Stinko-d-piehole. Great for beer sales and celebrated in meh-eek-O in places like Cozumel, Acapulco and other touristy locales. Have the beer companies convinced the rest of meh-eek-O that they should be celebrating it? How about kwanzaa? Convinced yet?
What is a Cinco de Mayo and why should I care?
You have mayo in your sink?
Cinco de Mayo is ALREADY more celebrated in the USA than in Mexico!!!!
Cheers!
I like the part about flying the flag and buying ammunition, but in truth Cinco de Mayo for me is a flimsy excuse to wear a funny hat and drink tequila, neither of which I would do on a normal day. I’d say the same about St. Patrick’s Day and Guinness but I don’t need an excuse for that...
U.S. General Philip Henry Sheridan [9th president of the NRA], supporter of the Mexican resistance agains the French:
“[General Grant] looked upon the invasion of Mexico by Maximilian as a part of the rebellion itself, because of the encouragement that invasion had received from the Confederacy, and that our success in putting down secession would never be complete till the French and Austrian invaders were compelled to quit the territory of our sister republic. With regard to this matter, though, he said it would be necessary for me to act with great circumspection, since the Secretary of State, Mr. Seward, was much opposed to the use of our troops along the border in any active way that would be likely to involve us in a war with European powers....”
“...one division of the Thirteenth Corps, occupied Galveston, and another division under General Fred Steele had gone to Brazos Santiago, to hold Brownsville and the line of the Rio Grande, the object being to prevent, as far as possible, the escaping Confederates from joining Maximilian. With this purpose in view, and not forgetting Grant’s conviction that the French invasion of Mexico was linked with the rebellion, I asked for an increase of force to send troops into Texas in fact, to concentrate at available points in the State an army strong enough to move against the invaders of Mexico if occasion demanded....”
“The latter part of June I repaired to Brownsville myself to impress the Imperialists, as much as possible, with the idea that we intended hostilities, and took along my chief of scouts—Major Young—and four of his most trusty men, whom I had had sent from Washington. From Brownsville I despatched all these men to important points in northern Mexico, to glean information regarding the movements of the Imperial forces, and also to gather intelligence about the ex-Confederates who had crossed the Rio Grande. On information furnished by these scouts, I caused General Steele to make demonstrations all along the lower Rio Grande, and at the same time demanded the return of certain munitions of war that had been turned over by ex-Confederates to the Imperial General (Mejia) commanding at Matamoras. These demands, backed up as they were by such a formidable show of force created much agitation and demoralization among the Imperial troops, and measures looking to the abandonment of northern Mexico were forthwith adopted by those in authority—a policy that would have resulted in the speedy evacuation of the entire country by Maximilian, had not our Government weakened; contenting itself with a few pieces of the contraband artillery varnished over with the Imperial apologies.”
“These reports and demonstrations [of renewed U.S. military maneuvers near the border] resulted in alarming the Imperialists so much that they withdrew the French and Austrian soldiers from Matamoras, and practically abandoned the whole of northern Mexico as far down as Monterey...”
“...it required the patience of Job to abide the slow and poky methods of our State Department, and, in truth, it was often very difficult to restrain officers and men from crossing the Rio Grande with hostile purpose. Within the knowledge of my troops, there had gone on formerly the transfer of organized bodies of ex-Confederates to Mexico, in aid of the Imperialists, and at this period it was known that there was in preparation an immigration scheme having in view the colonizing, at Cordova and one or two other places, of all the discontented elements of the defunct Confederacy...”
“During the winter and spring of 1866 we continued covertly supplying arms and ammunition to the Liberals—sending as many as 30,000 muskets from Baton Rouge Arsenal alone—and by mid-summer Juarez, having organized a pretty good sized army, was in possession of the whole line of the Rio Grande, and, in fact, of nearly the whole of Mexico down to San Louis Potosi. Then thick and fast came rumors pointing to the tottering condition of Maximilian’s Empire-first, that Orizaba and Vera Cruz were being fortified; then, that the French were to be withdrawn...”
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4362/4362-h/4362-h.htm#linkch9b
U.S. General ‘Sheridan later admitted in his memoirs that he had supplied arms and ammunition to Juárez’s forces: “... which we left at convenient places on our side of the river to fall into their hands”’ WikiPedia