The Glenn Beck Program - Manifest Destiny： The War That Forged the American West ｜ The American Story ｜ Ep 14

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00:00:17.200 It's April, 1832, springtime in Washington, D.C.

00:00:21.760 Striding into the Capitol is a man who doesn't really blend in.

00:00:24.820 He's tall, broad-shouldered, and he likes to wear Indian clothing.

00:00:29.260 He's 39 years old.

00:00:30.640 He's well-known thanks to the personal and political baggage attached to his name,

00:00:34.980 which is Sam Houston.

00:00:37.700 Houston is in D.C.

00:00:39.400 He's fighting for something personal.

00:00:41.700 The Cherokee and other Indian tribes getting squeezed by broken federal promises.

00:00:47.480 He is lobbying hard and calling in all the favors he can.

00:00:51.660 On the House floor, Representative William Stanbury of Ohio,

00:00:54.740 a large, grudge-holding politician, drops a reckless bombshell.

00:01:00.180 He accuses Houston of fraud, claiming the ex-governor conspired to pocket cash

00:01:05.700 on a government contract meant to help feed Indian tribes.

00:01:09.540 He didn't produce any evidence, just a pure political attack.

00:01:14.320 Houston reads about it in the newspaper, and he sees red.

00:01:18.640 Temper and self-control, not exactly Houston's strong suit.

00:01:23.060 He rushes to the Capitol, he finds Stanbury, but Congressman James Polk, an acquaintance and future president, holds Houston back.

00:01:32.200 Houston fires off a note to Stanbury, demanding he either apologize for the slander or have a duel.

00:01:39.040 Stanbury ignores the note, but starts carrying two pistols and a dagger to work, just in case.

00:01:45.820 A few nights later, Pennsylvania Avenue is glowing under the flickering gas lamps.

00:01:51.360 Houston is walking back to his hotel with a couple of senator buddies,

00:01:55.440 likely a few drinks deep,

00:01:57.480 when he spots a large figure crossing the street just ahead.

00:02:02.140 Houston rushes toward the man, calling out in a booming voice,

00:02:05.400 Are you Mr. Stanberry?

00:02:07.160 The startled congressman turns towards him.

00:02:09.900 Yes, sir. 1.00

00:02:11.300 Then you are a damned rascal. 1.00

00:02:14.480 Well, out comes the hickory cane that Houston whittled himself from a tree 1.00

00:02:18.560 at Andrew Jackson's hermitage.

00:02:20.600 Houston unloads on Stanbury, cracking him across the head, shoulders, and the back.

00:02:26.180 Well, Stanbury staggers and tries to run, but Houston leaps on him like a wild duck,

00:02:31.060 slamming the big man to the ground.

00:02:33.100 They wrestle in the dirt, but horrified witnesses freeze.

00:02:37.260 Stanbury manages to pull a pistol out.

00:02:40.160 He jams the barrel against Houston's chest and pulls the trigger.

00:02:45.680 Misfire.

00:02:46.280 Houston, shocked that he's still alive, rips away the pistol.

00:02:51.960 He jumps to his feet and aims more cane blows between Stansbury's legs.

00:02:58.000 The next morning, a bruised and bedridden Stansbury

00:03:01.880 sends a formal complaint to Speaker of the House Andrew Stevenson.

00:03:05.540 A few days later, over Congressman James Polk's objection,

00:03:09.600 the House votes 145 to 25 to order Houston's arrest by the Sergeant of Arms

00:03:15.280 for assaulting a sitting member of Congress.

00:03:18.460 The very next day, the gallery is jammed

00:03:21.880 shoulder to shoulder with onlookers.

00:03:24.400 In walks the prisoner, Sam Houston,

00:03:27.720 full buckskin coat that infamous cane

00:03:30.600 still gripped in his hand like a trophy.

00:03:33.340 He bows to Speaker Stevenson, who's a personal friend,

00:03:36.860 and then in his deep, resonant voice

00:03:39.160 requests 24 hours to prepare for his trial.

00:03:41.980 The Speaker grants him 48.

00:03:45.000 Sam Houston is about to be tried in the House of Representatives for assaulting a U.S. congressman.

00:03:51.880 One impulsive swing of a cane, one misfired pistol, and history ripples outward from a

00:03:59.720 Washington street at night to Texas to war and to a continent transformed.

00:04:06.440 This is The American Story, The Beginnings, adapted from the book of the same title by David Barton and Tim Barton.

00:04:18.900 Episode 14, Manifest Destiny, The War That Forged the American West.

00:04:25.220 when sam houston was 13 his father died the family scraped by on a tennessee farm and ran

00:04:40.780 a general store but at 16 houston decided he didn't want any part of the family business

00:04:46.860 so he bolted across the tennessee river and vanished into cherokee territory for three years

00:04:53.760 Chief Uluteca, adopted Houston, gave him a Cherokee name which meant the Raven.

00:05:00.220 Houston learned the language, the customs, and proud independence of his new family.

00:05:05.500 He dressed in Cherokee clothes, hunted like them, forged a bond so deep it would define his life.

00:05:12.620 In those woods, he found belonging.

00:05:15.980 At one point when his brothers came to see him, Houston told them that he preferred to live with a Cherokee.

00:05:21.660 But Houston wasn't meant to stay hidden.

00:05:24.760 His towering frame and magnetic personality drew attention wherever he went.

00:05:30.080 And soon he found himself under the wing of a man who recognized destiny when he saw it.

00:05:35.680 General Andrew Jackson.

00:05:38.820 Jackson saw in Houston a reflection of his own fiery will.

00:05:43.120 During the War of 1812, Houston fought under Jackson at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend

00:05:47.940 and was almost killed, two musket balls to the arm and the shoulder, and an arrow in his upper

00:05:52.700 thigh. Jackson never forgot his courage. He mentored him, promoted him, cleared a path for

00:05:59.320 him into politics. Houston became a lawyer, then a U.S. congressman, and by 1827, Houston stood at

00:06:05.960 the top of Tennessee's political world, elected governor at just 34 years old. Then came a fairy

00:06:14.020 tale twist that turned nightmare. In January 1829, the 35-year-old governor married 19-year-old

00:06:23.360 Eliza Allen. She was the daughter of a prominent Tennessee family, and the wedding was lavish. The

00:06:29.240 expectations were enormous. Houston was very much in love. Eliza, not so much. Just 11 weeks after

00:06:38.440 their marriage. It was over. Eliza left Houston and Houston spiraled. The exact cause of their

00:06:45.580 split has remained a mystery, though hints appeared in the letters of family and friends

00:06:49.620 over the years. Eliza may have loved another man closer to her age. There was even a suggestion

00:06:54.960 that she was repulsed by Houston's war wounds. But for the rest of his life, Houston refused

00:07:01.160 to discuss the details and determined not to impugn Eliza's virtue.

00:07:08.440 In April 1829, Houston poured his heart out in a letter to her father, John Allen.

00:07:38.440 She owns that such was one cause of my unhappiness.

00:07:42.360 You can judge how unhappy I was to think I was united to a woman that did not love me.

00:07:48.640 Exactly one week after he wrote that letter, Houston resigned as governor of Tennessee.

00:07:54.420 Well, his opponents gloated, including his successor as governor, William Carroll,

00:07:59.060 who wrote this to President Andrew Jackson.

00:08:01.720 The fate of Houston must have surprised you.

00:08:04.760 His conduct, to say the least, was very strange,

00:08:07.020 and charity requires us to place it to the account of insanity.

00:08:11.860 I have always looked upon him as a man of weak and unsettled mind.

00:08:16.640 Houston vanished from public view.

00:08:19.480 He tried to disguise himself and boarded a steamboat

00:08:22.360 headed west towards his Cherokee family in the Arkansas Territory.

00:08:26.640 Years later, he recalled the pain.

00:08:28.600 I was in an agony of despair 0.63

00:08:30.380 and strongly tempted to leap overboard and end my worthless life.

00:08:34.580 At that moment, however, an eagle swooped down near my head, and then, soaring aloft with wildest screams, was lost in the setting sun.

00:08:46.080 I knew then that a great destiny waited for me in the West. 0.93

00:08:50.800 In self-imposed exile, Houston lived among the Cherokees again.

00:08:55.320 He lived with a Cherokee woman named Tiana, a strong, respected widow, and together they ran a trading post near Fort Gibson.

00:09:04.580 But the bottle became a constant companion.

00:09:08.000 The Raven earned a new Cherokee nickname that meant Big Drunk.

00:09:13.060 He wrestled alcoholism amid the pain of lost love and reputation.

00:09:18.280 But in his better sober moments, he channeled the fire outward,

00:09:22.880 defending the legal rights of the Cherokee.

00:09:25.360 And that's why, when he was in Washington, D.C. in 1832,

00:09:28.520 when he attacked Congressman Stanbury for slandering him on the House floor,

00:09:33.800 The trial became the hottest ticket in town.

00:09:36.080 Newspapers were obsessed.

00:09:38.740 His lawyer was none other than Francis Scott Key,

00:09:43.000 you know, the guy who wrote the Star-Spangled Banner.

00:09:45.780 During the trial, Key reminded the congressman

00:09:48.520 that his client was a wounded war hero,

00:09:50.980 not some violent assassin.

00:09:53.560 President Jackson was worried about his protege.

00:09:55.840 For one thing, Jackson was not a fan of Houston's Indian garb.

00:10:00.340 Jackson called him to the White House,

00:10:02.080 tossed him some money, crossed the desk, and told Houston,

00:10:04.920 would you please go out and buy a decent suit?

00:10:07.700 Houston obeyed.

00:10:09.180 The night before he was set to deliver his own closing argument,

00:10:12.340 Houston hosted a booze-soaked party at his hotel.

00:10:16.040 The Speaker of the House, Andrew Stevenson,

00:10:18.140 who was presiding over the trial, passed out drunk on the couch.

00:10:22.520 The next morning, a hungover, Houston, stood on the House floor.

00:10:27.080 Mr. Speaker, arraignment for the first time of my life

00:10:30.640 on a charge of violating the laws of my country,

00:10:33.840 I feel embarrassment, which my peculiar situation

00:10:37.120 is calculated to inspire.

00:10:39.940 All I demand is that my actions may be pursued

00:10:42.780 to the motive which gave them birth.

00:10:46.360 When Houston finished his long speech,

00:10:49.000 the gallery exploded into cheers.

00:10:54.140 The actor, Junius Brutus Booth,

00:10:57.660 yes, the father of the future assassin,

00:11:00.400 pushed through the mob to embrace Houston.

00:11:03.800 After four more days of debate,

00:11:05.740 the House voted 106 to 89 to convict Houston of contempt.

00:11:11.020 His punishment was a formal reprimand

00:11:13.100 from Speaker Stevenson, same guy who passed out drunk

00:11:15.880 at Houston's party earlier that week.

00:11:18.780 Congressman Stanberry then pressed charges in DC court

00:11:21.740 where Houston was found guilty and fined $500,

00:11:25.360 but President Jackson commuted the fine to zero.

00:11:29.120 Later, Houston reflected with a grin on the whole circus.

00:11:32.760 I was dying out, and had they taken me

00:11:35.380 before a justice of the peace and fined me $10,

00:11:39.160 it would have killed me.

00:11:41.240 But they gave me a national tribunal for a theater,

00:11:44.980 and that set me up again.

00:11:47.580 Somehow, that scandal relaunched Sam Houston.

00:11:52.020 Soon after the House reprimand,

00:11:53.460 he settled on a new mission

00:11:54.840 for which President Jackson loaned him $500.

00:11:57.720 He would go and start all over in a place called Texas.

00:12:06.320 Texas, in 1836, was a powder keg.

00:12:10.780 In March that year, American settlers declared independence from Mexico, founding the Republic of Texas.

00:12:17.040 Sam Houston, with his military chops and Jackson connection, became the commander of their ragtag little army,

00:12:23.740 barely 375 men at first, mostly volunteers itching for a fight.

00:12:29.560 But then came the horror shows that lit the fuse.

00:12:32.400 Mexican General Santa Ana's 4,000-man army stormed the Alamo in San Antonio.

00:12:37.900 Defending the small fort were only 187 men, including former Tennessee Congressman Davy Crocker.

00:12:45.220 They famously fought to the last man.

00:12:48.860 Santa Ana ordered any remaining survivors slashed to death.

00:12:53.240 Two weeks later, at Goliad, 420 more Texans surrendered, only to be marched out on Palm

00:13:01.320 Sunday and shot.

00:13:05.380 Any survivors of that massacre were clubbed or stabbed to death. 0.95

00:13:10.220 Then the bodies were stacked and burned.

00:13:13.640 Houston knew retreat was the only strategy.

00:13:17.560 He led his growing force east, buying time, drilling, waiting for the perfect moment.

00:13:25.000 It came sooner than he expected, at San Jacinto on April 21st.

00:13:30.700 Santa Ana was overconfident.

00:13:32.840 He split his forces, he camped carelessly near the San Jacinto River with 1,300 troops.

00:13:39.320 Houston's roughly 900 Texans launched a late afternoon surprise attack.

00:13:44.160 They screamed, remember the Alamo and remember Goliad, as they charged.

00:13:50.580 The battle lasted just 18 minutes.

00:13:54.180 Nine Texans were killed.

00:13:56.420 The Mexicans had 630 killed and hundreds more captured.

00:14:02.120 Houston took a bullet that shattered his ankle.

00:14:05.700 Santa Ana fled in a private's uniform, but was caught the next day hiding in tall grass.

00:14:11.260 As he was hauled into the Texans' camp, his own soldiers revealed his identity, calling out El Presidente when they spotted him.

00:14:24.700 Brought before the wounded Houston, Santa Ana signed agreements recognizing Texas independence and pulling Mexican troops south of the Rio Grande.

00:14:34.640 Houston became an instant hero. Just five months later, he was elected president of the Republic of Texas.

00:14:42.240 Texas wasted no time in asking to join the United States.

00:14:46.540 But it caused instant fireworks in Congress and all across the nation 0.94

00:14:50.540 because Texas was already a slave-owning nation. 0.93

00:14:54.140 Adding it to the U.S. would tilt the balance toward the slave-owning South.

00:14:58.940 After the Mexican defeat at San Jacinto, Santa Ana remained in custody for six months. 0.75

00:15:05.120 But once he was released and back in Mexico City, he repudiated everything he signed.

00:15:11.260 Mexico would not relinquish Texas that easily.

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00:17:13.440 experience today in the decade after texas broke free from mexico in 1836 the young republic's

00:17:23.700 population ballooned from about 50,000 to 125,000, including 25,000 slaves. American settlers and

00:17:32.120 immigrants poured in. They were lured by the cheap land and the big dreams, turning the wild 1.00

00:17:37.200 territory into a combustible mix of ambition and conflict. Texas, it had much to promise,

00:17:44.580 but it was also a big problem. It quickly became the major factor in America's politics and future.

00:17:53.080 Enter President John Tyler.

00:17:55.840 He was a Virginian slave owner and a Democrat

00:17:58.160 who was tacked on to the 1840 Whig ticket as the vice president

00:18:02.960 to help win Southern voters for William Henry Harrison.

00:18:06.760 Harrison won the election, but caught pneumonia

00:18:09.040 shortly after his inauguration speech and died just 31 days later.

00:18:13.520 He was the first president to die in office,

00:18:15.740 and his was the shortest presidency ever.

00:18:19.520 So John Tyler stepped up,

00:18:21.100 But his party hated it. Opponents mocked him with the nickname his accidency for the way he became president.

00:18:29.580 Politically homeless, too Democratic for the Whigs, too Whiggish for Democrats, Tyler needed a legacy.

00:18:36.660 And he found one in expanding slavery's reach through Texas.

00:18:41.360 In 1844, Tyler appointed as Secretary of State John C. Calhoun.

00:18:46.680 He was a fierce defender of slavery and states' rights from South Carolina.

00:18:51.760 Calhoun wasted no time.

00:18:53.460 He quickly signed an annexation treaty with Texas diplomats.

00:18:57.700 But that treaty hit a wall in the Senate.

00:19:00.420 You see, treaties need two-thirds majority to pass.

00:19:05.380 And to Northern senators, this one reeked of slavery expansion.

00:19:11.220 Details of the treaty leaked to the press, stoking outrage.

00:19:14.520 Whig leader Henry Clay and Democrat leader Martin Van Buren both slammed it.

00:19:19.320 So the Senate crushed it, with only diehard pro-slavery Democrats backing the treaty.

00:19:25.260 Yet, one consistent feature throughout the nation's history is that politics is a long game.

00:19:33.640 Enter James K. Polk, the ultimate dark horse candidate.

00:19:37.440 he was born in north carolina in 1795 he was raised in tennessee frail as a child brilliant

00:19:48.700 as a student and he graduated from the university of north carolina and entered politics early

00:19:53.780 he earned the nickname young hickory because he followed andrew jackson with almost religious

00:19:59.480 devotion, backing his mentor through thick and thin. By 1825, Polk was in the U.S. House,

00:20:07.220 rising to speaker 10 years later. There, he strictly enforced the gag rule, the one aimed

00:20:13.220 at John Quincy Adams, to shut down any talk about abolishing slavery. No petitions, no debates,

00:20:19.800 as much silence as possible on the hot-button issue. Polk was a slave owner. He also benefited

00:20:26.100 from President Jackson's Indian removal policies.

00:20:29.520 When the Choctaw were forced off their lands in northern Mississippi,

00:20:32.920 Polk was among the speculators who rushed in to buy up suddenly available property.

00:20:38.580 He sold his plantation in Tennessee and upgraded for one in Mississippi

00:20:42.540 where his slaves grew cotton.

00:20:45.680 In 1844, it was clear neither major party was interested

00:20:49.760 in a second term for President Tyler.

00:20:52.840 So Polk saw an opportunity.

00:20:55.340 He threw his hat in the ring, running on a single idea that was the pulse of the nation,

00:21:00.860 expansion. The presidential race became a referendum on the Texas annexation and this

00:21:07.140 idea of manifest destiny. This is a phrase that was coined by journalist John L. O'Sullivan in

00:21:13.920 an editorial. It preached that America was divinely ordained to stretch from sea to shining sea,

00:21:20.640 civilizing the continent for its multiplying millions.

00:21:25.940 Manifest destiny, it made great politics.

00:21:29.440 James Polk ran hard on the idea,

00:21:32.080 barely edging out Henry Clay in the election.

00:21:35.120 But lame duck President Tyler wasn't done.

00:21:38.200 He still had a role to play in the drama surrounding Texas.

00:21:41.960 Since the Senate had killed Texas annexation in treaty form,

00:21:46.600 Tyler flipped the script.

00:21:48.720 He pushed it through Congress as a joint resolution, which only needed a simple majority. 0.94

00:21:53.560 The resolution sailed through the House and squeaked by in the Senate with Democrats and a few Southern Whigs.

00:22:01.340 March 1st, 1845, in his very last act as president, Tyler signed it, inviting Texas to join the Union.

00:22:11.040 Later that year, Texas officially became part of the U.S. as a slave state.

00:22:15.600 former president john quincy adams the old anti-slavery warrior called it the heaviest

00:22:23.340 calamity that ever befell myself and my country well mexico was furious they severed all diplomatic

00:22:32.500 ties immediately signaling war as soon as texas was part of the u.s president polk sent an american

00:22:39.040 diplomat john slidell to mexico city his instructions were pretty straightforward

00:22:44.060 would negotiate the disputed Texas border and offer up to $30 million for California and New

00:22:50.100 Mexico. At the same time, Polk quietly moved troops into Louisiana and dispatched naval ships

00:22:56.580 into California just in case hostilities broke out. The Mexicans snubbed Slidell completely. 0.51

00:23:02.460 No meetings, no deals. Polk now had done what he could, on paper at least. If Mexico refused to 0.96

00:23:09.080 play ball, he would try to make them. Polt ordered General Zachary Taylor to march troops south

00:23:16.360 into the disputed zone between the Nueces and Rio Grande rivers. The U.S. claimed the Rio Grande as

00:23:23.400 the Texas boundary. Mexico insisted the border lay 100 miles north at the Nueces. Mexico viewed

00:23:31.840 General Taylor's troops with cannons aimed across the Rio Grande as an invasion. President Polt

00:23:38.900 Craved war, but he really needed Mexico to fire first.

00:23:44.180 On April 25, 1846, Mexican cavalry crossed the Rio Grande

00:23:48.820 and ambushed a small U.S. patrol, killing 16 Americans.

00:23:54.000 Mexico had taken Polk's bait, but Mexico wanted war too.

00:23:59.460 Their military brass were confident Mexican troops would march into Washington

00:24:03.520 in as little as six weeks.

00:24:05.580 Both sides believed destiny was on their side.

00:24:08.900 President Polk seized the moment.

00:24:11.900 In his May 11th war message to Congress, he said...

00:24:14.900 The cup of forbearance had been exhausted,

00:24:16.900 even before the recent information from the frontier.

00:24:19.900 Mexico has passed the boundary of the United States, 0.93

00:24:22.900 has invaded our territory, 0.99

00:24:24.900 and shed American blood upon American soil.

00:24:27.900 She has proclaimed that hostilities have commenced

00:24:30.900 and that the two nations are now at war.

00:24:35.900 The Whigs weren't buying it.

00:24:36.900 buying it. They griped that Mexico was just defending its turf from the U.S. invaders.

00:24:42.040 They called it Mr. Polk's War, a shameless grab for land to spread slavery.

00:24:47.740 One young Whig congressman from Illinois stood up and demanded to know the details about this spot

00:24:54.960 where American blood had been shed. His name? Abraham Lincoln. And he did not mince words

00:25:02.300 about president polt i more than suspect already that he is deeply conscious of being in the wrong

00:25:08.540 that he feels the blood of this war like the blood of abel is crying to heaven against him

00:25:13.820 that he ordered general taylor into the midst of a peaceful mexican settlement purposely to bring

00:25:18.940 on a war 67 whigs voted against the funding of the war but it didn't matter too many congressmen

00:25:27.660 were enamored with westward expansion, whether for slavery or other gains. On May 13, 1846,

00:25:34.980 Congress declared war on Mexico. Ten days later, Mexico declared war on the United States.

00:25:42.800 The map of North America was about to be redrawn once again.

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00:28:04.440 In June 1846, President James Polk decided the time for half-measures was over.

00:28:15.280 He ordered American forces farther into Mexican territory.

00:28:19.520 General Zachary Taylor and his men were told to push southward from the Rio Grande,

00:28:24.380 straight into the heart of central Mexico.

00:28:26.840 At the exact same moment, Brigadier General Stephen Kearney led a small force overland from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

00:28:35.880 Their target? Seize Santa Fe and the entire New Mexico Territory.

00:28:42.460 At the same time, only about 75,000 Mexican citizens lived north of the Rio Grande,

00:28:48.100 and as a result, U.S. forces conquered these territories with almost no resistance.

00:28:53.720 Kearney's men marched into Santa Fe on August 18th without firing a shot.

00:28:59.240 The locals, weary of distant Mexican rule, mostly just shrugged and carried on.

00:29:05.680 Finding so little opposition, Kearney didn't stop.

00:29:09.320 He turned his column west toward California.

00:29:12.840 There, American naval forces were already operating along the coast,

00:29:16.840 and settlers had staged what had become known as the Bear Flag Revolt.

00:29:21.260 It was a wild, short-lived uprising where a small band of Americans stormed the sleepy outpost of Sonoma,

00:29:29.400 raising a homemade flag featuring a grizzly bear and a single red star.

00:29:35.040 They declared it the California Republic.

00:29:38.540 It lasted barely a month before the Stars and Stripes replaced the bear,

00:29:43.100 but the message was clear. This land is changing hands.

00:29:47.460 Polk had bet everything on quick, clean victories.

00:29:51.260 A few sharp strikes, he figured, and Mexico would bargain away its northern territories and call it a day.

00:29:57.200 But the Mexicans showed zero interest in folding.

00:30:03.240 As Mexican resistance hardened, President Polk made a very strange gamble.

00:30:08.220 In August 1846, Polk negotiated a secret arrangement to bring exiled strongman, Santa Ana, back from Cuba.

00:30:16.900 Now, Santa Ana had convinced Polk that if he was restored to power,

00:30:20.920 he would make peace on favorable terms,

00:30:24.140 terms that would include a multi-million dollar payment for Santa Ana.

00:30:29.040 President Polk believed him.

00:30:32.340 Santa Ana, the same man responsible for the ruthless slaughter of Texans at the Alamo and the Goliad,

00:30:39.360 was helped back into his own country by the U.S. government.

00:30:44.140 Meanwhile, General Taylor kept rolling.

00:30:46.680 In September, he captured the fortified city of Monterey.

00:30:51.780 Taylor's 6,500 troops faced 10,000 Mexicans over four days.

00:30:57.000 By day three, the fighting turned into a brutal house-to-house urban struggle,

00:31:02.380 with U.S. troops using cannons to blast through the adobe walls.

00:31:06.660 A young lieutenant, Ulysses S. Grant, commanded troops during the heaviest street fighting

00:31:11.440 that led to an American victory.

00:31:14.180 Overnight, General Taylor became a national hero.

00:31:18.340 But to President Polk, that was a huge problem.

00:31:21.900 He suddenly realized he might have created a viable presidential rival for 1848.

00:31:26.920 So he ordered Taylor to halt his advance and sent half of Taylor's troops to join General Winfield Scott's force.

00:31:35.860 With losses piling up and morale sinking, Mexico turned once again to its old standby.

00:31:41.240 by the charismatic opportunist Santa Ana.

00:31:46.280 The moment Santa Ana stepped on shore in Mexico with U.S. assistance, he double-crossed President

00:31:52.420 Polt.

00:31:53.420 He seized command of the army and marched north to crush the invaders.

00:31:58.100 The collision came at the Battle of Buena Vista in February 1847.

00:32:05.840 Roughly 5,000 U.S. troops faced a Mexican force of 15,000 under Santa Ana.

00:32:11.700 The night before the battle began, Santa Ana sent a message to General Taylor

00:32:15.420 offering to accept an American surrender and save them all the trouble.

00:32:20.320 Taylor declined the offer.

00:32:23.520 The next day, wave after wave of Mexican infantry slammed into the U.S. lines.

00:32:30.520 But American artillery held steady.

00:32:32.720 And a counterattack by the Mississippi Regiment helped turn the tide.

00:32:37.940 The commander of that regiment, a young Jefferson Davis, who would go on to become president

00:32:43.940 of the Confederacy during the Civil War.

00:32:46.640 But by nightfall, the battle's second day, there were 1,500 Mexican casualties versus

00:32:52.000 700 for the Americans.

00:32:54.760 Overnight, Santa Ana left his army's campfires burning as a ruse to help cover their retreat.

00:33:02.520 Further south, General Winfield Scott led America's first-ever amphibious landing at the port

00:33:08.080 city of Veracruz, shuttling 10,000 troops from the ships to the beach in just five hours.

00:33:14.940 After heavy U.S. bombardment and a 20-day siege, Veracruz surrendered.

00:33:21.080 General Scott then embarked on a six-month, 265-mile march toward Mexico City, but the

00:33:26.840 tropical diseases rapidly chewed through the American ranks.

00:33:31.000 Scott knew his window was closing.

00:33:32.380 He had to finish the war before his army just melted away.

00:33:38.000 Between Mexico City and Scott's force, the Mexican army had set up a fortified position

00:33:43.040 with 12,000 troops at the mountain pass of Cerro Gordo.

00:33:47.900 Santa Ana believed the territory was impregnable.

00:33:51.120 But one of Scott's aides, a young Virginian named Robert E. Lee, scouted a hidden route

00:33:57.180 through the rugged hills.

00:33:58.660 Lee then guided a flanking column that appeared in the Mexican rear like a ghost.

00:34:04.340 The Mexican line was shattered.

00:34:08.260 Mexico's army retreated, leaving behind more than 1,100 dead and wounded and another 3,000

00:34:14.680 captured.

00:34:15.800 The U.S. had 64 killed and 353 wounded.

00:34:20.680 Santa Ana was fleeing yet again, and in the rush he left behind his prosthetic leg.

00:34:27.320 His left leg had been amputated thanks to a grapeshot wound he had received while fighting

00:34:31.600 the French nine years earlier.

00:34:33.840 The prosthetic leg was found by U.S. troops from Illinois, who took it home as a trophy.

00:34:40.300 After making the rounds at country fairs, the leg ended up at the Illinois State Military

00:34:44.640 Museum, where it remains today.

00:34:48.120 The Mexican government has made repeated requests over the years to have the leg returned, but

00:34:53.080 Illinois is Illinois, and they've refused.

00:34:58.080 After the win at Cerro Gordo, the road to Mexico City was wide open.

00:35:03.620 By September 1847, General Scott stood before the gates of the capital of Mexico City,

00:35:08.700 and he laid siege to the castle fortress that was perched on a rocky hill guarding Mexico City.

00:35:15.880 After a day-long artillery bombardment, the U.S. troops stormed the castle,

00:35:20.780 using ladders to scale its stone walls. American troops soon poured through the gates of Mexico

00:35:27.040 City. It was the first time in history that the U.S. had occupied an enemy capital. Santa Ana

00:35:33.780 was deposed and fled the country yet again. The war was a brutal classroom for an entire

00:35:42.840 generation of young officers who would go on to become household names. Ulysses S. Grant,

00:35:48.680 George McClellan, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson,

00:35:52.200 George Pickett, James Longstreet, and William T. Sherman.

00:35:56.860 Within 14 years, the lessons they learned on the battlefields in Mexico

00:36:00.620 would be tragically used against each other in the Civil War.

00:36:05.340 The U.S. never lost a major battle during the Mexican-American War,

00:36:08.740 and of the 79,000 American troops who fought,

00:36:12.480 over 13,000 died, with just over 2,000 of those killed in battle.

00:36:17.600 The rest fell victim to disease.

00:36:20.920 Years later, Ulysses Grant described the war like this.

00:36:24.380 For myself, I was bitterly opposed to the measure,

00:36:28.960 and to this day regard the war which resulted as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation.

00:36:37.540 It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies,

00:36:42.580 in not considering justice in their desire to acquire additional territory.

00:36:48.320 The war between the U.S. and Mexico was now over,

00:36:51.780 but there were still major bumps in the road to official peace.

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00:37:19.920 I want to talk to you about Mercury One and the American Journey experience.

00:37:23.860 What they're doing to try to carry the story of America into the future.

00:37:27.660 You know, during the World Cup, it was inspiring to see people coming here from all over Europe

00:37:31.560 and having their eyes open to the truth about this country.

00:37:34.420 You rarely see that kind of enthusiasm about America.

00:37:37.180 from Americans, let alone Europeans.

00:37:39.380 But maybe that's not an accident.

00:37:40.560 Maybe knowledge and understanding about America

00:37:42.780 has been selectively edited out of our education and our lives.

00:37:46.660 And without our history, we have no future.

00:37:48.760 That's why we have to preserve it.

00:37:50.240 Like the ancient scriptures preserved for centuries in clay pots,

00:37:53.920 the American Journey Experience is seeking to preserve American history for the future.

00:37:58.040 And we're building a museum of over 100,000 artifacts right now.

00:38:01.440 Everything from Columbus to the space race.

00:38:03.740 And we need your help to do it.

00:38:05.000 Please join us at AmericanJourneyExperience.com.

00:38:07.600 Become a founding member of our Sacred Honor Society for $17.76 a month.

00:38:12.560 We have been given a great gift.

00:38:13.880 Let's use it.

00:38:14.580 Join us to become an underwriter at AmericanJourneyExperience.com.

00:38:18.480 That's AmericanJourneyExperience.com.

00:38:21.480 For more of the history that inspired this podcast series,

00:38:25.160 be sure to read The American Story, The Beginnings by David Barton and Tim Barton.

00:38:31.140 Available now at WallBuilders.com.

00:38:35.000 In the fall of 1847, as American troops occupied Mexico City, the fate of half a continent rested

00:38:45.080 in the hands of a man who technically no longer had a job. His name was Nicholas Trist. He was

00:38:53.200 about to gamble his entire career on peace. When Nicholas Trist was a child, Thomas Jefferson

00:38:59.600 appointed Trist's father as customs collector in what was then the Louisiana Frontier.

00:39:05.720 After graduating from the College of Orleans in 1817, Trist was invited by Jefferson to visit

00:39:11.040 Monticello. While there, Trist fell in love with Jefferson's granddaughter, Virginia Randolph.

00:39:18.340 Perhaps in an attempt to impress his potential grandfather-in-law, Trist attended West Point

00:39:24.100 for a while, but he left before graduating. Military life didn't stick. Trist was more

00:39:29.220 interested in law and diplomacy. In 1824, he married Virginia, and they lived in Monticello.

00:39:35.360 Tris served as Jefferson's private secretary, and then, after Jefferson died in 1826,

00:39:40.520 as executor of his estate. He was, in many ways, a disciple of the author of the Declaration of

00:39:47.440 Independence. And from there, Tris' path veered into D.C. politics. Henry Clay gave him a clerkship

00:39:53.800 the State Department. Then he served as President Jackson's personal secretary for a time.

00:39:59.520 Next, he served as U.S. consul in Havana for eight years. He became fluent in Spanish,

00:40:05.340 and that was an ability that would later prove vital. By 1845, President James Polk made Trist

00:40:12.380 chief clerk of the State Department. It was a quiet administrative position. Trist was good

00:40:19.460 at that kind of behind-the-scenes war.

00:40:21.760 But then, Polk's war with Mexico escalated.

00:40:25.620 As General Winfield Scott racked up victories on Mexican soil,

00:40:29.960 Veracruz, Cerro Gordo, the march towards Mexico City,

00:40:34.120 Polk grew uneasy.

00:40:36.320 Scott was a Whig. 0.95

00:40:37.840 Victorious generals had a way of becoming presidential candidates.

00:40:41.580 Polk had already been through this phobia with Zachary Taylor.

00:40:44.940 now general scott's success was making the president sweat even more about the next election

00:40:51.300 polk wanted a democrat to get the credit for any peace treaty with mexico that's when polk's

00:40:57.440 secretary of state james buchanan offered the perfect solution his friend nicholas trist he

00:41:04.820 was the chief clerk in the state department who also happened to speak fluent spanish

00:41:09.480 Trist understood diplomacy, and he was loyal.

00:41:12.440 He was a safe pick.

00:41:14.100 Plus, he wasn't a general.

00:41:16.420 So Trist was quietly sent to Mexico with the assignment of negotiating a treaty.

00:41:24.720 When Trist arrived in Mexico, he and General Winfield Scott immediately clashed.

00:41:30.380 Scott, a career soldier of towering pride and ego,

00:41:33.640 didn't really appreciate having a D.C. diplomat show up to mess with his command of the situation.

00:41:39.520 Upon Trist's arrival, Scott fired off a note to him, dripping with indignation.

00:41:45.640 I see that the Secretary of War proposes to degrade me by requiring that I,

00:41:51.620 as Commander-in-Chief of this Army, shall defer to you, the Chief Clerk in the Department of State,

00:41:58.480 the question of continuing or discontinuing hostilities.

00:42:04.480 Trist, for his part, vented privately in a letter to his wife, calling Scott, 1.00

00:42:09.620 Decidedly the greatest imbecile I have ever met. 0.99

00:42:12.920 So they began as sharp adversaries. 0.99

00:42:16.120 But the war had a strange way of forging unlikely alliances.

00:42:21.260 Over the next several weeks, as they navigated Mexico's climate,

00:42:24.780 its politics, and the harsh reality of occupation,

00:42:27.800 they developed mutual respect.

00:42:30.000 Eventually, they became close friends.

00:42:32.400 The two men, who began by insulting one another, would soon conspire together.

00:42:38.500 In August 1847, during a brief pause in the fighting near Mexico City,

00:42:43.000 Trist attempted to negotiate with Santa Ana's government.

00:42:46.580 It didn't go anywhere.

00:42:48.140 It wasn't until mid-September, after the American forces captured Mexico City

00:42:52.280 and Santa Ana fled the capital, that real negotiations began.

00:42:56.060 A provisional Mexican government formed, and Trist finally sat down with three Mexican

00:43:05.580 negotiators. Peace actually seemed possible. But then came the letter. In October, Trist received

00:43:14.840 a dispatch from Secretary of State Buchanan. President Polk had lost patience with the lack

00:43:20.320 progress in the peace talks, so he recalled Trist. The message was clear. Trist was to

00:43:27.160 return to D.C. immediately. If Mexico wanted peace, they would have to send a representative

00:43:32.740 to Washington. Trist was distraught. To leave now would shatter the negotiations, but to stay

00:43:38.580 would mean defying the President of the United States. General Scott urged Trist to ignore the

00:43:44.780 recall. The Mexican negotiators also begged him to stay. They liked Trist's fluent Spanish and

00:43:51.600 good manners, and they trusted him. Communication between Washington and Mexico City took at least

00:43:57.460 a month, and that delay gave Trist a window. So he made a decision that would define his life.

00:44:04.900 He stayed. In a letter to Polk received six weeks after he wrote it, Trist explained,

00:44:10.360 I place my determination on the ground of my conviction, first, that peace is still the desire of my government.

00:44:17.860 Secondly, that if the present opportunity not be seized at once, all chance for making a treaty at all will be lost probably forever.

00:44:28.640 Polk exploded, venting in his diary.

00:44:32.240 His dispatch is arrogant, impudent, and very insulting to his government, and even personally insulting to the president. 0.99

00:44:38.860 I have never in my life felt so indignant.

00:44:42.040 If there was any legal provision for his punishment, he ought to be severely handled.

00:44:46.880 He has acted worse than any man in the public employ whom I have ever known.

00:44:51.400 His dispatch proves that he is destitute of honor or principle,

00:44:55.320 and that he has proved himself to be a very base man.

00:45:00.200 Polk sent a new general to replace Winfield Scott and to arrest Trist.

00:45:04.540 But the gears of bureaucracy in 1847 cranked a little slowly.

00:45:10.560 Before the replacement arrived, Trist finished the peace deal.

00:45:14.360 On February 2, 1848, in the village of Guadalupe Hidalgo,

00:45:19.100 Nicholas Trist signed the treaty, ending the war.

00:45:23.520 He didn't have any official authority to do so, but he signed it anyway.

00:45:28.220 All three Mexican negotiators signed as well,

00:45:31.280 with full knowledge that Trist no longer had permission from the U.S. government.

00:45:36.540 The treaty was enormous in consequence.

00:45:40.460 Mexico recognized the Rio Grande as the boundary of Texas.

00:45:44.980 The U.S. assumed $3 million in Mexican debts owed to American citizens,

00:45:50.000 and Mexico agreed to sell Upper California and New Mexico for $15 million,

00:45:54.980 lands that would eventually become the states of California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico,

00:46:00.480 and parts of Colorado and Wyoming.

00:46:03.800 The territory was roughly two-thirds the size of the Louisiana Purchase.

00:46:09.220 Later, in a remarkable confession for a man of his era, Trist wrote,

00:46:13.720 Could those Mexicans have seen into my heart at that moment,

00:46:16.580 they would have known that my feeling of shame as an American 0.98

00:46:19.320 was far stronger than theirs could be.

00:46:22.540 My object throughout was not to obtain all I could,

00:46:26.280 but on the contrary, to make the treaty as little exacting as possible

00:46:30.160 from Mexico as was compatible with its being accepted at home.

00:46:35.080 In this, I was governed by two considerations.

00:46:38.980 One was the iniquity of the war as an abuse of power on our part.

00:46:43.680 The other was that the more disadvantageous the treaty was made to Mexico, the stronger

00:46:48.120 would be the ground of opposition to it in the Mexican Congress by the party who had

00:46:52.400 boasted of its power to frustrate any peace moves.

00:46:57.200 Predictably, when the treaty reached Washington, D.C., Polk was furious.

00:47:02.220 Trist had deliberately disobeyed him.

00:47:05.380 Technically, the agreement had been signed by a man with zero authority,

00:47:09.880 so Polk considered discarding it until he read the whole thing,

00:47:14.740 and he realized it achieved most of his objectives.

00:47:19.840 Reluctantly, he sent it to the Senate.

00:47:22.400 In March 1848, the Senate approved the treaty, barely.

00:47:27.200 It required two-thirds majority.

00:47:29.660 It was achieved by one vote.

00:47:37.260 Even though Polk got everything he wanted,

00:47:40.060 the war with Mexico and a massive amount of new land,

00:47:43.260 he never forgave Nicholas Trist for defying him.

00:47:47.140 He revoked Trist's salary for all the months he worked in Mexico.

00:47:51.320 For decades after, Trist lived modestly, at times even in poverty.

00:47:56.320 The man who secured nearly half of the American West spent years nearly broke.

00:48:03.240 Over 20 years after the treaty, Trist petitioned Congress for his back pay,

00:48:08.020 and in 1871, Congress finally approved a bill granting him over $14,000,

00:48:13.700 and it was signed by President Ulysses S. Grant.

00:48:18.400 During the same week, possibly even the same day, that Nicholas Trist had signed the treaty with Mexico,

00:48:23.680 a carpenter named James Marshall was building a sawmill outside of Sacramento, California

00:48:29.800 for a Swiss immigrant named John Sutter.

00:48:33.740 In a drainage ditch at the mill, Marshall spotted something small, like shiny rocks.

00:48:43.280 He reached down and plucked them from the water.

00:48:46.960 He held them up for a closer look.

00:48:50.200 Gold.

00:48:50.840 In 1848, about 7,500 people of European ancestry lived in California.

00:48:58.400 Two years later, there were over 100,000.

00:49:01.880 The gold rush was on.

00:49:04.700 Had that discovery been known before Trist negotiated,

00:49:08.120 Mexico would have never signed away California.

00:49:10.740 And the map might look very different today.

00:49:13.860 Instead, America gained an empire of land and resources.

00:49:17.660 But those riches also accelerated an already ticking time bomb.

00:49:23.720 The vast new territory made urgent the question America could no longer dodge.

00:49:29.140 Would slavery expand west?

00:49:32.180 The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended one war, but it helped start another one.

00:49:41.980 Coming up on The American Story, The Beginnings.

00:49:45.580 November 7, 1837, around 3 o'clock in the morning, a steamboat delivers yet another

00:49:52.820 replacement printing press.

00:49:54.980 Lovejoy is at the warehouse to receive it, but like clockwork, a pro-slavery mob quickly

00:50:01.140 arrives and surrounds the warehouse.

00:50:04.200 One man climbs a ladder and tries to set the roof on fire.

00:50:07.980 Lovejoy rushes out of the warehouse with a gun and fires up at the man.

00:50:13.540 As soon as he does, multiple gunshots crack through the cold night air.

00:50:18.300 When the smoke clears, 34-year-old Elijah Lovejoy lies dead on the ground,

00:50:24.080 shot five times by the mob.

00:50:33.200 Just a reminder, I'd love you to rate and subscribe to the podcast

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The Glenn Beck Program - July 18, 2026

Manifest Destiny： The War That Forged the American West ｜ The American Story ｜ Ep 14

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