Taylor's Outmanned Troops Stun Mexico

By the spring of 1846, it had become apparent to everyone that diplomatic efforts between the United States and Mexico had failed. For the Mexicans, old injustices had become unbearable. A decade earlier, the upstart Texans had declared their independence, but the sovereign nation of Mexico still considered the land a northern province. Then, in 1845, the United States had annexed Texas while offering Mexico the insultingly low amount of $35 million to purchase California and other lands in western North America.

The diplomatic wrangling had been exacerbated by the concept of “Manifest Destiny,” which had captivated the geopolitical thinking of many Americans in the mid-19th century. Adherents of the ideal believed that God had divinely sanctioned the expansion of the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Indeed, James K. Polk, a Democrat, had been elected president in 1844 on a platform of just such expansion.