Howard Morris's Letter Home
Center for American History
University of Texas at Austin

The first direct result of the annexation of Texas was the Mexican-American War. After two rapid coups d'etat left Mexico too unstable to negotiate with, Polk ordered General Zachary Taylor to take up a position on the American side of the Rio Grande, a boundary that Mexico had accepted after her 1836 defeat but had since repudiated. Mexico declared war on April 23, 1846, and a Mexican force crossed the river and struck a small detachment, killing several American troops. Asserting that Mexico had "shed American blood upon American soil," Polk asked for, and received, a declaration of war. The first battle of the war at Palo Alto was an American victory. Howard Morris of the 1st Mississippi Volunteers, described the battlefield in this letter to his brother and sister, writing that there "still lay the carcases of fifty unburied Mexicans, broken spears, lancets, guns, cannon-carriages, etc."

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