government to General Taylor to march directly to the Rio Grande and try war.
It does not fall within the purpose of this volume to describe the scenes of bloodshed which marked this two years‘ conflict with Mexico. Peace was concluded between the two nations at Guadalupe Hidalgo in February, 1848. Mexico ceded to the United States an area of more than six hundred and fifty thousand square miles. In consideration of this, the United States paid her fifteen millions of dollars and assumed the payment of her debts to American citizens not exceeding two and a quarter millions.[1] California had been seized in 1846 without the loss of a single life.
Juarez was left by our narrative pleading for means to carry on war with the United States, while Santa Anna, at the North, was endeavoring to stay the enemy's advance. The clergy, unmindful of the nation's peril, were stirring up insurrection at home, which was quelled only by the return of Santa Anna. Taking sides with the enraged priests, this arch-plotter found the opportunity for self-advancement which he was ever seeking. With the army behind him, he became dictator, and dissolved the Congress. In the uproar which followed in the State of Oaxaca and elsewhere, Juarez was sent home to restore order. He was immediately elected governor, which office he filled for five years with great acceptance.
While at home among his own people Juarez became known as one of the ablest and most patriotic statesmen in the republic. He found Oaxaca in wild disorder. The
- ↑ The war cost the United States the lives of twenty thousand men and the expenditure of one hundred and sixty millions of dollars.
