What was the Gadsden Purchase?

Answer 1

A strip of United States territory along southern New Mexico and Arizona bought from Mexico in 1853. It is named for James Gadsden, ambassador to Mexico from 1853-56, who negotiated the treaty which included the terms of the purchase. The cost was $10,000,000 and also included the settlement of various claims by Mexico against the United States.

Answer 2

U.S. purchase of land in southern New Mexico and Arizona south of the Gila River on December 30, 1853. It was purchased to get approval for a southern railroad route to the Pacific Coast in that territory.

Franklin Pierce was the President when the Gadsden Purchase was made in 1853.
The Gadson Purchase was an 1853 agreement to buy a strip of land in what is now the southern United States so that a railroad line could be built to the Gulf of California. James Gadsden was the U.S. Minister to Mexico and the man responsible for the deal. This was only five years after the end of the Mexican War and the delivery of the Mexican Cession. He agreed to pay Mexico $10 million for 45,535 square miles of territory that was almost as big as Pennsylvania. (By contrast, the Louisiana Purchase 828,000 and cost $15 million.)
The Gadsden Purchase is a 29,670-square-mile region of present-day southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico that was purchased by the United States in a treaty signed by James Gadsden, the American ambassador to Mexico at the time, on December 30, 1853.