ST. LOUIS, April 3, 1886.
Dear Brother: . . . I shall go to California to be in San
Francisco August 3d-5th for the Encampment of the G. A. R., when, of course, I
shall be forced to say something. It occurs to me that I should say something
about the annexation of California to the Union. I know that Webster advised a
friend of his as early as 1843-44 to go to California, because it surely would
on the first pretext be captured and held by the United States.
I have all the
executive documents for 1847, also the special Mexican War correspondence, but
I fail to find Corwin's speech where he used the expression that were he a
Mexican he would welcome the enemy (the Americans) "with bloody hands to
hospitable graves." Can you get this speech for me, or an extract? I know
that General Taylor believed that Texas did not reach the Rio Grande but was
bordered by the River Nueces, and that the proclamation of war was based on an
error that "American blood had been shed on American soil," and now
comes Grant, who expresses more than a doubt if the first blood shed—Palo Alto—was
not on "Mexican soil." Notwithstanding this, I believe the annexation
of California was essential to the world's progress at that date. The Mexicans
had held it for a hundred years without material improvement, whereas under our
domination it at once began that wonderful development which we now experience.
. . .
SOURCE: Rachel
Sherman Thorndike, Editor, The Sherman Letters: Correspondence Between
General and Senator Sherman from 1837 to 1891, p. 370-1
