CHAPTER V THE MEXICAN WAR OF 1846-7 Mexicans and Americans have faced each other in war in the past, the hostilities of April, 1914, at Vera Cruz being by no means the first between armed forces of the United States and the Spanish-Indian citizens of the southern Republic. Historians do not dignify the numerous engagements between the independent Texans and the Mexicans with the use of the word war. But the war of 1846-7, though insignificant in comparison with the civil war in the United States, nevertheless was of great consequence and far-reaching results. The war cost the United States $163,000,000 and the lives of about 25,000 brave soldiers, one-fourth the actual number of American fighters who participated in the struggle. It left the United States with a debt of $85,000,000. But the cost to Mexico was so enormous that no attempt ever was made accurately to measure it in human lives and dollars. Thousands and thousands of Mexicans were slain by the more highly trained soldiers of the United States, though the Mexicans fought bravely, gallantly and furiously on many memorable occasions. The war of 1846 was the result of a boundary dispute. Texas had belonged to Mexico, but the vast territory was peopled by Americans and but few Mexicans lived in Texas. Many Americans, among them the pioneer, Stephen Austin, for whom Austin County and the city of Austin, Tex., were named, had obtained land grants in Texas from the Mexican government. Colonists moved in and the territory was dotted with thriving little communities. THE REVOLT OF TEXAS The elemental differences between the Mexicans and Americans and the prejudices of religion and nationality could only lead to one result-disputes. When after years of virtual self-rule the Mexican government began to rule Texas harshly, the Texans rebelled in 1833, and in 1836 set up an independent government. The republic of Texas, which became the Lone Star State, was born. When Santa Anna, the powerful Mexican chief, overthrew the government in one of the numerous revolutions from which Mexico was seldom free, Texas prepared to seek admittance to the Mexican confederation as a new state. Stephen Austin was the commissioner who went to the City of Mexico bearing the petition. It was ignored and Austin imprudently wrote back to the Texan leaders to go ahead and organize a state without waiting for the government's consent. His letter fell into the hands of Santa Anna and Austin was arrested and thrown into prison and placed in solitary confinement for a year. The indignity inflamed the Texans, but when Santa Anna sent General Cos into Texas to enforce an act passed in 1830 prohibiting immigration of Americans into Texas, and to demand the surrender of Lorenzo de Zavala, a refugee wanted because he had introduced a bill in the Mexican Congress directed against church property, the Texans prepared for resistance. The Mexican general took possession of the town of Antonio de Bexar. The Texans, on September 28, 1835, attacked and defeated a small body of Mexicans at Gonzales, on the Rio Guadalupe, and the war and revolution of Texas was begun. The Mexicans met victory in most of the earlier engagements, but the Texans, aided by the United States in every possible way, finally defeated Santa Anna, who |