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Grant’s position, and Grant realized that his charge had been over ground already taken by the Americans. “My exploit was equal to that of the soldier who boasted that he had cut off the leg of one of the enemy,” he recalled wryly. “When asked why he did not cut off the head, he replied: ‘Someone had done that before.’ ”
    The battle became a rout as the Mexicans ran short of ammunition. “The Mexicans fought very hard for an hour and a half,” Grant said, “but seeing their means of war fall from their hands in spite of all their efforts they finally commenced to retreat helter skelter. A great many retreated to the banks of the Rio Grande and without looking for means of crossing plunged into this water.… No doubt many of them were drowned.”
    The Mexican losses were even larger than the day before. “After thebattle the woods was strewed with the dead,” Grant wrote Julia. “Wagons have been engaged drawing the bodies to bury. How many wagon loads have already come in, and how many are still left, would be hard to guess. I saw three large wagon loads at one time myself.” Grant mentally added in the prisoners taken and the weapons captured and concluded, “The victory for us has been a very great one.”
    And it was a satisfying victory for Grant personally. “There is no great sport in having bullets flying about one in every direction,” he told Julia. “But I find they have less horror when among them than when in anticipation.”

4
    I N THE HALF-DAY LULL BETWEEN THE BATTLES OF P ALO A LTO AND Resaca de la Palma, while Grant was counting the carnage of his first action at arms,James Polk convened his cabinet in Washington. The president didn’t know that one pitched battle had occurred and another was imminent, for dispatches from the Texas frontier required a week or more to reach the East. Polk didn’t even know of the earlier incident in which Taylor’s scouting party had been overwhelmed by the much largerMexican force, with the loss of several American lives.
    Yet Polk wanted to declare war anyway. The Mexican government continued to refuse to relinquishCalifornia, and the more often the Mexicans refused, the more determined Polk became to have it. In his mind and to his cabinet he escalated some minor commercial disputes into a justification for war. The cabinet agreed. A strong majority endorsed the president’s decision to ask Congress for a war declaration.
    The president sent the cabinet members home and pondered the wording of his request. He would explain how Mexico’s sins against the business interests of American citizens had insulted American honor and how the American government was left with no choice but to defend that honor. He knew his case was weak, but it was the best he had and he was prepared to press it forward.
    Then, on the evening of May 9, about the time the Mexicans were fleeing the field at Resaca de la Palma, Polk received word of the first skirmish. The welcome news made his task much easier. The opponents of expansion toward the southwest—John Quincy Adams and the antislavery forces—might have blocked a war for territory but wouldn’t be able to stymie a war for redress of mortal injury to American soldiers.“After reiterated menaces,” Polk wrote in his recomposed message to Congress, “Mexico has passed the boundary of the United States, has invaded our territory and shed American blood on the American soil.”
    Adams and his allies challenged the accuracy of Polk’s assertion. They noted that the soil described was disputed between the two countries. They demanded more information about the circumstances of the skirmish and accused the president of provoking the conflict for his own aggressive purposes.
    Yet they lacked the votes to stem the rush to war. The House of Representatives approved the president’s war request within hours by a vote of 174 to 14. The Senate, wishing to preserve its image of deliberation, made Polk wait overnight