In 1845, when James K. Polk became president of the United States, he had two objective in mind at the time of his inauguration: to bring the Republic of Texas into the Union and to extend the borders of the US all the way to the Pacific. To achieve this second objective, which he believed was vital to the interests of the United States, he first had to convince Mexico, independent since 1821, to sell the northern half of her country or territory – what we Americans now call the Southwest – for 25 million dollars.^[1] According to the monetary scales of those days, 25 million was a reasonable amount of money. When Polk sent John Slidell, a prominent Southerner, to Mexico City to make the offer, the Mexican president at the time, Jose Joaquin Herrera, wouldn't even receive him.^[2] Eventually it became evident to Slidell and, in turn, to President Polk that the Mexicans had no desire to sell the northern half of their country to the United States. Offended, Polk had Secretary of War William Marcy order General Zachary Taylor, who was already in Texas overseeing its annexation, to "advance and occupy, with the troops under your command, positions on or near the east bank of Rio del Norte," (i.e., into disputed territory).^[3] In that position American troops were able to give their presence a more aggressive face, as it were, as if to indicate that they had more implicit power over Mexicans than the latter displayed over them. When the Mexicans attempted to drive Taylor's troops back, with little success, Polk took advantage of the skirmish (which was of slight consequence) and self-confidently had Congress declare war on Mexico.^[4] There would be no failure of imperial resource in Polk's administration! After the declaration of war, Polk had the US forces invade Mexico on basically two fronts: Zachary Taylor and lesser generals would invade the northern and northeastern front while Winfield Scott, with the larger army, would invade the southern front or the heartland of Mexico.

The declaration of war shocked a number of people at the time, including Henry David Thoreau, who went to prison for refusing to pay a poll tax because of his opposition to the war, and Representative Abraham Lincoln, a Whig delegate at the time, who demanded from the floor of Congress, "Show me the spot!" ["...where American blood had been shed"] after Polk's incomplete report brought authorization from Congress. John Quincy Adams, still in Congress at the time, thought it a land grab.^[5] General Winfield Scott, the country's most prominent general (who would later conquer Mexico City and become its military governor) was equally shocked at the naturalness of Polk's tone and resolve. Four months after the commencement of warfare he privately told Richard Pankenham, British minister to the United States, that he was personally "ashamed" of the war, and "entirely opposed to the idea of territorial aggrandizement at the expense of Mexico."^[6] In his MEMOIRS, Scott also remarked, "Hostilities with Mexico, might, perhaps, have been avoided; but Texas lay between – or rather in the scale of war."^[7] Nevertheless, when President Polk, who didn't like any party or person to get in the way of his country's freedom to act, ordered General Scott to invade Mexico through the port of Vera Cruz, Scott, bowing to political reality, was ready. Scott was ready not only for the principal invasion and the multiple challenges of war itself, but was also ready for the war's indeterminate aftermath – the etch and after-growth following any hostility that can heighten the horror of both the conqueror and the vanquished as they together watch hostile nationals and insurgents within a disintegrating city or countryside clash in even bloodier warfare.

In this regard, Scott demonstrated a retrospective approach to conflict and its immediate aftermath, especially war on the European continent. War in Europe had always been continuous and developing. From Scott's perspective, one could usurp or extrapolate this on-going pattern of warfare anytime and give it a new, interpretive, albeit American valuation that would sink Europe out of notice. The United States, after all, was on an axis of "manifest destiny" on which the rest of the world would follow some day. Perhaps its destiny would surpass Europe's. In the meantime, the United States needed to study war and it international character to see what and where its limitations were.

This retrospective understanding of war stood Scott in good stead. His conception of war as development-in-continuity regarded traditional continuity in warfare not as a relationship that extended prospectively from past to present but as a relationship defined by the perspective of the present moment looking back to an ever encroaching past. War then, in this context, was always immediate, at hand, and not past nor future. It was also a-national. Thus all war formed a non-national order over the world, so to speak, and each new war altered that order. In this wise, war could shift from one corner of a continent (or world) to another, but it could never exceed explanation on Scott's own moment in American time because it always underlay his present (as did any national privation or dormant calamity). Not surprisingly, Scott's library contained a number of books on important battles, and on ancient and modern warfare, most notably on the Napoleonic Wars, which he examined retrospectively as if the outlines surrounding these wars were drawn from his own analysis of history. Readings included studies on France's six year experience in Spain beginning in 1808.^[8] This study would later prove invaluable as would William H. Prescott's HISTORY OF THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO, perhaps inspiring Scott to follow most of the route taken by Hernando Cortez in 1519 to conquer Mexico City.^[9] In this wise, studying war and its historical analogies could never over-prepare Scott for the event of war itself.

Studying Napoleon's attempt to gain control of the Iberian Peninsula must have indeed been an eye-opener for Scott! Did studying that war place nothing in his mind that was not already there in relation to the upcoming war with Mexico? According to a number of Historians, Napoleon's assault on Spain caused every class of Spaniard to attack with fanatical zeal the encroaching French army. Civilian peasants fought along side professionals, and Catholic priests led guerrilla bands to extinguish the torment of the invasion. For the stretch of six years Napoleon's army was barely able to lift its corporate head over the fat trenches of Gallic flesh. In the beginning of the war, Napoleon reckoned upon 12, 000 dead, not 300,000 by the end of the conflict. It seemed as if all of Spain had become a battlefield to see Frenchmen put to death. Women as well as men brandished axes, flashed bloodied knives, and dragged themselves on their bellies over sharp rocks and grassless terrain, letting their stockings sag with their hardened consciences, to kill. To counter such opposition, Napoleon issued order after order to break resistance with bloody coercion and terror. Any Spanish cleric, for example, believed to be abetting guerrilla bands was to have his ears cut off.^[10] Likewise, any citizen suspected of insurrection was to be shot or hurtled through the dark to some infamous prison. Francisco Goya's 80 aquatint prints, "Los Desatres de la Guerra," best convey the images of suppression, slaughter and butchery inflicted on Spain during Napoleon's invasion.

At the time of the Mexican American War the atrocities of this Iberian conflict were not unheard of in the States. For example, when the US was readying for war, thoughts of Napoleon's Peninsular War seemed, for some, nailed, as it were, to America's future war with Mexico. Horace Greeley said as much in his newspaper. In 1846, Secretary of War, William Marcy, also said the same, warning Scott that the "Mexican policy" was to "carry on a guerrilla war, and avoid a regular battle whenever" it could.^[11] Scott, of course, who had studied the guerrilla tactics of the Seminole Indians in the Second Seminole War, was well aware of this as if it had been written in large letters on his military calendar. In his MEMOIRS, he recalled Russia's taunt to Napoleon: "Come unto us with few, and we will overwhelm you; come unto us with many and you will overwhelm yourselves."^[12] Scott, of course, wanted to stay clear of this kind of quandary. He didn't want his American army reeking havoc on the Mexican people – on their villages and cities – as it advanced to victory, only to be overwhelmed later by a ferocious insurgency of much greater magnitude and terror. He needed to win the Mexican people over from within. In this regard, he realized that the military situation was not the only situation that needed to be addressed and dealt with. Thus his military policy – from beginning to end – had to be merely one aspect of a much broader political plan that would not only provide a peaceful way out of the country for his army when the war was over, but would also restore order to those civil and social institutions that rested on their being understood in common with all the citizenry of Mexico. He also wanted his solders to take to the front without blushing in shame afterwards. He knew only too well the perils of war's magnitude and havoc; how veterans could get lost in war's size and infinite devastation if left with that ravage alone. In this wise, he wanted his soldiers to take on an honorable identity, one that they could bear anywhere, both during and after the war.

Scott like Horace Greeley also owned a copy of William Napier's multi-volume HISTORY OF THE PENINSULAR WAR and no doubt learned important lessons from that work. Napier had taken certain rights to publish the account since he had served as a British officer on the peninsula and witnessed the war first hand. In his account of the war, Napier recorded the resentment and outright hatred of the Spanish people toward the invading French armies, which, he noted, were plagued by laxity, insubordination and susceptible to "unprincipled violence," "disrespect for the rights of property," and indiscriminate wholesale killing of civilians. Owing to this hatred of the French, Spanish insurgents were "bitter..., prone to sudden passion, vindictive, bloody, remembering insult longer than injury, and cruel" in their revenge.^[13] Indeed, in some parts of Spain it was as if the moral fiber of its wounded society had collapsed with nothing to take its place except recurring insurrection and violence. Scott had also read similar accounts of insurgency in Jomini's ART OF WAR, making him realize that a pacification program and final military victory on the battlefield need not be a matter of two mutually exclusive alternatives. To lessen rebelliousness, for example, Jomini had enjoined victorious invaders of any country to "calm the popular passions in every possible way" and to bring into view "courtesy, gentleness, severity united, and particularly, [to] deal justly."^[14]

Needless to say, when Scott finally landed at Veracruz in the winter of 1847, with surfboats that he had designed personally, he already had worked out in his head a plan of conquest and pacification. At the time of his landing he was commanding the southern flank of two United States armies. Assisted by his colonel of army engineers, Robert E. Lee, Scott had mapped out a route to Mexico City, one that approximated that of Cortez. Scott also had serving under him – Lieutenant George G. Meade, Major Joseph E. Johnson, and Lieutenant P.G.T. Beauregard – all future leaders in the Civil War. Despite enormous difficulties with the terrain and weather, Scott eventually won the battle of Cerro Gordo, Contreras, Churubusco, Molino del Rey and after capturing the fort of Chapultepec on September 13, 1847, conquered Mexico City itself.^[15]

All during the war, Scott stayed tuned to the hardships of both his army and the Mexican population. Veracruz, for example, was taken by siege, not assault, thus saving the lives of many soldiers and civilians alike. As Scott noted in his MEMOIRS, "The troops' approaches were so adroitly conducted, that our losses in them were surprisingly small...."^[16] After two days bombardment, for example, the Mexican military leaders, coaxed on by foreign consuls in the city, finally agreed to surrender. Upon surrender, Mexican troops were to be "paroled until regularly exchanged" and the inhabitants were to be treated with consideration. He had taken the city with the "least possible loss of life" on both sides.^[17] After this first great battle, Scott also imposed an unusual practice of diplomacy and nuance on his victory. He and his staff along with the local Mexican governor attended a religious service at the Veracruz Cathedral.^[18]

Attending the religious service was quite extraordinary at the time since it was a Catholic service. Attending such a liturgy put his reputation in danger of being contaminated by a powerful xenophobic group in the United States known as the Nativists. This group was very anti-Catholic, especially anti- Irish Catholic, and was attempting to institutionalize its repugnance nationally by propagating with patriotic zeal a kind of social commitment to anti-Catholicism. Considering that Scott had presidential aspirations, his attendance at the Cathedral was controversial. Try to imagine an American general today attending a Baghdad mosque as though in the dim light of Iraqi torches^[19]. Scott's action might seem brazen today, but it must be remembered that it was also part of his overall pacification program to win over the Mexican people. He didn't want any clerical terrorists or tradesmen of the kind that Napoleon's army had to face, enraged and fired up as though from the chancery of some downfallen bishop. In addition, Scott only had approximately 12,000 men in his army and there were 7 million Mexicans to deal with.^[20] His plan, then, called for social and political cooperation between the leaders of Veracruz and his army, a cooperation that would later confer benefits on both.

Attending the Cathedral service, of course, must have also affected him personally, causing him to reflect on already existing neutral feelings regarding a Catholic service in general. One of his daughter's, Virginia, took "the veil in the Convent at Georgetown."^[21] Scott, a Protestant, was upset by this, especially since she was his favorite daughter and only 22. When she died in the convent on August 26, 1845, a year before the Mexican conflict, he was equally distressed.^[22] However, her life in the convent could have also provided for him a personal reproach to the extreme positions of religious intolerance underlying the American Nativist movement at the time. Likewise, it could have made stepping into a Catholic Cathedral less frightening, knowing that his daughter had worshipped in such a church just a year earlier and had thereby reshaped for herself the possibilities of its value. At any rate, throughout the Mexican conflict, Scott made attendance at Mass and respect for religious property part of his military campaign to win over the Mexican people.^[23] This contributed to the harmony of the conquest, as it were, along with the imposition of martial law.

Early on Scott had resolved to impose martial law, especially upon learning of Zachary Taylor's "wild volunteers" committing, "with impunity, all sorts of atrocities on the persons and property of Mexicans."^[24] No rules and articles of war, Scott noted in his MEMOIRS, provided "any court for the trial or punishment of murder, rape, theft, etc., – no matter by whom, or on whom committed." To suppress these "disgraceful acts," Scott drew up his "martial law order – to be issued and enforced in Mexico, until Congress could be stimulated to legislate on the subject."^[25] Such a law would punish "all offenders," Americans and Mexicans alike.^[26] In this wise, martial law would always go hand in hand with conquest and victory in Mexico. After a city or region was conquered, for example, food was distributed to the local citizens, work crews were organized to clean the streets, and under guarantees of shelter and protection, stores and markets were re-opened.

Of course, there were instances of military infraction under Scott's mandate. No violation under Scott's orders, however, could be likened to the atrocious crimes committed under Zachary Taylor's northern command. To be fair, it must be noted that there was no martial law in the regions of Mexico under Taylor's earlier command. Commenting on Taylor's initial occupation, Scott wrote to Secretary of War, William Marcy:

"Sir, our militia and volunteers [under Taylor], if a tenth of what is said be true, have committed atrocities – horrors – in Mexico, sufficient to make Heaven weep, and every American, of Christian morals, blush for his country. Murder, robbery – rape on mothers and daughters, in the presence of the tied up males of the families, have been common all along the Rio Grande. I was agonized with what I heard – not from Mexicans and regulars alone; but from respectable individual volunteers – from the masters and hands of our steamers."

And later in the same correspondence Scott notes:

"The respectable volunteers – 7 in 10 – have been as much horrified and disgusted as the regulars, with such barbarian conduct. As far as I can learn, not one of the felons has been punished, and very few rebuked – the officers generally, being as much afraid of their men as the poor suffering Mexicans themselves are afraid of the miscreants. These atrocities are always committed in the absence of the regulars, but some times in the presence of acquiescing, or trembling volunteer officers."^[27]

Under these conditions, it was not surprising that several Irish born Catholic enlisted men deserted Taylor's army when his volunteers stationed horses in Catholic shrines, desecrated building, harassed clergy, and raped women of all ages. These Irish American deserters, known as Los San Patricios, had to be dealt with because of the considerable assistance they gave to the Mexican army. Later, they were court-martialed and some fifty of them hung for their desertion.^[28] It is important to remember, however, that these men were a very small fraction of the Irish born soldiers serving in that war, the majority of whom served under Scott's command and were outstanding men. In a private letter to William Robinson, Scott said this of his Irish American soldiers:

"In Mexico, we estimated the number of persons, foreigners by birth, at, about, 3,500, and of these more than 2,000 were Irish. How many had been naturalized I cannot say; but am persuaded that seven out of ten, had at least declared their intentions, according to law, to become citizens. It is hazardous, or may be invidious to make distinctions; but truth obliges me to say that, if our Irish soldiers – save a few who deserted from General Taylor, and had never taken the naturalization oath – not one ever turned his back upon the enemy or faltered in advancing to the charge. Most of the foreigners, by birth, also behaved faithfully and gallantly."^[29]

And on another occasion he remarked to Robinson:

"In my recent campaign in Mexico, a very large proportion of the men under my command were your country men (Irish), Germans, etc. I witnessed with admiration their zeal, fidelity, and valor in maintaining our flag in the face of every danger. Vying with each other, and our native-born soldiers in the same ranks, in patriotism, constancy and heroic daring, I was happy to call them brothers in the field, as I shall always be to salute them as countryman at home."^[30]

Punishment, of course, for any infraction of martial law was swift, whether for soldier or civilian. Soldiers, for example, were lashed, sent to prison and even hung if convicted of serious crimes. There were also guerrilla skirmishes in the countryside and convicts in Mexico City itself to contend with. Most of the guerrilla encounters were initiated by small groups of bandits, preying on both Americans soldiers and Mexican citizens. These were easy to tend to. However, when General Santa Ana, head of the Mexican army, released convicts and prisoners from Mexico City's jails, felons who didn't hesitate to fire on American troops, Scott had a much larger problem at hand.^[31] Concealed behind latticed windows, gutted doors and under park bushes throughout of the sprawling capitol, these convicts fired like combatants on American regulars and volunteers. In dealing with these law breakers, whether felons or angry patriots, Scott imposed extreme measures. He ordered soldiers to blast whole buildings if firing came from the roof or any part of an edifice. No mercy was to be shown. Scott also put sharpshooters in church towers and behind curtained windows to pick off any Mexican marksman. He also warned clergy and town officials alike that he meant business; that his troops were to kill any citizen bearing arms and were to blast any edifice, whether religious or secular, that housed hostile fire.^[32] If Scott could hang American deserters and culprits for infractions of the rule, he certainly could shoot civilians who were directing their footsteps against his men.

Scott hoped his pacification efforts, which included the strict imposition of martial law, would ultimately protect his troops and help create a more open atmosphere for peace talks and an eventual American pullout. Over time, of course, it did. Scott could write to Secretary Marcy, for example, that his pacification policies were beginning to work among the people who felt "assured of protection" and were beginning "to be cheerful."^[33] In his MEMOIRS, Scott recorded how at the beginning of the war all Mexicans, at first, regarded Americans as "infidels and robbers. Hence there was not among them a farmer, a miller, or dealer in subsistence who would not have destroyed whatever property he could not remove beyond our reach sooner than allow it to be seized without compensation."^[34] However, two years later, after the treaty of peace was signed at Guadaloupe on Feb. 2, 1848, and sixteen days later, after he was superceded in the command of the army by Butler, he could write, "Two fifths of the Mexican population, including more than half of the Congress, were desirous of annexation to the US, and, as a stepping stone, wished to make me president ad interim.'" ^[35] Indeed, the pacification program had worked, making it the subtext in which military victories signified more than gunshot alone.

American diplomat, Nicholas Trist, signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on Feb. 2, 1848, which ended the war. The treaty gave the U.S. control of Texas, established the U.S.-Mexican border of the Rio Grande River and ceded to the U.S. California, Nevada, Utah, and parts of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and Wyoming. Mexico received $15,000,000 dollars from the U.S. for ceding this land. Mexicans living in the conquered lands could choose to return to the new Mexico or stay and become citizens of the U.S. When the treaty was ratified by the U.S. Senate, previously promised articles recognizing Mexican and Spanish land grants were nullified. 13,000 U.S. troops died in the war. About 1,700 were killed in actual combat. The rest died of disease. Estimates of Mexican casualties: 25,000.