles M. Wiltse (ed.). The Papers of Daniel Webster, Correspondence. 6. Hanover, New Hampshire: The University Press of New England.
- Zeh, Frederick. An Immigrant Soldier in the Mexican American War. College Station: Texas A&M Press 1995.
- "Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo". Internet Sourcebook Project. Retrieved November 26, 2008.
- "28th Congress, 2nd session". United States House Journal. Retrieved November 26, 2008.
- "29th Congress, 1st session". United States House Journal. Retrieved November 26, 2008.
- "28th Congress, 2nd session". United States Senate Journal. Retrieved November 26, 2008.
- "29th Congress, 1st session". United States Senate Journal. Retrieved November 26, 2008.
- William Hugh Robarts, "Mexican War veterans: a complete roster of the regular and volunteer troops in the war between the United States and Mexico, from 1846 to 1848; the volunteers are arranged by states, alphabetically", BRENTANO'S (A. S. WITHERBEE & CO, Proprietors); WASHINGTON, D. C., 1887.
enlaces externos
Guides, bibliographies and collections
- Library of Congress Guide to the Mexican War
- The Handbook of Texas Online: Mexican War
- Mexican War Resources
- The Mexican–American War, Illinois Historical Digitization Projects at Northern Illinois University Libraries
Media and primary sources
- A Continent Divided: The U.S. – Mexico War
- Robert E. Lee Mexican War Maps in the VMI Archives
- The Mexican War and the Media, 1845–1848
- Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and related resources at the U.S. Library of Congress
- Letters of Winfield Scott including official reports from the front sent to the Secretary of War
- Franklin Pierce's Journal on the March from Vera Cruz
- Mexican–American War Time line
- Animated History of the Mexican–American War
- Maps showing course of Mexican-American War at omniatlas.com
Other
- PBS site of US-Mexican war program
- Battle of Monterrey Web Site – Complete Info on the battle
- Manifest Destiny and the U.S.-Mexican War: Then and Now
- The Mexican War
- Smithsonian teaching aids for "Establishing Borders: The Expansion of the United States, 1846–48"
- A History by the Descendants of Mexican War Veterans
- Mexican–American War
- Invisible Men: Blacks and the U.S. Army in the Mexican War by Robert E. May
- Milton Meltzer, "Bound for the Rio Grande: Traitors—Or Martyrs", Reading, video, and lesson for high school students, 1974, Zinn Education Project/Rethinking Schools.
- Google Map of The Mexican-American War of 1846–1848
- John H. Hewitt wrote the song "The Fall of Mexico" in 1847