What Were The American's Goals During The Mexican War

Mexico’s much weaker army did not stand a chance against the United States army. “In all, 26,922 regulars and 73,260 volunteers served at some point during the Mexican War”. “Approximately 80,000 Mexicans were living in the ceded territory, mainly in the areas of California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas”. The United States outnumber Mexico by nearly 20,000 troops. A political cartoon reveals that the United States Army was made up largely of untrained, undisciplined volunteer troops. Though the volunteers were unfortunate enough to have old, trashed guns, the American’s musket was still much better than the Mexican’s Brown Bess. Americans unleashed their new tactic of Flying Artillery, which the Mexicans were completely unaware of until …show more content…
Texas was a semi-independent territory, and was populated with both Americans and Mexicans. Polk believed in Manifest Destiny and had a craving for more land. One of the goals of his administration was to acquire all the land stretching to California, and New Mexico was just an additional present in the process from Mexico. The main interest was the San Francisco Bay as an access point for trade with Asia. He would go to extreme measures for a large territory such as Texas. Texas, a large territory, had the choice to be annexed to either the United States or Mexico. Both countries were fighting over it. The American slaveholding families triggered fighting against the Mexicans, who favored freedom. Polk figured that if a war started between both countries, the spoils could come out much more rewarding than simply Texas. Therefore, Polk did not attempt to withdraw Americans from the Texas territory, in hope that maybe a war would break out. He got his wish on July 7, 1846, when Mexico declared war on the United States after a few small battles and, more importantly, three days after California declared themselves independent from Mexico. All of these events supported Polk’s ideas and only encouraged him to anger Mexico. He accomplished this by sending Zachary Taylor to depart Fort Jessup, Louisiana into Texas with 1,500 troops on the transport …show more content…
W.A. Swanberg, a biographer of Hearst who said of the Spanish-American War: “It was an unnecessary war. It was the newspapers’ war. Above all, it was Hearst’s war” (Article by Joseph W. Campbell). Polk felt that because of this, if he continued to protect Texas they would become a part of America. Polk’s idea was that if he could begin a war with Mexico, he could possibly take home more of a reward than only Texas. Mexico was unable to realize the independence of Texas. This hurt them, pushing Texas away from any chance of rejoining with