Baron François-Antoine Lallemand (1774-1839)
François-Antoine Lallemand, born in Metz, June 23, 1774, was the son of a wigmaker of that town, who gave him a good education. Engaged as a volunteer in the 1st company of light artillery, formed at Strasbourg on May 1st of 1792, he was in their ranks during the...
Who Started the Mexican-American War?
On April 26, 1846, a detachment from Zachary Taylor’s army under Captain Seth Thornton was ambushed by a numerically superior Mexican force near Brownsville, Texas. Nearly all of the Americans were captured or killed. Mexico fired the first shot of the...
Did Mexico Sell California to the United States?
on January 13, 1847, Mexican General Andres Pico quietly surrendered California to John C. Fremont by agreeing to the Treaty of Cahuenga. This transferred undisputed control of California into the command of the United States, which continues to the present. Mexico...
Why did Polk settle for the 49th parallel as the boundary for the Oregon territory?
Despite the famous slogan “54-40 or fight,” used to promote the Democrats’ 1844 platform of settling the Oregon boundary dispute, James K. Polk and most of the United States government in 1845 did not actually want to go to war over the Oregon territory. This was...
The Great American Desert: What, Why, and How?
What is the Great American Desert? Rather than being a region unified by a certain common climate, as “desert” is usually taken to mean, the term "Great American Desert" in the early 19th century referred to a vast swath of largely unexplored and mostly...
The Rise and Fall of the Saint Patrick’s Battalion
Today, March 17, is Saint Patrick’s day. Saint Patrick played a major role in the Mexican-American war as the symbol for many disaffected immigrants who deserted to join the Mexican Army during the war. Some of the fiercest battles of the two-year conflagration were...
The Oregon Territory: Legitimacy
The Young United States’ first territory to border the Pacific ocean was the Oregon territory in the Northwest. But it did not come without struggle; the disaffected British Empire would not pass up a chance to block the expansion of their former colony. Both...
Why, and How, Did James K. Polk Win the Democratic Nomination in 1844?
By 1844, the political career of James K. Polk was in ruins. He sat at his plantation in central Tennessee, not licking his wounds, but rather planning how to get ahead again. Polk’s prospects of holding public office had come to a standstill since his failed...
Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, and The Panic of 1819
On the eighth day of June, 1845, Andrew Jackson lay dying at his estate, the Hermitage, in Central Tennessee. A war hero, a governor, a congressman, and President of the United States, he had accomplished much. But as his body gave out, surrounded by his three adopted...
he’s the man to cope with Clay
Haha, such a nominee,
Jimmy Polk of Tennessee!