Of all our country's major military conflicts, the Mexican War is perhaps the least known. It has been long overshadowed by the later Civil War, and is still today frequently confused with the Texas Revolution of 1835-1836, the Spanish-American War (1898), or the Mexican intervention and border troubles of 1914-1916.

             This history of this war begins in the early 1800s. At this time, the United States of.

             America consisted of a union of twenty-four sovereign states. The population, according to the fourth U.S. census released in August of 1820, was 9,600,000 people, of whom more than 230,00 were free Negros and 1,500,000, slave Negros. It is also officially reported that 8,385 immigrants arrived in the country during 1819. James Monroe, the fifth President, was in office, with John Quincy Adams as his Secretary of State, W. H. Crawford, his Secretary of Treasury, and J. C. Calhoun as Secretary of War. D. D. Tompkins was Vice President. The attention of the vigorous young nation was divided between domestic and foreign problems. Of the domestic questions, slavery was by far the most deep-rooted.

             When the United States annexed Texas in 1845, with the consent of its citizens, Mexico recalled its ambassador and threatened war. In response, the U.S. stationed troops under the command of General Zachary Taylor at Corpus Christi. They remained there through the remainder of that year and into early 1846. .

             The Mexican War began on April 25, 1846, when Mexican troops crossed the Rio Grande river and ambushed an American scouting patrol, killing sixteen and taking the remainder prisoners. On May 3, Mexican forces in Matamoros began an artillery bombardment of Fort Texas which lasted for seven days. During the siege, the fort's commander, Maj. Jacob Brown, was killed. The fort was afterward named Fort Brown in his honor. .

             General Taylor occupied Matamoros on May 18 but then delayed for several months before moving south.