The Mexicans had fired the first shot. But they had done what the American government wanted, according to Colonel Hitchcock, who wrote in his diary, even before those first incidents:
I have said from the first that the United States are the aggressors. . . We have not one particle of right to be here. . . It looks as if the government sent a small force on purpose to bring on war, so as to have a pretext for taking California and as much of this country as it chooses, for, whatever becomes of this army, there is no doubt of war between the United States and Mexico. . . My heart is not in this business. . . but, as a military man, I am bound to execute orders.
I have said from the first that the United States are the aggressors. . . We have not one particle of right to be here. . . It looks as if the government sent a small force on purpose to bring on war, so as to have a pretext for taking California and as much of this country as it chooses, for, whatever becomes of this army, there is no doubt of war between the United States and Mexico. . . My heart is not in this business. . . but, as a military man, I am bound to execute orders.
( Howard Zinn )
[ A People's History of the ]
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