- tion. It declines to include the claims in the proposed discussion;
December 30 President Herrera is ousted and Don Maria Paredes, who favors war rather than the loss of Texas, becomes head of the republic. Minister Slidell finally has to return home, in March, 1846. But long before this President Polk had decided to seize the disputed Texas boundary strip.
General Taylor's Campaign
January 13, 1846, General Taylor is directed by the President to advance and occupy the left or Texas bank of the Rio Grande River; he has been reinforced by recruits, and is authorized to apply to the Southern States for volunteer troops.
March 8 the first detachment is started forward to cross the disputed strip between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande. Other detachments follow. Part way General Taylor is officially warned by a Mexican officer that a farther advance will be deemed a hostile act. He proceeds, with his 4000 Regulars (half the army of the United States), and establishes a base of supplies at Point Isabel, on the Gulf shore, about thirty miles this side of the Rio Grande River.
March 28 the American army of now 3500 men, called the Army of Occupation, encamps a short distance above the mouth of the Rio Grande River, opposite the Mexican town of Matamoros and 119 miles from the mouth of the Nueces.
The Mexican forces at Matamoros immediately commence the erection of new batteries and the American force begins a fort.
April 10 Colonel Truman Cross, assistant quartermaster general in the American army, is murdered by Mexican bandits.
April 12 General Ampudia, of the Mexican forces at Matamoros, serves notice upon General Taylor either to withdraw within twenty-four hours and return to the Nueces out of the disputed territory, or else accept war. General Taylor replies that his orders are for him to remain here until the boundary dispute is settled. He announced a blockade of the Rio Grande River.
April 19 Second Lieutenant Theodoric Henry Porter, Fourth Infantry, is killed in action with Mexican guerillas.
April 25, this 1846, occurs the first battle of the war, when at La Rosia a squadron of sixty-three Second Dragoons under Captain Seth B. Thornton, reconnoitering up the Rio Grande River, is surrounded by 500 Mexican regular cavalry. Sec-
