The Mexican-American War as Told by General Winfield Scott ... Sort of

Winfield Scott led the southern thrust in the
Mexican-American War

At the start of the Mexican campaign of 1847, our—the president’s—objectives were to apply economic pressure to Mexico to force them to yield to the president’s territorial demands.  Essentially, these were that Mexico recognize the Rio Grande as the southern border of Texas and agree to sell to the United States the territories of New Mexico and California.  We began with a naval blockade of the Mexican Gulf coast, to put immediate pressure upon the Mexican economy.  I knew however that, in order to accomplish our objectives, sooner or later we would have to essentially repeat Cortes’ march to the valley of Mexico before we could ever hope to force the Mexican government’s capitulation.

Given that we faced no enemy on the open seas, the president sent Matthew Perry’s forces to set up the blockade.  The blockade was successful and the navy even had some success on land, taking the towns of Frontera and Tampico.  General Taylor advanced to the mouth of the Rio Grande and soon he was able to move against Monterrey which was defended by General Pedro de Ampudia.

As overall commander of American forces in this war, my role was to see that my subordinate commanders got the men and materiel support they needed in order to prosecute the fight.  Because of the president’s distrust of his generals, myself and General Taylor in particular, I was never able to fulfill my role as the principle military advisor to the president.  In essence, our chain of command did not function properly at the top, that is, from the president to me and, through me, to the field commanders.  Though lacking the military experience necessary to effect this, the president instead preferred give direction to his field commanders himself and to oversee the war from Washington.  For intelligence, he preferred to rely on political envoys sent to conduct official U.S. business with the Mexican authorities.

Events in 1846 forced the president to modify our strategy.  Thought generally successful in the northern campaigns and with General Taylor making significant inroads into the Mexican heartland from the Gulf Coast, the Mexican government refused to negotiate.  This infuriated the president.  The president had the idea that we conduct the war on the cheap, still obtain victory, and secure this great territorial windfall for the United States.  But the Mexicans were not so easily persuaded.  So the president decided that the only way to force the Mexican government to the table was to extend our forces further into Mexico, take Veracruz and threaten their capital.  The first major result produced by this change in direction was the battle of Buena Vista on 22-23 February 1847.

Our thinking was that a successful assault upon Buena Vista would force the Mexican government to the negotiating table.  I was chosen to command this expedition, more or less by a process of elimination, and to the distress of General Taylor who saw it as robbing him of his chance at battlefield glory.  He was even more put out when I siphoned off more than half his men and ordered him to take up a defensive position outside Monterrey.  This was military prudent especially if we intended on taking Vera Cruz and were to make any kind of a legitimate show of force against the Mexican capital.

Unfortunately, Mexican intelligence obtained a copy of my orders to General Taylor which seemed to suggest to their commander—Santa Anna—that General Taylor was in a vulnerable position.  General Taylor used his own judgment and made a slow advancement of his forces to the vicinity of Encarnation where Santa Anna had gathered a force of 15,000 men.  General Taylor, with a force of less a third of Santa Anna's, retreated to a strong defensive position near Buena Vista and waited for Santa Anna’s attack.  Taylor’s small force was defeated at Buena Vista, but at great loss to Santa Anna’s Army.  Looking back, this foretold the experiences would have with the Mexicans, from Vera Cruz to Mexico City.  Though their losses nearly always exceeded ours by ten-fold, and though we continually, after Vera Cruz, won every battle, they stubbornly refused to join us at the bargain table.  Even after entering their capital city, this stubbornness remained.

So in the 1847 fighting season I led the southern thrust of our campaign.  In March, we landed 10,000 troops on beaches by Navy at Vera Cruz, the first amphibious assault in American history.  I attacked inland along a route that took us from Vera Cruz, through Jalapa and Puebla and into Mexico City.  I had two big worries.  One was fighting our way through the Mexican lowlands before the yellow fever season hit.  Had we not been able to do that, yellow fever would have defeated us in detail.  Fortunately, we were able to push back Santa Anna’s forces at Vera Cruz and reached the higher altitudes before the vomitus came.

My other worry was the expiration of the enlistments of huge numbers of our men.  We still, as a nation, had not solved the problem of manpower support to a standing army, especially one conducting operations on foreign soil.  So it we were forced to continue our approach to the Mexican capital with a force much smaller than I was comfortable with.  My solution, of course, was to break away from our lines of communication at Jalapa while those that chose not to reenlist marched their way back to Vera Cruz.  This allowed us to maneuver much faster than our enemy.  With our superior artillery, we still maintained an advantage in firepower.

Santa Anna

Though Santa Anna continued to throw men at us, we steadily push him back into a defense of his capital.  I was able to maneuver around his prepared defenses and took the outlying areas of Churubusco, Contreras, Molino del Rey and Chapultepec.  Our artillery and ability to maneuver simply overwhelmed Santa Anna’s superior numbers.  Most of this was simply senseless slaughter on the Mexican general’s part.  We captured the Belen and St. Cosme gates on or about 13 September and entered the city.

The war’s end was not as conclusive as we had hoped.  Though militarily beaten, the Government of Mexico refused to capitulate to President Polk’s demands.  Of course, a large part of the problem was the intractableness of Santa Anna.  Santa Ana was a good soldier but he was a bad general.  As a political representative of his government, he was even worse.  I agreed to armistice with him after defeating his conscripted army at the battles of Contreras and Churubusco, senseless losses of Mexican manpower both.  But General Santana deceived me and instead of taking steps to begin the surrender process, Santa Ana gained the time to refit his Army, force our continuation of fight at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec.  The losses the Mexicans suffered at these last two battles were completely unnecessary and could have been avoided if General Santa Ana had conducted his government’s affairs honorably.  Instead, his actions caused the humiliation of his government as our forces entered the Mexican capital in force in mid-September.  From that point, the war was essentially fought at the political level and was officially concluded with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.  Suitably, the war, which had been a political one from the start, ended upon yet another discordant political note, for the treaty was not very popular.  Though we succeeded in gaining our ambitious territorial objectives, it came at a much, much greater cost than expected.