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March 13, 2002
19th century St. Patrick's Battalion defended Catholic nation from invaders
Now a footnote in history, Irish immigrant San Patricios defended Catholic Mexico
By Patrick Dorn
The story of the San Patricios — St. Patrick's Battalion — is an obscure footnote in a war many Americans would prefer to forget. Now, 154 years later, the San Patricios are remembered as either courageous defenders of Catholic democracy or treacherous deserters, depending on one's point of view.
By all accounts, the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) was an unprovoked war of expansion, during which the United States forcibly seized half of Mexico's territory, including land that is now Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Texas and California, fulfilling its Calvinist vision of Manifest Destiny that our nation would stretch from sea to shining sea.
Mexico, which had liberated itself from Spanish colonial rule in 1821, had been inspired by the success of the American Revolution, but was now politically unstable. The fledgling republic rebuffed offers by the United States to purchase land after resisting efforts by American settlers to establish an independent Texas, leading to the Battle of the Alamo in 1836, and the illegal annexation of Texas into the United States in 1845.
The subsequent clash of cultures, languages and religions led Mexico to defend its honor, and to a divinely sanctioned American land-grab. Shortly after his inauguration, President James Polk ordered 4,000 troops —more than half the U.S. standing army at the time — to occupy southern Texas, under the command of Gen. Zachary "Old Rough and Ready" Taylor.
Fifty percent of Taylor's men were foreign-born, with Irish comprising 24 percent, and Germans 10 percent of the troops. Most of the Irish Catholics had emigrated to the U.S. during the potato famines and Protestant British persecution of the 1830s and 40s, and were seeking a new life in the land of opportunity. What they had not reckoned on was that anti-Catholic sentiment and organized persecution of Irish troops would make service to their adopted country a living hell.
Desertion became a serious problem during the Mexican-American War. Nativist bigotry and harsh punishments alienated the Irish enlisted men from the officers. Combined with intolerable, disease-ridden living conditions and Gen. Santa Anna's propaganda campaign offering land, money and wives to deserters, hundreds of Irish soldiers began to equate their cruel, Protestant officers with their former British oppressors, and chose to side with Catholic Mexico.
Prior to the declaration of war, Irish Catholic soldiers stationed in Texas routinely swam the Rio Grande, going behind enemy lines to attend Mass. Dozens of brutalized Irish soldiers abandoned their posts and changed sides, forming a Mexican foreign legion —The San Patricios — under the command of Capt. John Riley, an immigrant from County Galway who had served in the British army in Canada, worked as a laborer in Michigan, enlisted in the Army and then deserted after seven months of misery at Fort Brown.
As many as 300 deserters joined the San Patricios over the next two years, and fought in five major battles. The San Patricios proudly fought under their own flag, an emerald banner bearing the image of St. Patrick, the harp of Erin and the shamrock. They were respected by both sides for their courage and fierce fighting ability, but were castigated and condemned by their American counterparts for betraying their adopted nation and raising arms against their brothers. As with the rest of the Mexican army, casualties among the San Patricios were disproportionately high compared to the American army.
The San Patricios were originally an artillery unit, but later in the war they served both in the artillery and in two companies of infantry. On Aug. 20, 1847, at the fateful battle of Churubusco, 60 percent of the 200 remaining San Patricios were killed, wounded or captured. Less than 100 escaped, dispersing in all directions. Mexican Gen. Santa Anna reportedly lamented, "Give me a few hundred more men like Riley's, and I would have won the victory."
During an armistice preceding the capture of Mexico City and the end of the war, Riley and 71 other captured San Patricios were put on trial for treason and desertion. Fifty were hanged outright, but Riley and 15 others were spared the death penalty for treason because they had deserted prior to the official declaration of war. Instead they were stripped and tied to posts in front of a Catholic Church, given 50 lashes and branded on the cheek with a two-inch letter "D" for "Deserter." The soldier administering Riley's punishment "accidentally" burned the letter into his face upside down, so he seared Riley a second time, on his other cheek.
During the war, Riley was promoted to the rank of major, the highest rank awarded to any non-Mexican in Mexico. After the war, he was promoted to colonel in the Mexican Army, but involved the surviving San Patricios in a failed military coup, and the company was disbanded.
On Sept. 12, 1847, on a hill overlooking Chapultepec outside Mexico City, the 30 last condemned San Patricios stood under an 80-foot-long gallows with nooses around their necks. They were waiting for the American flag to be raised over the citadel, signaling Mexican defeat. When the Stars and Stripes appeared, the San Patricios died.
The San Patricios are still honored annually in Mexico and in Ireland, and stand-ins for the battalion have even been accepted in recent St. Patrick's Day parades in the United States.
For more information on the San Patricios, look for Mark R. Day's video "San Patricios" at the Denver Public Library, "The Rogue's March: John Riley and the St. Patrick's Battalion 1846-48" by Peter F. Stevens (1999), "Shamrock and Sword: The Saint Patrick's Battalion in the U.S.-Mexican War" by Robert Ryal Miller (1989), "The Irish Soldiers of Mexico" by Michael Hogan (1997, 1943), and the highly-fictionalized film "One Man's Hero" starring Tom Berenger as John Riley, now available on videocassette.
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