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• Austin had traveled to Mexico City late in 1833 to present petitions for greater self-government for Texas to Mexican president Antonio López de Santa Anna.
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• They drove the Mexican forces from the Alamo, an abandoned mission and fort. In response, Santa Anna swept north- ward and stormed and destroyed the small American garrison in the Alamo.
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• Led by General Sam Houston, the Texian Army engaged and defeated General Antonio López de Santa Anna's Mexican forces in a fight that lasted just eighteen minute. About 630 of the Mexican soldiers were killed and 730 captured, while only nine Texans died.
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• Between Antonio López de Santa Anna of Mexico and the Republic of Texas, in the aftermath of the Battle of San Jacinto. Provided a conclusion of hostilities between the two belligerents and offer the first steps toward the official recognition of the breakaway Republic's independence.
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• Sam Houston invited the United States to annex, or incorporate, the Texas republic into the United States. Most people within Texas hoped this would happen. U.S. opinion, however, divided along sectional lines.
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• “Polk the Purposeful” sent a Spanish-speaking emissary, John Slidell, to Mexico to purchase California and New Mexico and to gain approval of the Rio Grande as the Texas border. When Slidell arrived, Mexican officials refused to receive him. Hoping for Mexican aggression that would unify Americans behind a war, Polk then issued orders for General Zachary Taylor to march to the Rio Grande and blockade the river. Mexicans viewed this action as a violation of their rights.
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• Taylor positioned his troops at the Rio Grande, Mexico. They responded by sending their forces to the Rio Grande to gain its territory back.
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• ordered an attack on Taylor’s forces at Buena Vista. Though the Mexican army boasted superior numbers, its soldiers suf- fered from exhaustion. Taylor’s more rested troops pushed Santa Anna into Mexico’s interior.
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• Mexico agreed to the Rio Grande border for Texas and ceded New Mexico and California to the United States. The United States agreed to pay $15 million for the Mexican cession, which included present-day California, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, most of Arizona, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming.
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• President Franklin Pierce would authorize his emissary James Gadsden to pay Mexico an additional $10 million for another piece of territory south of the Gila River. Which established the current borders of the lower 48 states.
