|
Posted on 08/11/2004 10:39:29 PM PDT by SAMWolf
|
|
 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
|
| Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel free to address their specific circumstances or whatever issues concern them in an atmosphere of peace, understanding, brotherhood and support. The FReeper Foxhole hopes to share with it's readers an open forum where we can learn about and discuss military history, military news and other topics of concern or interest to our readers be they Veteran's, Current Duty or anyone interested in what we have to offer. If the Foxhole makes someone appreciate, even a little, what others have sacrificed for us, then it has accomplished one of it's missions. We hope the Foxhole in some small way helps us to remember and honor those who came before us.
|
|
The Mexican War between the United States and Mexico began with a Mexican attack on American troops along the southern border of Texas on Apr. 25, 1846. Fighting ended when U.S. Gen. Winfield Scott occupied Mexico City on Sept. 14, 1847; a few months later a peace treaty was signed (Feb. 2, 1848) at Guadalupe Hidalgo. In addition to recognizing the U.S. annexation of Texas defeated Mexico ceded California and , New Mexico (including all the present-day states of the Southwest) to the United States.  As with all major events, historical interpretations concerning the causes of the Mexican War vary. Simply stated, a dictatorial Centralist government in Mexico began the war because of the U.S. annexation (1845) of Texas, which Mexico continued to claim despite the establishment of the independent republic of Texas 10 years before. Some historians have argued, however, that the United States provoked the war by annexing Texas and, more deliberately, by stationing an army at the mouth of the Rio Grande. Another, related, interpretation maintains that the administration of U.S. President James K. Polk forced Mexico to war in order to seize California and the Southwest. A minority believes the war arose simply out of Mexico's failure to pay claims for losses sustained by U.S. citizens during the Mexican War of Independence. At the time of the war, Mexico had a highly unstable government. The federal constitution of 1824 had been abrogated in 1835 and replaced by a centralized dictatorship. Two diametrically opposed factions had arisen: the Federalists, who supported a constitutional democracy; and the Centralists, who supported an autocratic government under a monarch or dictator. Various clashing parties of Centralists were in control of the government from 1835 to December 1844. During that time numerous rebellions and insurgencies occurred within Mexican territory, including the temporary disaffection of California and the Texas Revolution, which resulted in the independence (1836) of Texas.  Jose Joaquin Herrera In December 1844 a coalition of moderates and Federalists forced the dictator Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna into exile and installed Jose Joaquin Herrera as acting president of Mexico. The victory was a short-lived, uneasy one. Although Santa Anna himself was in Cuba, other Centralists began planning the overthrow of Herrera, and the U.S. annexation of Texas in 1845 provided them with a jingoistic cause.  James K. Polk The U.S. annexation of Texas, by a joint congressional resolution (Feb. 27-28, 1845), had caused considerable political debate in the United States. The desire of the Texas Republic to join the United States had been blocked for several years by antislavery forces, who feared that several new slave states would be created from the Texas territory. The principal factor that led the administration of John Tyler to take action was British interest in independent Texas. Indeed, anti-British feeling lay behind most of the expansionist policy statements of the United States in this period. James Polk won the 1844 presidential election by advocating a belligerent stand against Britain on the Oregon Question. Once in office he declared that "the people of this continent alone have the right to decide their own destiny." About the same time the term Manifest Destiny came into vogue to describe what was regarded as a God-given right to expand U.S. territory. The term was applied particularly to the Oregon dispute, but it had relevance also to California, where American settlers warned of British intrigues to take control, and to Texas. As early as August 1843, Santa Anna's government had informed the United States that it would "consider equivalent to a declaration of war . . . the passage of an act for the incorporation of Texas." The government of Herrera did not take this militant position. It had already initiated steps, encouraged by the British, to recognize the independence of the Republic of Texas, and although Santa Anna's lame-duck minister in Washington broke diplomatic relations with the U.S. government immediately after annexation, in August 1845 the Herrera government indicated willingness to resume relations. Not only was the Herrera government prepared to accept the loss of Texas, but it also hoped to lay to rest the claims question that had plagued U.S.-Mexican affairs since 1825. Britain and France had used force, or the threat of it, to induce the Mexican government to pay their claims on behalf of their citizens. The United States, however, preferred to negotiate, and the negotiations had dragged on interminably.  Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna Fearing that American patience was running short, Herrera seemed determined to settle the issue. He requested that the United States send a minister plenipotentiary to Mexico, and President Polk appointed John Slidell. Slidell's authority, however, may have exceeded Herrera's intentions. Slidell was authorized to purchase California and New Mexico from Mexico and to settle the Texas boundary, which was a source of dispute even with the Mexican moderates. While the Republic of Texas had claimed the Rio Grande as its boundary, the adjacent Mexican state of Tamaulipas claimed the area north of the Rio Grande to the Nueces River.  John Slidell By the time Slidell arrived in Mexico in December 1845, the Herrera government was under intense fire from the Centralists for its moderate foreign policies. The Centralist strategy was to appeal to Mexican national pride as a means of ousting Herrera. During August 1845 their leader, Mariano Parades y Arrillaga, began to demand an attack on the United States. When Slidell arrived, Herrera, in an effort to save his government, refused to meet with him. A few days later (December 14), Parades issued a revolutionary manifesto; he entered Mexico City at the head of an army on Jan. 2, 1846. Herrera fled, and Parades, who assumed the presidency on January 4, ordered Slidell out of Mexico.  Cavalry soldier and Infantry Lieutenant, US Army Regulars, 1847. Courtesy of the US Army Center for Military History After the failure of the Slidell mission, Polk ordered Zachary Taylor to move his army to the mouth of the Rio Grande and to prepare to defend Texas from invasion. Taylor did so, arriving at the Rio Grande on Mar. 28, 1846. Abolitionists in the United States, who had opposed the annexation of Texas as a slave state, claimed that the move to the Rio Grande was a hostile and aggressive act by Polk to provoke a war with Mexico to add new slave territory to the United States.  Mariano Parades y Arrillaga Whatever Polk's precise intentions were, for the Centralists in Mexico the annexation of Texas had been sufficient cause for war; they saw no disputed boundary--Mexico owned all of Texas. Before Taylor had moved to the Rio Grande, Parades had begun mobilizing troops and had reiterated his intention of attacking. On April 4 the new dictator of Mexico ordered the attack on Taylor. When his commander at Matamoros delayed, Parades replaced him, issued a declaration of war (April 23), and reordered the attack.
|
Good morning GailA.
It's amazing how many young officers names show up in accounts of the Mexican War that would later become household names during the War Between the States. So many of the men who ended up on opposite sides fought together.
Guess where my tagline comes from
From the date of the quote it had to be from the Battle of Resaca de la Palma.
His "Killer Angels" was a great read. Looks like another book to add to my list.
Good Morning Mayor.
Morning PE.
2 Services down, 3 to go. :-)
LOL! I sure hope so!
Morning Feather. Is it Friday already????
General Taylor’s official report concerning Resaca de la Palma states: "The enemy had at least eight pieces of artillery and maintained an incessant fire upon our advance. The action now became general, and although the enemy’s infantry gave way before the steady fire and resistless progress of our own, yet his artillery was still in position to check our advance- several pieces occupying the pass across the ravine which he had chosen for his position. Perceiving that no decisive advantage could be gained until this artillery was silenced, I ordered Captain May to charge the batteries with his squadron of Dragoons."
Captain May’s order of the day to his men was to "Remember your Regiment and Follow your Officers." In his official report Captain May describes the action "I...was ordered by the General to charge the enemy’s batteries and drive them from their pieces, which was rapidly executed." Lieutenant Randolph Ridgely, while commanding a battery of American artillery attempting to make progress up the main road in the face of the enemy fire describes the action. " I moved rapidly to the front for about one hundred yards, and returned their fire,, which was kept up very spiritedly on both sides for some time, their grape shot passing through our battery in every direction. So, soon as it slackened, I limbered up, and moved rapidly forward...several pieces fired canister when not distant more than one hundred or one hundred and fifty yards. After having advanced in this manner about five hundred yards, Captain May, Second Dragoons, rode up and said "Where are they? I am going to charge!" I gave them a volley and he most gallantly dashed forward in column of fours at the head of his squadron."
"Lieutenant Sacket and Sergeant Story, in the front, by my side had their horses killed under them, and lieutenant Inge was gallantly leading his platoon when he fell." reports Capt May. " We charged entirely through the enemy’s batteries of seven pieces- Captain Graham, accompanied by Lieutenants Winslip and Pleasonton, leading the charge against the pieces on the left of the road, and myself, accompanied by Lt Inge, Stevens and Sacket those on the direct road- and gained the rising ground on the opposite side of the ravine. The charge was made under a heavy fire of the enemy’s batteries, which accounts for my great loss. After gaining the rising ground in the rear I could rally but six men. With these I charged their gunners, who had regained their pieces, drove them off and took prisoner General Vega, whom I found gallantly fighting in person at his battery."
It's a shame that so many of these men that fought together for America against Mexico would be fighting each other in the WBTS.
Thanks for all the additions Cannoneer. I started a thread on Ringgold after reading about him in one of Sam's threads last year but never could find enough for a biography.
The names are legendary: Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, George B. McClellan, Ambrose Powell Hill, Darius Nash Couch, George Edward Pickett, Cadmus Marcellus Wilcox, and George Stoneman. The class fought in three wars, produced twenty generals, and left the nation a lasting legacy of bravery, brilliance, and bloodshed.
Ringgold Americanized the horse artillery. Frederick the Great had horse artillery, as did George III and Napoleon, but never had horse artillery been so mobile and so disciplined as under Ringgold. The idea that gun drivers should be soldiers and not civilian contractors was fairly novel in 1839. Horses were expensive and the Government was cheap and most artillery companies had no guns at all and served as infantry, or served large guns in coastal fortifications. In the few light batteries guns often were pulled by the men. The Model 1841 6-Pdr Gun was an outstanding piece for its time, and new harness designs and new limbers and caissons made the flying artillery the elite of the Army. They could gallop from one end of the battlefield to the other, unlimber just out of musket range and bring hell fire and scunnion on the Mexicans.
Am posting this thread on my Live Journal ('ladyaubrey')
X-15, world's wildest ride on landing.
If the lower portion of the ventral tail didn't jettison, you dug the world's fastest furrow.
6-Pdr Gun, Model of 1841
"Old Sacramento" finally ended its usefulness in the following manner: Some citizens were drowned in the Kansas river and the cannon was taken down to the banks of that stream to test the theory that the concussion caused by the discharge of artillery would cause the body of a drowned person to rise to the surface. The gun was loaded heavier each time until the recoil wrecked the carriage. Then a charge of three pounds of powder was placed in the cannon and gunny sacks, wet grass, wet clay, etc., were hammered in on top of the powder with a sledgehammer. When the match was applied the gun exploded, the largest piece being blown through the wire mill, while smaller pieces were thrown clear across the river. The main part of the cannon is now in the museum at the University of Kansas.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
