PROCLAMATION TO THE MEXICANS.
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ceived a full commission of the same rank, in pursuance of a law authorizing the appointment of an additional officer of that grade. The volunteers enlisted under the act of Congress were sent forward to the Rio Grande as expeditiously as possible, and early in the month of June the army under General Taylor numbered not far from 9,000 men.[1]
In anticipation of a movement towards the interior of the enemy's country, General Taylor caused a proclamation prepared at the War Department, and translated into the Spanish language, to be circulated among the Mexican people, in order to apprize them of the objects for which the war was prosecuted, and the manner in which it would be conducted.[2] The first and most
- ↑ The general officers appointed to the command of the volunteers were William O. Butler of Kentucky, and Robert Patterson of Pennsylvania, Major Generals; and Gideon J. Pillow of Tennessee, Thomas L. Hamer of Ohio, John A. Quitman of Mississippi, Thomas Marshall of Kentucky, Joseph Lane of Indiana, and James Shields of Illinois, Brigadier Generals. Generals Butler and Patterson were officers in the army during the last war With Great Britain, and the former, then a member of General Jackson's staff, was highly commended for his gallantry at the battle of New Orleans. Governor J. Pinckney Henderson of Texas, acted as Major General of the volunteers from that state.
- ↑ "We come to obtain reparation for repeated wrongs and injuries; we come to obtain indemnity for the past, and security for the future; we come to overthrow the tyrants who have destroyed your liberties; but we come to make no war upon the people of Mexico, nor upon any form of free government they may choose to select for themselves. It is our wish to see you liberated from despots, to drive back the savage Camanches, to prevent the renewal of their assaults, and to compel them to restore to you from captivity your long lost wives and children. Your religion, your altars, your churches, the property of your churches and citizens, the emblems of your faith and.ts ministers, shall be protected, and remain inviolable. Hundreds of our army, and hundreds of thousands of our citizens, are members of the Catholic Church. In every state, and in nearly every city and village of our Union, Catholic churches exist, and the priests perform their holy functions in peace and
