today on the Dahler bell ring we're taking a look at the mexican-american war hello welcome
to the de laval ringer please don't get to subscribe and take a look at the questions
down in the description also I'd love to see your answer your question number five in the comments
below so the mexican-american war in order to understand what was going on here we have to
first take a look at what's going on in Texas of course Texas gained independence in 1836 but was
not added as a state to the United States until 1845 now the whole issue was where the border was
with Mexico Mexico I'm sorry the United States insisted that the border was at the Rio Grande
River while Mexico insisted that the border was much further north at the Nueces River so this
was the big issue now in 1845 rightist Texas was being admitted as the 28th state James
K Polk was coming in as the 11th president in the United States and Polk had run a campaign
basically arguing for manifest destiny arguing for adding new territory arguing for trying to
get the border of the United States all the way to the Pacific Ocean so at the time this whole area
from New Mexico to California was controlled by Mexico and James Kay polka tried unsuccessfully
to buy this whole region from Mexico the Mexico had refused and so now James Polk was basically
wanting to go to war with Mexico and he needed to find a way to provoke a war with Mexico so
President Polk orders general Zachary Taylor to march troops into that disputed borderland
between Texas and Mexico and he basically sends them out there and says you know your mission is
really to go out there and see if you can get shot at and so actually he gets what he wants on April
24th of 1846 Zachary Taylor's troops come under the attack of Mexican soldiers and so now Taylor
sends word back to Polk and says hey we've been attacked now you can go to Congress and ask for
a war which of course what James Payton James Polk does he goes to Congress and they declare
war on Mexico now the mexican-american war was really a brief war if you really think about it
only lasted from truthfully April of 1846 until really mid September of 1847 when Mexico City
Falls and really it's a war that's dominated by the Americans and one of the big reasons why it's
dominated by Americans is because we had really well-trained commanders and soldiers lot of them
coming from West Point they Military Academy up in northern New York some of these guys who had
been trained at West Point who were involved here at the mexican-american war guys like robert e lee
ulysses s grant Thomas Jackson of course will later be known as Stonewall Jackson these guys
that are gonna be big names during the American Civil War and many many of the leaders of the
Civil War and get their first taste of battle here during the mexican-american war so the
mexican-american war the United States had really three main goals or strata or three main points
to their strategy to win the war first was to take control of that disputed border land in Texas and
actually general Zachary Taylor accomplishes this in early 1847 by capturing the cities of Monterey
and Buena Vista in northern Mexico the second part of the plan was to take control of the
New Mexico to California region and so General Stephen Watts Kearney led troops towards Santa
Fe New Mexico and actually in August of 1846 that they capture Santa Fe in the meantime in June of
1846 American citizens living in Sonoma California they rise up against the Mexican authorities there
and they basically proclaimed themselves to be independent and they call themselves the Bear
Flag Republic well then American troops under John C Fremont arrive him along with naval support they
capture San Diego and then Los Angeles and so by early 1847 California was completely under
American control the third part of the plan or strategy was to capture Mexico City and force
the Mexican government to surrender this was taken on by General Winfield Scott and in March of 1847
he lands troops near Veracruz of Mexico and then marches west towards Mexico City fighting his way
of fighting all the way towards Mexico City and in mid-september of 1847 Mexico City Falls the
Mexican government surrenders and now basically they go into negotiations and so in February of
1848 the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is signed and what it did was it recognized the Rio Grande
River as being the border between the United States Mexico then also within there there was
the Mexican Cession in which Mexico handed over control of the New Mexico to California region
for fifteen million dollars and of course later on we have the Gadsden Purchase in 1853 where
we had a little bit more of Arizona or that southern border but now the United States
stretched all the way to the Pacific Ocean and now manifest destiny is really really gonna
kick into high gear as Americans begin to flood West especially began beginning with of course
gold is going to be found there in California shortly after the war is over really right as
the war is ending Gold is found there and there in California so Americans begin to
flood to the west and of course this is going to set the stage for a lot of conflict in the
1850s as we argue about you know where these new area is going to be free or slave states
and of course this is gonna lead us towards the American Civil War okay so thank you for watching
you