“Winfield Scott throughout Mexican-American War”
Category : War Papers
“Winfield Scott throughout Mexican-American War”
Introduction
During the Mexican-American War, Winfield Scott played a great role in the battle. The war was fought between the United States and Mexico between 1846 and 1848. It is widely known as the Mexican War or Mr. Polk’s War in the U.S. while in Mexico they call it the United States War against Mexico. Whatever they may call it; it is the war that apparently broke out between the U.S. and Mexico. Winfield Scott commanded the United States forces during the Mexican-American War over the course of his fifty-year career along with his leadership in the War of 1812, the Black Hawk War, the Second Seminole War, and American Civil War as well.
Winfield Scott was considered a national hero after the Mexican War serving as military governor of Mexico City that made him famous and commonly known as the Grand Old Man of the Army. General Winfield Scott was nicknamed ‘Old Fuss and Feathers’ for his love of pomp and ceremony.
Winfield Scott commanded the southern of the two United States armies during the Mexican-American. Initially, Scott followed the approximate route taken by Herman Cortes in 1519 and assaulted Mexico City along with the assistance of his colonel of engineers inspired by William H. Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Mexico.
It was a bold plan, an amphibious attack on the coastal Mexican town of Vera Cruz. It was Scott’s plan to launch a seaborne attack and then march on the Mexican capital (Library of Congress). Along with his inspiration on William H. Prescott’s book, Scott used his extensive experience with similar operations on the Canadian frontier during the War of 1812 in planning the attack. Up to that date, such attack was the largest amphibious landing of any nation.
Throughout the duration of the war, Scott’s opponent in the campaign was Mexican president and General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Notwithstanding the high heat, rains, and difficult terrain, Scott eventually won the battles of Cerro Gordo, Contreras/Padiema, Churubusco, and Molino del Rey. After the victory, Scott then assaulted the fort of Chapultepec on September 13, 1847, after which the city surrendered. Scott gave orders for the captured men from the controversial Saint Patrick’s Battalion to be hanged en masse during the battle of Chapultepec, specifying that the moment of execution should occur just after the United States flag was raised atop the Mexican stronghold.
Scott was held in high esteem by Mexican civil and American authorities alike being the military commander of Mexico City. On the other hand, due to his vanity and his corpulence as well, it led to a catch phrase that was to haunt him for the remainder of his political life.
Major General Winfield Scott, 60 years old during the Mexican War (1846) was the most experienced and capable officer in the American army. Back at his young age 28, he had been already a brigadier general during the war of 1812. Even though egotistical and arrogant, he was an excellent tactician and shrewd strategist with a gift for going for the jugular.
The Causes of Mexican-American War
The war with Mexico was one of the most decisive conflicts in American history. The war was a great disaster for Mexico. It was a bitter, hard-fought conflict that raged through the northern deserts of Mexico, the fever-ridden gulf cities, and the temperate haciendas of California, reaching its climax at the fabled Halls of Montezuma in Mexico City. The fighting was ferocious and deadly even though the numbers of troops involved were not large by Napoleonic standards.
As to the Mexicans, the immediate cause of the war was the Texas problem. Texas had been a decaying sore on the Mexican body politic for more than a decade. Santa Anna granted independence to the rebellious democratic republic province with the Treaty of Velasco after Texas smashed the Dictator Santa Anna’s army at San Jacinto in March 1836 in the hope of saving his own life. Consequently, Texas maintained its status as an independent democratic republic for almost ten years. However, the Mexican government rejected Santa Anna’s treaty and maintained that Texas continued to be a province of Mexico.
As to the background of the war, there was also a mixed of culture clash. The struggle between the United States and Mexico exposed a massive economic, social, and political gap between two diverse cultures separated by a common border (Meed 2003).
The Mexican-American War was triggered by an American expansionist policy known as “Manifest Destiny” along with Mexico’s refusal to recognize Texas as a legitimate state after the 1836 Texas Revolution. It was long before that Mexico had declared its intention to recapture what it considered to be a breakaway province of Texas, however nearly a decade had passed and Texas had solidified its position by establishing diplomatic ties with Great Britain and the United States. Officials in the Republic of Texas had for most of its short existence expressed interest in being annexed to the United States, however this had been blocked in congress because of ongoing difficulties regarding admission of slave states. It was President John Tyler that used the fear of a British encroachment to swing the offer of annexation to Texas. This happened during the president’s last days in his office 1845. Texas was finally accepted and became the 28th state of the United States.
However, in the thoes of its own volatile changes in power, the Mexican Government reacted to this development with complaints that the United States was intervening in Mexico’s internal affairs by annexing its rebel province. Additionally, the Mexican Government claimed that the United States had unjustly seized sovereign Mexican territory. Notwithstanding the repeated attempts from the British envoys to dissuade Mexico from declaring war, British efforts to mediate proved to be useless as additional political disputes arose between the Britain and the United States, one in which was the Oregon boundary dispute ( 1998).
The newly elected President had set out to acquire the Mexican province of California after the annexation of Texas. On the other hand, American expansionists also wanted California for the purpose of having a port on the Pacific Ocean that would consequently allow the United States to participate in the lucrative trade with Asia. Additionally, there was a weak hold of Mexico on its distant province that makes it advantageous for American expansionists. Apart from that reason, American expansionists also feared that California would eventually be acquired by Great Britain. According to the thinking of the Monroe Doctrine, it was a threat to the United States security. In the year 1845, President Polk sent diplomat John Slidell to Mexico to purchase California and New Mexico for up to $30 million.
Tension grew when Polk increased pressure on Mexico in January 1846 to sell by sending troops into the area between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande. Such territories were claimed by both Texas and Mexico. The troops that were sent under General Zachary Taylor and ignored Mexican demands that he withdraw and marched south to the Rio Grande. It was where he began to build Fort Brown.
The presence of Slidell in Mexico created political turmoil after word leaked out that he was there to purchase additional territory and not to offer compensation for the loss of Texas. Slidell was apparently unwelcome to the Mexican people citing a problem with his credentials. With the situation at hand, Slidell returned to Washington, D.C. in May 1846. The return of Slidell and the treatment of the Mexicans to him made Polk to regard it as an insult and an “ample cause of war”. It seemed like it was a trigger, a good reason in declaring war and Polk just did and prepared to ask the Congress for a declaration of war.
Another cause of contention between the two countries was the claims Americans had against the Mexican government. These involved incidents of arbitrary seizure of American ships in Mexican ports, confiscation of American goods by corrupt customs officials, unjust imprisonment of American citizens, and the murders of other Americans. A mediation of the claims had been heard in a Prussian court in 1838, at which time the American claimants had been awarded millions of dollars. But Mexico was bankrupt, with an unstable government which within the first quarter century of independence had seen more than 30 different political administrations. Not surprisingly, after a few payments, Mexico defaulted on the bulk of the claims. To Mexicans, their penury was a further humiliation, and they allowed their pride to cloud their judgment of potential American military strength (1978).
The Mexican government therefore refused to negotiate with Slidell and officially ignored his presence. They became hostile when, on 29 December 1845, Texas was admitted as the 28th state in the American union and became the 15th state to legalize slavery.
Abolitionists in New England feared a vast conspiracy was under way by the Southerners to forever dominate the government. The Mexicans, enraged at the annexation of Texas, threatened war. Many blamed the United States for their debacle in Texas. One prominent newspaper declared the Americans to be the true enemy of Mexico and that they had secretly supported the Texan revolution while hiding behind an 'evil mask of hypocrisy.'
As war fever grew, some Mexicans harbored illusions that in the event of hostilities the American northern and eastern states would secede from the Union and would send arms and ammunition to support revolting Southern Negro slaves. The resulting chaos would enable Mexico to handily defeat the American armies.
The crisis over Oregon also gave Mexico a false sense of confidence: if war broke out, Great Britain, with its mighty fleet and battle-tested army, would be their ally. Unknown to them, the British Foreign Office had agreed to negotiate the Oregon boundary dispute with the Americans. To Polk's relief, the threat of a two-front war with the British in the north and the Mexicans in the south had ended.
Some Mexicans, perhaps blinded by national pride, felt confident that their army, more than 20,000 strong, was well enough equipped and trained to easily defeat the 7,000 American regulars who were scattered in small posts along the western frontier. This, perhaps, was the most fateful illusion of all. The issues between the two neighbors might have been solved peacefully if more reason and less passion had prevailed, but Mexican intransigence and American aggressiveness combined to make war inevitable.
Aggressions and the Declaration of War
Before the request of President Polk to the Congress, he was already informed that Mexican forces had crossed the Rio Grande killing eleven American soldiers. The killing had happened on 24th April 1846 when the Mexican cavalry attacked and captured one of the American detachments near the Rio Grande. Such dreadful event was termed Thornton Affair named after the commander of the captured troop.
In reaction to such happening, Polk considered it as the “occasion of war”. In his message to Congress on 11 May 1846, he stated that Mexico had “invaded our territory and shed American blood upon the American soil.” (1929).
The declaration of war passed by the American Congress approved the expenditure of 10 million dollars and authorized 50,000 volunteers, to be raised by the states, to carry the burden of the fighting. Within days, volunteers flocked to the recruiting depots. Most were spurred by patriotism and a lust for adventure, but generous land grants for veterans also helped recruiting.
The flintlock musket, weighing 10lbs and firing a .68 caliber lead ball, was standard equipment for the United States infantry. A few units, however, had rifles adapted for the new, more efficient, percussion caps. Battle sights were set for approximately 120 yards, but the weapon could be effective up to 200 yards (Smith 1919).
The War Combatants
Approximately 13,000 American soldiers died throughout the course of the war. Out of these figures, only about 1,700 were from actual combat while the rest of the casualties stemmed from disease and unsanitary conditions during the war. In the part of the Mexican casualty, it still remains to some extent of a mystery and were estimated to be about 25,000.
Battles during the Mexican War like the Battle of Churusbusco and the Battle of Padiema were among the most important battles fought. In the Battle of Churusbusco, a group of several hundred Irish immigrant soldiers deserted the U.S. Army and joined the Mexican Army. They were the Saint Patrick’s Battalion. However, most of them were killed during the particular battle and about 100 were captured and hanged as deserters.
General Winfield and the Mexican War
During the Battle of Buena Vista, Polk turned to General Winfield Scott because of his desperation to what Taylor did. Taylor signed a ceasefire that outraged Polk for the reason that it was too lenient and had enabled the Mexican army to escape. From that time on, he lost confidence in Taylor’s ability to successfully prosecute the war.
Polk then appointed General Winfield Scott in place of Taylor. Polk believed that Scott could find a solution to the Mexican dilemma. Scott, the most knowledgeable American soldier, proposed an amphibious operation which would land an American army in Vera Cruz, then strike west to capture Mexico City. Holding the Mexican capital by the throat, Scott believed, would force the Mexicans to sign a peace treaty. Polk, although fearing that Scott would become a national hero and a political rival, approved the plan.
General Scott was a man of gigantic ego and irascible temper who had many enemies in both military and political circles. Polk realized, however, that he was the one indispensable soldier who could win the war.
Since Scott would need the blooded regulars now serving with Taylor, the president ordered that Taylor's forces be stripped to reinforce the new invasion plan. In January 1847, Taylor was reduced to guarding Monterey; General Worth's division of 4,000 regulars, two battalions of artillery, 1,000 cavalry, and many volunteer infantry regiments were ordered to the coast to embark for Vera Cruz.
American generals during the time were not immune to political rivalries, and , now a leading candidate for the Whig party nomination for the 1848 election, suspected a plot by Polk and Scott to destroy him politically. Although furious, Taylor refused to resign over what he considered an insult.
The war that broke out between the United States and Mexico between 1846 and 1848 was the particular battle that brought Winfield Scott lasting fame and popularity atop from his previous war achievements. Even though Scott was obstructed by poorly equipped troops, limited reinforcements and supplies, desertions, and disease, he managed to undertake five-month campaign right from Vera Cruz to Mexico City. However, disputes generated by ambitious subordinate officers as well as the hostility of the Polk administration to further honoring a Whig general, led to Scott’s recall and replacement. But according to an article in North Georgia notables (), Scott’s replacement was due to the problems with his subordinate officers. Furthermore, a court of inquiry was established to investigate Scott’s actions in disciplining those disloyal officers. Fortunately, the charges against Scott were eventually dropped and Congress even voted him its thanks and had rewarded him a gold medal (Scott’s Biography).
Scott had amassed nearly 12,000 troops at the Rio Grande on the border of Texas and Mexico that begun on February 1847. They had estimated that their opponents would be more than 20,000 Mexicans some of whom were seasoned veterans under the command of Santa Anna. Santa Anna is the Centralist leader who invaded Texas in 1837 and ordered the massacre of Goliad and led the attack on the Alamo.
On March 10, 1847, Scott landed about three miles south of the city and encircled Vera Cruz in four days, laying siege to the Mexican city. Scott was in a hurry to take Vera Cruz before the dreaded yellow fever season began in April. His troops encircled the city and cut off its water supply. Then he had some of the fleet's big guns transported ashore. Captain Robert E. Lee, an engineer officer, after a reconnaissance, placed land batteries around the city perimeter.
From 22 March, army artillery, the naval guns on land, and the guns of the fleet in the harbor, bombarded the port for five days, reducing much of the city to rubble and causing the Mexican commandant to surrender. Scott had his harbor and his logistical base secured. Within just a month, the encircled city then surrendered. This victory was the first in a series of successes that made General Scott an American Hero.
While proceeding to Cerro Gordo, Scoot encountered 12,000 Mexican nationals. It was a new army deployed by Santa Anna around the mountain pass of Cerro Gordo through which the highway to Mexico passed. Notwithstanding the barrier, Scott’s engineer, had found a path around the fortified hills on Santa Anna’s flank. On 17 April, Scott mounted a fake attack on the Mexican right while his main force, undetected, followed the path until they were in the left rear of the Mexican defenses. Under the unexpected attack, the Mexican troops began a frenzied retreat. With Lee and Scott’s brilliant plan, Santa Anna’s army was forced to withdraw after encircling the Mexican force.
As General Scott was about to approach Mexico City, he stopped thinking that he could not attack the city because he needed General Santa Anna to remain as head of government. The general might have been relieved of duty if Scott attacked and won. And also, the Mexican capital would be a tough nut to crack for Scott's troops. It was surrounded by marshlands, the remainders of ancient lakes. To approach the city it was necessary to traverse the many causeways, which could easily be interdicted by artillery. The Mexicans erected strong redoubts to the north and south, but the main fortifications were placed at El Penon, a hill where artillery could command the main road from Vera Cruz. Along this road, Santa Anna believed, the Americans would attack.
As Scott's army of 10,000 approached the city, the general faced a dilemma. To continue along the highway, he would be forced to make a frontal attack on El Penon. To shift his forces to the north would require a 40-mile march around Lake Texcoco only to confront strong defenses at Guadalupe Hidalgo, which was garrisoned by 5,000 troops and heavy guns. To move south by way of Mexicalcingo would leave his right flank and rear open to attacks from troops disgorging from El Penon. As a result of this decision by General Scott, his higher ranking subordinates were upset that many of whom wanted to attack the city for personal reasons.
Due to recruitment deadlines and financial problems, Scott was forced to attack. A three-prong advance caught the Mexican Army off-balance and sent them scampering from the city and the surrounding countryside. The defeated Mexican Army removed to Buena Vista and from there Santa Anna negotiated a peace treaty that was unfortunately overthrown.
After the victory, despite his thinned ranks, Scott marched his army to Puebla, the second largest city in Mexico, and took it, to little opposition, on 15 May. With 2,000 of his men now ill and with a supply line threatened by guerrilla forces, Scott could barely field 5,000. Fearing an attack by Santa Anna's growing army, he waited in Puebla for reinforcements. Soon he was joined by diplomat Nicolas P. Trist, sent by Polk to negotiate a peace treaty when, if ever, the Mexicans surrendered (1998).
With his impressive victory over Mexico, Winfield Scott had a delegation visited him in his camp to find out what he would require to lead the new government. However, Scott declined and turned down the offer. It was his ambition on a bigger prize – being the President of the United States ().
In the 1852 presidential election, Winfield Scott finally secured the Whig nomination, only to be defeated by the Democratic Party nominee, Franklin Pierce, a former general of volunteers in the Mexican War who ironically had served under Scott.
The Chronology of the Mexican-American War
1836
April 21 – The Texan army defeats Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto. Texas then becomes an independent republic.
1845
December 29 – The United States annexes Texas. President Polk sends a negotiator to Mexico City in an effort to purchase Mexican western lands.
1846
March – General Zachary Taylor and an American army land in Corpus Christi. April 23 – Mexico declares war on the United States. May 8-9 General Taylor wins battles at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. May 13 – The United States declares war on Mexico. June 12 – Great Britain and the United States reach a compromise on the boundaries of the Oregon Territory, thus averting a conflict. June 14 – The Bear Flag Rebellion and California declares independence from Mexico. August 18 – General Stephen Kearny occupies Santa Fe. September 20-24 – General Taylor wins battle of Monterey.
1847
January 10 – Commodore Stockton occupies Los Angeles. February 22-23 – General Taylor wins the battle of Buena Vista. March 1 – Doniphan occupies Chihuahua City. March 29 – Vera Cruz surrenders to General Winfield Scott. April 18 General Scott wins battle of Cerro Gordo. August 19-20 – General Scott wins battles at Contreras and Churubusco. September 8 – General Scott wins the battle of Molino del Rey. September 13 General Scott wins the climactic battle of the war of Chapultepec. September 14 – General Scott enters Mexico City in triumph.
1848
March 25 – The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ends the war.
The Outcome of the Mexican-American War
The war brought about the loss of half of Mexico’s territory leaving it with a lasting bitterness towards the United States. On the other hand, the war also brought forth the sense of national unity in Mexico that had been lacking since the dissolution of Independence movement in 1821.
As a result of the war, it provoked the emergence of a new class of politicians in Mexico. It was after the war that they finally got rid of Santa Anna’s grip over Mexico and eventually proclaimed a liberal republic in 1857. The enactment of several laws that facilitated and propelled the colonization of the vast and depopulated northern Mexican States was one of the first acts of the liberal republic. In the wake of the colonization laws was specifically the idea to avoid further territorial losses.
The annexed territories contained thousands of Mexican families that resulted to some returning to Mexico and others chose to remain in the U.S. given that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo contained guarantees for them. Finally, in 1889 the United States and Mexico eventually formed the International Boundary and Water Commission with the purpose of settling boundary disputes (Bauer 1974).
In the United States, in turn, victory in the war brought a surge in patriotism as the acquisition of new western lands—the country had also acquired the southern half of the Oregon Country in 1846—seemed to fulfill citizens' belief in their country's Manifest Destiny. While Ralph Waldo Emerson rejected war "as a means of achieving America's destiny," he accepted that "most of the great results of history are brought about by discreditable means." The war made a national hero of Zachary Taylor, who was elected president in the election of 1848.
However, this period of national euphoria would not last long. The war had been widely supported in the Southern states, but largely opposed in the Northern states. This division largely developed from expectations of how the expansion of the United States would affect the issue of slavery. At the time, Texas recognized the institution of slavery, but Mexico did not. Many Northern abolitionists viewed the war as an attempt by the slave-owners to expand slavery and assure their continued influence in the Federal government. Henry David Thoreau wrote his essay Civil Disobedience and refused to pay taxes because of this war. There were some in the South who favored further Southern expansions to expand their region and its political power.
In 1846, Congressman David Wilmot introduced the Wilmot Proviso to prohibit slavery in any new territory acquired from Mexico. Wilmot's proposal did not pass, but it sparked further hostility between the sections. Banning slavery from the conquered territories was a key plank of the 1860 Republican platform of Abraham Lincoln, whose election ignited the Civil War.
Ulysses S. Grant, who served in the war under Scott's command, would later describe the conflict as a war of conquest for the expansion of slavery and thus the prelude to the American Civil War: "The Southern rebellion was largely the outgrowth of the Mexican war. Nations, like individuals, are punished for their transgressions. We got our punishment in the most sanguinary and expensive war of modern times” (Grant 1990).
How the Mexican-American War Ended?
After long months of haggling and negotiating, the Mexicans finally gave in, and on 2 February 1848 they unenthusiastically signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The Mexicans hated the treaty’s provisions, while some of the more hawkish Americans, who wanted to annex all of Mexico, opposed it. However, Polk approved the treaty as negotiated by Trist and his wishes prevailed.
The treaty was authorized and approved on 10 March by the United States Senate and by the Mexican government on 25 March. The American war with Mexico was finally over. Polk, who hated Trist, recalled his envoy to Washington, D.C., dismissed him from the State Department, and refused to pay his expenses from Mexico.
The last American troops sailed from Mexico in August 1848. Neither country would ever be the same again. It was a war the Mexicans would long remember and the Americans would like to conveniently forget.
Conclusion
At the end of the war with Mexico, the United States bestrode the North American continent with one leg anchored on the Atlantic seaboard and the other on the Pacific. It was the fulfillment of their 'Manifest Destiny, ' which proclaimed that the United States was ordained by God to stretch from 'sea to shining sea.' If the expansion of this republic was destined to be delivered in blood, the soldiers of Generals Taylor and Scott had paid in full. Of the small American armies, more than 13,000 had left their bones in Mexico, some through combat but many more through disease; another 4,000 had been wounded.
Students of that war will recognize these names among others: for the North, Ulysses S. Grant, Joseph Hooker, George McClellan, and Don Carlos Buell; for the South, Robert E. Lee, Thomas () Jackson, Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard, James Longstreet, Braxton Bragg, and George Pickett. Unfortunately for the soldiers on both sides, their generals had learned the art of war all too well.
More than 130 veterans of the armies of Taylor and Scott became generals in the Mexican-American War. At the same time, the war provided a training ground for young officers who fought each other in the American Civil War which broke out just 13 years after the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
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