#mexican-american-war

#mexican-american-war

Abraham Lincoln first earned national attention by calling out President James K. Polk's lies about the lead-up to the conflict, which lasted from April 1846 to February 1848, on the floor of Congress. Ulysses S. Grant called the war "one of the most unjust ever waged." Henry David Thoreau's famous essay "Resistance to Civil Government" was written partly in response to the Mexican-American War, which he decried as "the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool." Other American paragons of virtue who were publicly opposed at the time: William Lloyd Garrison, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Frederick Douglass.

The Texas Revolution (1835-1836) is one of the most important events in American history as it established the Texas Republic, leading to the annexation of Texas as the 28th state in 1846, which ignited the Mexican-American War (1846-1848). The Mexican-American War resulted in the Mexican Cession, through which the USA gained the territories of Alta California, New Mexico, and Texas in 1848.

To characterize the Mexican-American War as only a training ground for the officers who would later serve on both sides in the Civil War is a simplification and a disservice to all who fought between 1846 and 1848, but, at the same time, there is truth to the label. The Mexican-American War provided the theater in which many of the most famous Civil War generals learned the art of warfare firsthand, and they made use of those lessons later to great effect.

The Mexican-American War (1846-1848) was a conflict between the United States and Mexico, sparked by the US annexation of Texas in 1845.