[3] A war between Mexico and Texas followed, and was carried on with great cruelty by the Mexicans. Santa Anna, the president of Mexico, having driven some Texans into a building called the Alamo (ah'la-mo), in San Antonio, carried it by storm and ordered all of its defenders shot. A band of Texans who surrendered at Goliad met the same fate. In 1836, however, General Samuel Houston (hu'stun) beat the Mexicans in the decisive battle of San Jacinto. The struggle of the Texans for independence aroused sympathy in our country; hundreds of volunteers joined their army, and money, arms, and ammunition were sent them. Read A. E. Barr's novel _Remember the Alamo_. [4] Referring to our claim between 1803 and 1819 (p. 276) that the Louisiana Purchase extended west to the Rio Grande. [5] James K. Polk was born in North Carolina in 1795, but went with his parents to Tennessee in 1806, where in 1823 he became a member of the legislature. From 1824 to 1839 he was a member of Congress, and in 1839 was elected governor of Tennessee. Polk was the first presidential "dark horse"; that is, the first candidate whose nomination was unexpected and a surprise. In the Democratic national convention at Baltimore the contest was at first between Van Buren and Cass. Polk's name did not appear till the eighth ballot; on the ninth the convention "stampeded" and Polk received every vote. When the news was spread over the country by means of railroads and stagecoaches, many people would not believe it till confirmed by the newspapers. The Whigs nominated Henry Clay; and the Liberty party, James G. Birney. Tyler also was renominated by his friends, but withdrew. [6] Read Whittier's _Texas_. [7] In the course of the fight a son of Henry Clay was killed, and Jefferson Davis, afterward President of the Confederate States of America, was wounded. At one stage of the battle Lieutenant Crittenden was sent to demand the surrender of a Mexican force that had been cut off; but the Mexican officer in command sent him blindfolded to Santa Anna. Crittenden thereupon demanded the surrender of the entire Mexican army, and when told that Taylor must surrender in an hour or have his army destroyed, replied, "General Taylor never surrenders." Read Whittier's _Angels of Buena Vista_. [8] The war was bitterly opposed by the antislavery people of the North as an attempt to gain more slave territory. Numbers of pamphlets were written against it. Lincoln, then a member of Congress, introduced resolutions asking the President to state on what spot on American soil blood had been shed by Mexican troops, and James Russell Lowell wrote his famous _Biglow Papers_.