WAR BEGUN.
In the spring of 1846, General Taylor of the regular army of the United States was sent to the mouth of the Rio Grande, or Rio Bravo del Norte, as it is also called, with a small force. Mexican troops also assembled there, and a conflict was precipitated by a Mexican ambuscade on the Texas side of the river, which attacked a small party of dragoons, reconnoitering. In this skirmish sixteen Americans were killed or wounded, and the whole force was captured. This was the beginning of hostilities. The Mexican army crossed the Rio Grande, and on the 8th of May the battle of Palo Alto was fought, and that of Resaca de la Palma on the next day. Both of these places are on the Texas side of the river. The Mexicans were defeated in each engagement, and they left the field with a better opinion of the capacity of American troops than the one they held before. The rout of the Mexicans was complete; their pieces of light artillery, their camp, and five hundred pack-mules and saddles remained in the hands of their enemies. General Arista, the commander of the Mexican force, lost his personal baggage, plate, and public correspondence. The number of killed and wounded was estimated at more than a thousand.
After this action, both parties crossed the river, and Mexico became the theatre of warfare. The Mexican army withdrew at first to Matamoras, at the mouth of the Rio Grande, and afterward to San Luis de Potosi; Arista was deprived of his command, and brought to trial before a council of war.
This was the opening of the conflict, and this might well have been the end, if Mexico had been capable of rational negotiation. But there was no government long enough in place to be negotiated with. The special envoy sent from Washington, agreeably to an intimation on the part of one President, that negotiations would be cordially entered upon, was refused an audience by the new President who had usurped the place of the other one. Such weakness in Mexican high places furnished an excuse to the American government for continuing the war, while this same weakness on the part of their antagonist made it almost discreditable for the United States to continue an aggressive warfare upon forces so unequal.
However, the war was begun. Hostilities had been opened by Mexico, and the American people of all parties were aroused. Bills were promptly passed in Washington providing men, money, and munitions with alacrity, as if there were but one opinion of the justice of the cause. The President was authorized to call for volunteers, in any number not exceeding fifty thousand, to serve for the period of one year, or during the war, and volunteers readily answered the appeal to arms.
"Indemnity for the past and security for the future," is the watchword of the United States in its wars with foreign nations. As indemnity for the wrongs inflicted by Mexico,—that is, her objection to the admission of Texas to the Union, it was determined to cross her boundary line and seize upon her territory.
California, then sparsely settled, and comparatively unknown, at a long distance from the central and civilized part of Mexico, had been explored already by American travellers, who brought back accounts of its climate, fertile soil, and mineral resources that showed it to be worth having. The harbors on its coasts were known to be the only good ones on the shores of the Northern Pacific Ocean. California lay immediately south of the United States territory of Oregon, with no defined natural boundary between them. Many Americans were already settled there, and altogether it seemed well to transfer this goodly region to the keeping of the United States. New Mexico, another department of the Mexican Republic, lying upon the direct route to California, and in great part included in the boundaries claimed by Texas upon her admission to the Union, was also another territory that claimed attention.
It would be too much to say that the United States began hostilities with a neighboring republic, shaken by internal discord, its government little better than anarchy, and weak from continuous civil war, for the sake of snatching from that country a large part of its territory to enlarge its own already wide proportions. But since the Mexicans, foolishly and wickedly, had given fair pretext for quarrel, and afterwards, with the obstinacy of naughty children, refused to recede, and persisted in resorting to arms, actually making the first attack, it seemed well to the United States government to call this the inevitable, and accept it with all the benefits arising from such a course.
Their general plan of operations was to seize and occupy the coveted territories as "indemnity for the expenses of war," while an army invading the heart of Mexico should force an agreement to terms of peace.