U.S.-Mexican War (America at War (Facts on File))

Controversial and unpopular, at the time the U.S.-Mexican War divided the country's loyalties more than any event since the Revolution. Abraham Lincoln argued against it in Congress; Henry David Thoreau went to jail rather than pay taxes that would help to finance it. The only public issue that rivaled the U.S.-Mexican War for bitterness of debate was slavery - and slavery played an important role in starting the conflict. But the realities of the time were powerfully shaped by the belief in the myth of "Manifest Destiny" - that the United States was predestined to occupy the North American continent "from sea to shining sea" - and so a war of conquest was launched. When it was over, the United States had doubled its size at the expense of Mexico, which had shrunk by half. A fast-moving narrative filled with evocative and historically accurate detail, U.S.- Mexican War, Updated Edition tells the full story of a long ignored but critical passage in American military history that was soon overshadowed by the Civil War, New box features cover topics such as early 19th-century Mexican politics; the roles slavery and "Manifest Destiny" played in bringing about the war; and Winfield Scott's struggle to create a professional U.S. Army.