Santa Anna’s Invitation to American Soldiers

I recently discovered an interesting document in our archival collections, and in conducting research about the context in which it was created I learned something new and fascinating about the Mexican War (1846-1848).

Santa Anna's broadside from August 15, 1847, urging American troops to desert.

The document is an English-language broadside issued by Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna – who regained and lost power several times following his surrender at San Jacinto in 1836 – on August 15, 1847. In it, the Mexican leader urges American soldiers to desert the United States army and promises them a reward of “rich fields and large tracts of land, which being cultivated by your industry, shall crown you with happiness and convenience.” Santa Anna penned this broadside from El Peñon, a high hill approximately seven miles east-southeast of the center of Mexico City. His troops faced Gen. Winfield Scott’s army, which had reached the outskirts of Mexico City; within a month U.S. troops entered the capital and raised the American flag over the National Palace. The capture of Mexico City marked the end of the major military operations of the war, although politicians and diplomats negotiated until the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed in February 1848.

Santa Anna’s leaflet was part of a larger propaganda mechanism during the Mexican War that endeavored to promote desertion among American forces. According to historian Robert Ryal Miller in Shamrock and Sword, several reasons drove men to desert from the army, including “brutal military discipline, which seemed unjust to some soldiers; hatred of military life or unsuitability for it; sickness and disease, which may have disoriented some men; harassment or discrimination against foreign-born soldiers by their native-born officers; religious sentiments and ideological beliefs; the lure of women; and drunkenness, which sometimes led to their capture by the enemy” (150). As demonstrated in the above handbill, Santa Anna further encouraged American soldiers to desert by promising enticements of cash prizes, rank promotions, and land bonuses.

Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna (SC01.001)

Other propaganda pieces employed different strategies to encourage desertion. For example, a supplement to Santa Anna’s broadside of April 1847 – published in the Mexican newspaper Diario del Gobierno on September 10, 1847, and reprinted in the New York Herald on October 17 of that same year – targeted Irish Catholic soldiers:

Irishmen! Listen to the words of your brothers, hear the accents of a Catholic people…Is religion no longer the strongest of human bonds?…Can you fight by the side of those who put fire to your temples in Boston and Philadelphia? Did you witness such dreadful crimes and sacrileges without making a solemn vow to our Lord? If you are Catholic, the same as we, if you follow the doctrines of Our Saviour, why are you seen sword in hand murdering your brethren? Why are you antagonistic to those who defend their country and your own God?

Are Catholic Irishmen to be the destroyers of Catholic temples, the murderers of Catholic priests, and the founders of heretical rites in this pious nation?…

Come over to us; you will be received under the laws of that truly Christian hospitality and good faith which Irish guests are entitled to expect and obtain from a Catholic nation…

May Mexicans and Irishmen, united by the sacred tie of religion and benevolence, form only one people!

Using Catholicism to realign and redefine Irish soldiers’ allegiance made sense given that, according to Richard Bruce Winders in Mr. Polk’s Army, “one former enlisted man estimated that, during the 1830s, two-thirds of the soldiers” in the American army were foreign-born, specifically in countries such as Germany, Ireland, and Great Britain (60). Moreover, foreign-born soldiers faced bullying in the army due to their nationality and religion, circumstances that mirrored rising nativist sentiments in the United States more broadly. Indeed, approximately 39 percent of the soldiers in the famous San Patricio battalion were born in Ireland and 13 percent were natives of Germany (21 percent were born in the United States).

Henry Schenck Tanner's 1847 map of Mexico, which includes the dates of significant battles of the Mexican War and shows the movement of American forces. Tanner's maps were the most detailed and accurate maps of Mexico available in the United States at that time. (This digital image is from the David Rumsey Map Collection.)

From the point of view of American government officials and military commanders, desertion was a significant problem. Various historians calculate different desertion rates ranging from under 7 percent to 8.3 percent of a total American force ranging from approximately 112,000 to 116,000 soldiers. On one hand, this was a marked improvement over desertion rates in the peacetime army prior to the Mexican War, which some years reached twenty percent. Historian James M. McCaffrey also asserts that George Washington “lost as many as one-fourth of his army through desertion, and during the Civil War losses were correspondingly high” (110-111). On the other hand, historian Robert Ryal Miller asserts that desertion rates in the Mexican War were high compared to America’s other foreign wars, namely the Spanish-American War (1.6 percent), World War I (1.3 percent), World War II (5.3 percent), the Korean War (1.9 percent), and the Vietnam War (4.1 percent) (174).

References and further reading:

The United States and Mexico at War (encyclopedia) edited by Donald S. Frazier

Army of Manifest Destiny: The American Soldier in the Mexican War, 1846-1848 by James M. McCaffrey

Shamrock and Sword: The Saint Patrick’s Battalion in the U.S.-Mexican War by Robert Ryal Miller

Crisis in the Southwest: The United States, Mexico, and the Struggle Over Texas by Richard Bruce Winders

Mr. Polk’s Army: The American Military Experience in the Mexican War by Richard Bruce Winders

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General Cós’s Warning to Texans, July 1835

In his decree dated July 5, 1835, Mexican general Martín Perfecto de Cós warned Texans that disruptive activities against the government will result in war.

Martin Perfecto de Cos's declaration of July 5, 1835.

Cós issued his announcement shortly after a confrontation in Anuahuac over the collection of custom duties; if he was aware of these events, the document may have been a direct answer to the Texans’ actions there, specifically when he refers to “some bad citizens” who had “attempt[ed] to disturb the public order and peace.”

In a larger context, however, Cós’s words were a response to tensions that had been rising in Texas and elsewhere across Mexico for several years as a result of the country’s tumultuous political circumstances. Texans sought the repeal of the Law of April 6, 1830, and other measures enacted to regulate the importation of slaves, strengthen the presence of the Mexican military in Texas, and establish customs houses that would collect taxes and stop illegal trade with the United States. Texans also wanted their state to be detached from Coahuila; with the two states joined together as Coahuila y Tejas, the capital was located in Saltillo, 400 miles south of San Antonio.

Cos's broadside was printed in Spanish on one side and English on the other.

More broadly, Mexicans across the country were angered when Antonio López de Santa Anna, elected president of Mexico as a liberal in 1833, later stated that Mexico was not ready for democracy and emerged as an autocratic Centralist. He discarded the Federalist Constitution of 1824 and was granted extra powers while a new centralist constitution was being written. The new document transformed states into departments whose governors were appointed from Mexico City and reduced the size of each state’s militia in order to curtail resistance to the redistribution of power. Rebellion against Santa Anna’s centralism broke out in the states of Zacatecas and Yucatan; Texans eventually revolted, as well, ultimately demanding full independence from Mexico.

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Newspaper Accounts of the Battle of the Alamo

Last Friday, March 6, marked the 173rd anniversary of the final assault on the Alamo garrison. In 1836, those living in Texas and beyond learned about this event (and the general course of the Texas Revolution) through published newspaper accounts. The information contained in these articles was gathered from named and unnamed sources such as Almaron Dickinson’s wife, Susanna; William Barret Travis’s slave, Joe; Ben, the servant to the Mexican officer Colonel Almonte; and Andres Barsena and Anselmo Bergara, Tejanos who based their statements on testimony given by Antonio Pérez, who was in San Antonio on March 6.

The second page of the Telegraph and Texas Register from March 24, 1836. The article about the Alamo begins on the right-hand column under the heading "More Particulars Respecting the Fall of the Alamo."

The DRT Library’s newspaper collection includes papers published in the spring of 1836 containing “news from Texas.” While the majority of these materials were published in American cities, also included is a photocopy of the Telegraph and Texas Register published in San Felipe, Texas, on March 24, 1836. According to Todd Hansen, editor of The Alamo Reader, this document “is probably the most influential single account of the fall of the Alamo by virtue of being the first in print, its access to authoritative sources, and its near universal dissemination” (551). Indeed, argues Hansen, this account “would be the picture of the fall for Texans (and the United States) and the starting point for all later secondhand accounts” (565).

According to Todd Hansen, the casualty list included in the Telegraph and Texas Register account is "particularly valuable" because it was "based on the most authoritative sources known in Washington-on-the-Brazos" at the time (565).

Another important newspaper account of the fall of the Alamo in the library’s collections can be found in the Diario del Gobierno de la Republica Mexicana published on March 21, 1836. The draft of a 1968 press release announcing the library’s acquisition of the document states that it is “a rare copy of a Mexican newspaper containing the earliest known official announcement of the fall of the Alamo.”

Front page of the Diario del Gobierno de la Republica Mexicana from March 21, 1836.

As the official newspaper of the Mexican government, the Diario celebrated the bravery and success of Mexican officers and soldiers in achieving what is described as a complete and brilliant victory. “Long Live the Mexican Republic!” proclaimed the headline of this article, “Long live General Santa Anna and the brave army, victors of the Fort of the Alamo in Texas!”

The report on the fall of the Alamo appears on the fourth page of the March 24th Diario.

A supplement to this edition of the newspaper contained additional details about the Alamo, specifically General Santa Anna’s report about the battle, his March 5th General Order outlining the plan for the assault, and a March 3rd letter from General Urrea to Santa Anna describing the former’s victory over James Grant’s men at San Patricio. The article also includes a Spanish translation of Robert McAlpin Williamson’s March 1st letter to Travis. Taken from Travis’s body or his quarters, the letter concludes with Williamson’s impassioned statement, “For God’s sake hold out until we can assist you.” The Diario supplement may be the first printing of the text of the letter; since the original manuscript of this letter has never been found, the publication is significant for revealing its existence.

First page of the "Suplemento al Diario del Gobierno de la Republica Mexicana" for March 24, 1836.

Like other primary sources describing the siege and battle of the Alamo, newspaper accounts contain some confusing, problematic, and contradictory statements that researchers are still exploring, analyzing, and debating. For example, the report published in the Diario del Gobierno de la Republica Mexicana claimed that more than 600 Texans were killed, an estimation three times the actual number. Additionally, while only seventy deaths are attributed to the Mexican force, actual losses are estimated to be up to 600 soldiers.

An inventory for the entire newspaper collection can be accessed by visiting the DRT library; we are in the process of editing the guide so that it can be accessed and searched via the library’s online catalog.

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