239.  War with Mexico; Mexico lets us have California and New Mexico; “gold! gold! gold!” what happened at Coloma; how California was settled; what happened to Captain Sutter and to Marshall.—­While these things were happening we had been at war with Mexico for two years (1846-1848), because Texas and Mexico could not agree about the western boundary line[5] of the new state.  Texas wanted to push that line as far west as possible so as to have more land; Mexico wanted to push it as far east as possible so as to give as little land as she could.  This dispute soon brought on a war between the United States and Mexico.  Soon after gold was discovered at Coloma, the war ended (1848); and we got not only all the land the people of Texas had asked for, but an immense deal more; for we obtained the great territory of California and New Mexico, out of which a number of states and territories have since been made.[6]

[Illustration:  Map showing the extent of the United States in 1848, after Mexico let us have California and New Mexico.]

In May, 1848, a man came to San Francisco holding up a bottle full of gold-dust in one hand and swinging his hat with the other.  As he walked through the streets he shouted with all his might, “Gold! gold! gold! from the American River.”

Then the rush for Coloma began.  Every man had a spade and a pick-axe.  In a little while the beautiful valley was dug so full of holes that it looked like an empty honeycomb.  The next year a hundred thousand people poured into California from all parts of the United States; so the discovery of gold filled up that part of the country with emigrants years before they would have gone if no gold had been found there.

[Illustration:  WASHING DIRT TO GET OUT THE GOLD-DUST.]

Captain Sutter lost all his property.  He would have died poor if the people of California had not given him money to live on.

Marshall was still more to be pitied.  He got nothing by his discovery.  Years after he had found the shining dust, some one wrote to him and asked him for his photograph.  He refused to send it.  He said, “My likeness ... is, in fact, all I have that I can call my own; and I feel like any other poor wretch:[7] I want something for self.”

[Illustration:  MIRROR LAKE, YOSEMITE VALLEY, CALIFORNIA.]

[Footnote 5:  Western boundary line:  the people of Texas held that their state extended west as far as the Rio Grande River, but Mexico insisted that the boundary line was at the Nueces River, which is much further east.]

[Footnote 6:  Namely:  California, Nevada, Utah, and part of Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona.]

[Footnote 7:  Wretch:  here a very unhappy and miserable person.]

240.  How we bought more land; our growth since the Revolution.—­Long before Captain Sutter died, the United States bought from Mexico another great piece of land (1853), marked on the map by the name of the Gadsden Purchase.[8] A number of years later (1867) we bought the territory of Alaska[9] from Russia.