No sooner had California fallen into the hands of the Americans, than it turned out to be full of gold. In that very year, 1848, began the gold fever of California, and emigration poured in from all parts of the States, so that rapidly the territory, unknown and neglected by the Mexicans, grew to be a most important State. San Francisco, then a little straggling Mexican port, is now a large and flourishing city.
This is a result of the war which must be viewed with impatience, to say the least, by the Mexicans, who saw themselves, at the time, forced to relinquish this large amount of territory without the power of refusal. On the other hand, there is room for thinking that California, left in the hands of that people, might have remained to this day undiscovered, with its wealth still hidden in the earth. Whatever comfort this may be, is open to the losing side.
The war left them disgraced and humiliated, with ruined cities and desolated homes scattered over the land. It is probable, however, that the permanent effect of the war was beneficial. It taught the Mexicans, for one thing, to distrust the prestige of their army, and humbled the pretensions of a crowd of military men, who, while they aspired to the highest offices of government, proved themselves not only incapable of serving their country thus, but incompetent in the field. High praise, however, is always to be assigned to the courage and bravery of the army, its commanders, and private soldiers, especially in the defence of their capital when the struggle reached its last agony.
The United States by the war acquired an immense extent of territory, by many of its citizens, however, even at the time, regarded as a questionable good. The acquisition of so much slave territory without doubt hastened the crisis which called for the civil war of 1861. The experiences of the American army in the Mexican war, and the glory, exaggerated perhaps, which attached to their feats of arms, stimulated the taste for military pursuits, before very moderate in a peaceful and industrious land. The heroes of the campaign of Anahuac were transferred to the field of politics. General Taylor became President of the United States, and General Scott narrowly escaped it. The defects of the army were recognized and in great measure remedied, so that when the civil war did come, both armies, on the two contending sides of that unfortunate conflict, were in a state of readiness much in advance of the condition of the national troops before the campaign in Mexico, while a crop of officers, heroes of the so-called glorious victories of Palo Alto, Buena Vista, and the rest, responded to the call of loyalty, or rebellion, with the alacrity of experience.
After the evacuation of Mexico an attempt was made by the Americans to capture Santa Anna. General Lane, who with a small force was engaged in driving guerrillas from the roads, received information that this general was at Tehuacan, not very far from Puebla. After marching all night in that direction, he occupied two large haciendas in that neighborhood, where his men and horses were concealed during daylight, and the Mexican residents held close prisoners. When evening arrived the command marched on towards Tehuacan. About five miles out they met a carriage with an escort of ten or twelve armed men. They were stopped, but the occupant of the carriage produced a written safeguard over the signature of an American general, and upon this the whole party was allowed to proceed. General Lane arrived at Tehuacan just at daylight, and entered it at once. But the bird had flown. Santa Anna had been there; but, warned by a breathless messenger on horseback, who rode back from the carriage the soldiers had met, to give him news of the approach of the soldiers, had just time enough to make his escape, with his family, leaving all his effects, which were quickly plundered by the troops of Lane's command.
On Friday 1st, before the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, Santa Anna informed the Minister of War and the American Commander-in-Chief that he desired to leave Mexico and seek an asylum on a foreign soil, where he "might pass his last days in that tranquillity which he could never find in the land of his birth." This permission was granted, and he went to Jamaica, leaving his country at peace, but not forever.
Ulysses S. Grant, then a young soldier in the army of the United States, took part in the Mexican war. He went into the battle of Palo Alto as second lieutenant, at the age of twenty-six, and entered the city of Mexico sixteen months later with the conquering army.
In his personal memoirs General Grant expresses his opinion that the Mexican war was one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. "It was an instance," he says, "of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory."