Mexican War has long been overshadowed in the public imagination by that most popular of all American wars, the Civil War, And it has been swept under the carpet of national conscience as, at worst, a calculated land grab from a neighbor too weak to defend itself,
Otis Singletary's concise, dramatic account of the war that won the Southwest and California for the United States is designed to evoke in modern readers a fresh appreciation of one of the most colorful but neglected episodes in American military affairsand certainly one of the most significant.
Victory in this "military exercise" turned our attention to the Far West, made possible the Gold Rush of ', and brought vast new territories and new peoples into the Unionaltering the face of the nation and greatly influencing its future course.
Mr. Singletary treats the military, political, economic, and diplomatic aspects of the war, He focuses on the ways in which the Mexican War exemplified the dynamic spirit of Manifest Destiny and was a microcosm of peculiarly Americanand peculiarly democraticproblems of waging war.
"All in all, this is the best short account of the Mexican War yet written, "T. Harry Williams, The Journal of Modern History
In HS I was an American History geek, and for some odd reason I was particularly a geek about the Mexican War.
I first read this in aboutor so, not that long after it had first been published, I have not read it since, and did want to go back to it again all these years later,
Published in, it is a good, brief, history of this conflict, I had forgotten that only about half the book is given over to the military expedition the other half is politics, Which Singletary covers well.
No footnotes, so thepp of text reads quickly, The Bibliography is horribly outdated, depending on a lot of secondhand accounts of the war from preWWII publications, like Justin Smith's mammothvolume history of the war, There are illustrations, but he does not tell us where they are from,
While Singletary is at times critical of America's Manifest Destiny, and our politics, he also falls into ethnic cliches, The American volunteers, often pretty rough around the edges frontiersmen, are described as having "indescretions" the Mexicans are said to have committed atrocities, In a few pages he nicely outlines the difference between the volunteers militias and actual trained military, Something that should be kept in mind even in,
Since John Eisenhower published his book on the Mexican War in"So Far From God" there has been more interest in this conflict, I'll be reading Amy Greenberg's "A Wicked War"I imagine she uses more firsthand accounts from the soldiers in the field, I will probably pass on Jack Bauer's history, which sounds like mostly a blowbyblow account of every battle pretty much a stark military history,
This is a brief study, so it is understandable, but frustrating, when he throws out something like "a well deserved nickname of, " and then does not inform us why it is well deserved! He mentions the Whig/Abolitionist/New England literary protests against the war, but gives no further detail,
Nice intro to the Mexican War glad I went back and reread it, and saw how much of the book is given over to the politics involved, Because I live in Arizona, I became curious about the states history, I was aware of the Mexican War, but had no detailed knowledge, I tried to pick the best book for an overall but concise view of this period, I believe that Singletarys book presented this, The author is strong with events, dates, and names, It is fascinating, at least a little bit, that this book markets itself as part of a series about the Chicago History of American Civilization, And while I am still not completely sure about what makes the Chicago school of history significant, this book does offer a biting and frequently pointed discussion of the MexicanAmerican war in a way that puts it in the context of European and American thinking about war as well as the larger relationship between war and society in the United States and Mexico.
I happen to enjoy these discussions of why it is that Americans are so nearly always unprepared at the start of wars and how it is that the regularvolunteer divide is such a powerful one in American history and military culture.
Whether or not the reader is interested in the connection between war and politics as well as war and diplomacy will determine whether or not this book is as enjoyable to you as it is to me.
If political ambition is a subject you find intriguing and the tragic relationship of peasants and officers in the Mexican army with immense mutual hostility is a subject that moves you in any way, there is much to appreciate here.
This book is a bit more thanpages and it is topically organized, The book begins with a prologue that sets the context for the MexicanAmerican War and its results for the United States in increased territory as well as the assimilation of new peoples and the souring of relations with America's southern neighbor.
After that the author looks at the coming of the war and how both sides were rather ferocious about starting it, This leads to a discussion of Taylor's successful leading of the invasion of Northern Mexico to secure Texas, There is a discussion of the thrust to the Pacific with Kearney's column, and the discussion of the troubled interservice relationships between army and navy in California, After that the author looks at the successful invasion of the heartland of Mexico that culminated in the conquest of Mexico's capital, Later chapters then deal with the troubled relationship between politicians and generals over electoral politics as it worked in the American political tradition, The author then looks at the hidden wars that existed between different aspects of the armies, such as between regulars and volunteers and between the peasants and elites of Mexico's doomed armies.
The book then ends with a discussion of the diplomacy of war, after which there are important dates, suggested readings, acknowledgements, and an index,
When reading a book like this, the information itself about the war is only the first of many layers of enjoyment that a reader can find, For one, the author is witty and discusses the history of the MexicanAmerican War with a certain degree of humanity as well as goodnatured humor, He points out that the conflict has largely gone down the memory hole rather than becoming a national epic because it was an aggressive war in which there may be a bit of guilt about how it was fought.
The author also is very shrewd in connecting the MexicanAmerican war to larger trends about how it is that presidents are elected as successful war leaders who then retire from active duty to lead as civilians, how the war itself and how it was prosecuted fit many of the trends of American wars like being unprepared, using logistical superiority to win, and finding that people are willing to support a war only as long as it is going well, after which the side that started the war gets punished electorally.
These are all trends we will notice in later American wars, so it is interesting to see them here as well, VERY clear and concise. The book packs a ton of info into a very slim volume, and if you need to cram on the facts of the U, S. War with Mexico, this is the way to do it, The only downfall is that, in the interests of being superconcise, the author overlooks tiny little details that serve to bring great depth to the events in the U.
S. War with Mexico. For those little details that get you hooked on the information and let you feel a common bond with the past, read John S, D. Eisenhower's "So Far From God: The U, S. War with Mexico". This book though, is worth reading first, it's a good little volume, Not a bad book about the US's first war of aggression, Short narrative of the Mexican War with attention to the American push to the Pacific, foray into Northern Mexico, and the capture of Mexico City, According to Singletary, the US was almost critically hampered by lack of cooperation between personalities in the field and Polk in Washington, The US gained an upper hand because Santa Anna did not push military advantages during several important battles, Note Singletarys cringy habit of referring to Santa Anna as “that wily Mexican” and using sentences like “his exile was spent in Havana, where for eighteen months he divided his time between two favorite Latin pastimes, cockfighting and political intrigue” p.
. As a Mexican national, it was surprising to come across such an unbiased description of the major events that took place before, during and right after the Mexican American War.
Just like in the United Stated, albeit for our very own national reasons, this is a war overshadowed by the events that would come soon after the war was over.
The ReformationWar: an allout struggle that would pit a Republican democratic ideology for Mexico against a resistance to most changes, especially those affecting the priviliges of the upper classes.
And a couple of years later, an invasion by French forces, Thus, the history of the events betweenandhad been described in a sketchy manner that would pose many more questions than answers,
Someyears ago, I noticed that my father seemed to be fascinated by a relatively small book, as as the curious man he was, he looked as though he was having the time of his life.
As he was done reading the book, he turned to me, as the history buff he knew I was, and just said: "Here, Read it. You'll love it!" And the man was right, At last, for the first time in my life, the war that ended up in the occupation of Mexico by the U, S. Army made sense to me, I found explanation for so many things a XX century person would easily overlook since the events took place in the XIX century, and the author would point out the differences between the past and present without losing track of his main goal of describing the events of the war, supported by information about the politics and economics of both countries at the time.
Also, and for the first time, learned about the greatest battle that took place in Monterrey, my hometown, in, Folks in town marked half a dozen sites in town with bronze plaques that did little to describe the human drama that overran my city in the terrible days of the battle.
When authors manage to produce works of this kind, I, as a reader, feel obliged to thank them for their great kindness in sharing the knowledge they have gathered and digested for the sake of people like us.
So, Mr. Singletary, thank you very much for writing this wonderful book! This one was fine, It's about a war that was enormously important in American history ask anyone living in LA but which few of us know a lot about, So I picked it up, It's a short little book, pretty solid on military matters, less interested in social causes and effects, Probably long since superseded by better histories, but it wasn't a bad start, I thought, Nice introduction to the Mexican War from a military and political point of view, A decent summary of the Mexican War, Really dated, however. A good quick book. It is accessible to all levels of knowledge of the war,
I have stumbled upon a little gem in connection with my search for a couple of books on President Polk because of my interest in the history of Mexico, particularly as it relates to Mexico's "neighbor" to the north.
The little gem is The Mexican War by Otis A, Singletary from the University of Chicago Press, This highly rated book has been in print continuously since its first publication in, which always means something to me,
I am going to limit my comments on the book as much as possible to its bearing on the subject at hand, President Polk, Still, I will later briefly mention other aspects of the book because I would frankly like to sell it to you,
Perhaps its great advantage for anyone not a student of this era is its brevity,pages, You can easily read it in a couple of sittings, not only because of its lack of heft but because the prose is lucid and written in a voice with which one is immediately comfortable.
It is quite apparently a balanced account, also, by the way,
The four leading characters in this drama were President Polk, General Zachary Taylor, General Winfield Scott, and sometime el presidente, sometime diplomat, sometime dictator, sometime general, and sometime cockfighting aficionado, Santa Anna, an incredible character who is beyond the scope of this review.
The lastpages of the book are divided into three parts: “Politicians and Generals” “The Hidden War” and “The Diplomacy of War, ” It is here that one finds insight into President Polk
and the enormously important feature of his presidency known either as “The Mexican War” or “The U, S. Invasion,” depending on one's point of view,
Consider this one particular conundrum that President Polk faced of which I was not previously aware, President Polk was a Jacksonian Democrat down to his bones and a slave owner himself, His two main generals were antislavery Whigs with political aspirations, one later elected President and the other, Winfield Scott, later nominated as candidate for President and defeated by Franklin Pierce in.
Polk simply did not have Democratic generals available who were up to the task, He did search high and low and even considered for a time making his pal, Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, the architect of "Manifest Destiny," a general,
Superimposed on this situation was the new efficiency of the press in reporting the action, This war marked the first occasion when press reports from the front at times reached the American public faster than official reports reached Washington, These reports soon made Taylor and Scott heroes up north, The situation in the words of Professor Singletary:
, . . a Democratic President was faced with the awesome task of having to win a war with two Whig generals without in the process allowing either of them to acquire sufficient luster to bring about the defeat of the President's own party in the next election.
Page.
Now, when one adds to that the fact that Taylor and Scott came to hate each other, the result makes the recent brouhaha regarding General McChrystal appear a tempest in a teapot.
It is comic opera presented with a straight face that alone is well worth the price of admission of fifteen bucks and change or two hundred pesos, mas o menos.
The firstpages of the book are a very competently done military history of the war, the only inadequacy of which is the maps.
But then the maps are always inadequate, aren't they, whether you are reading a military history or you are on the ground with a rucksack on your back
Civil War buffs who harbor only an image of Winfield Scott as a doddering old fool would be well served to read this account of his brilliance in his heyday in managing the amphibious assault on Veracruz and the assault on Mexico City itself.
Nonetheless, because of the political complications and other factors discussed in the sections entitled “The Hidden War” and “The Diplomacy of War,” it was a mess, Young George G. Meade had this to say:
Well may we be grateful that we are at war with Mexico! Were it any other power, our gross follies would have been punished severely.
Page.
I feel constrained to add that this was no insult to Mexico, Mexico faced nearly intractable difficulties integrating itself into a nation in its first fifty years as a result of disadvantages that came to it along with the rest of its Spanish heritage, difficulties of a sort that the United States never faced.
These difficulties severely compromised its ability to conduct war, The patriotism and courage of its people, however, were current at the time in spades,
At the outset the two countries did have one problem in common for very different reasons, land pressure, It is fair to say that as a result of this war, the United States solved its problem of land pressure, with the one exception of the issue of slavery, by securing Texas to the Rio Grande and acquiring the New Mexico territory and California.
Land pressure in Mexico, on the other hand, was exacerbated by its loss of more than onehalf of its land mass, The consequences of that have lasted into our time,
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