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the truth involved the love of a country?

A more likely reason for their enlistment is the same one that led them into the American army in the first place: money. Most of the St. Patrick's men were foreigners, and enlistment in the American army gave them three meals a day, a uniform and seven American dollars a month in their pockets. As foreigners they were treated badly by their officers - and along came Mexican agents who offered them more money, a grant of land at war's end, and the chance to earn rapid promotion. As for the Americans in their ranks, something similar was probably at work. Nationalism was still unformed in the USA at that time, and many men were loyal to their region or state. Other ranks were treated badly in that army and desertions were high across the board. All in all some 9,000 men deserted from the American forces during the war, and 4,000 of them vanished into Mexico. Not all of them joined the St. Patrick's Companies, of course, but some did.

None of this means that the men of the St. Patrick's Companies were not heroes. They fought much harder than most Mexican units, and at least 60 of them died in battle, to say nothing of the 50 who were hanged when the fighting had stopped. Mexico can honour them without pandering to myths about them. They deserve no less.

Bibliographical Essay

The main source for this essay has been Robert Ryal Miller's Shamrock and Sword, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman & London, 1989. This is probably the standard work on the subject and the author used just about every primary source in the USA that he could. Until the Mexican archives are reopened to civilian scholars, it is liable to remain the standard text. Michael Hogan is an American resident in Mexico who has written a history of the St. Patrick's Battalion, and an essay which is archived at http://www.crisismagazine.com/ march2004/hogan.htm. Unfortunately, in this writer's opinion, his judgement has been coloured by his admiration for their heroism, and desire to paint the volunteers as all-Irish, all-Catholic and all in love with Mexico. This essay has tried to give a more nuanced version of the unit's history, but hopefully one that allows for full recognition of the men's heroism.

K. Jack Bauer's work, although first published in 1974, still remains a standard text for any study of the conflict. Bauer does not have a great deal to say about the St. Patrick's Companies, but he has managed to add to the confusion that still surrounds them by stating that the cannons that they serviced at the battle of Angostura were all 16 pounders. Miller believes that they had two 24 pounders and one 16 pound gun. Given the havoc that they rained down on the Americans that day, this writer tends to agree with Miller's version of the weapons that they deployed. K. Jack Bauer's work did provide the numbers of Irishmen who were taken at Churubusco, and confirmed what this writer had already begun to suspect: namely that 27 Irishmen out of a total of 85 men taken prisoner does not make for an Irish unit. (The Mexican War, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman and London, 1974 & 1992).

Probably the finest, most moving, account of the executions can be found in Robert Leckie's From Sea to Shining Sea, HarperCollins, New York, 1993. Finally, for background on the way in which other ranks were treated in the American army, as well as for a good account of the political divisions at home during the war, this writer recommends Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, HarperPerennial, New York, 1980 & 1995.

Learn more about this author, Kenneth Bell.
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