Chapter 28: President James Polk Annexes Texas and Provokes the Mexican War

1845

Jackson’s Tennessee protégé, Polk, narrowly defeats Clay in the 1844 election, and in December 1845 Texas is granted admittance to the Union as a Slave State.

Polk follows up this bold move in May 1846 by sending General Zachary Taylor and 3,500 U.S. troops to the Nueces River as a show of force — while also making an offer of $25 million to Mexico to acquire land up to the Rio Grande River.

After this is rejected, a skirmish breaks out at the town of Matamoros, and Taylor’s army crosses the Rio Grande to defeat the Mexicans at Palo Alto. From that point, the war is on.