Congressman Lincoln and the return of the wooden leg of General Santa Anna

[Bill Richter]

Before we all go bonkers about the evil President Polk and the cruel United States, we ought to read the introduction to North America Divided: The Mexican War, 1846-1848, by Seymour V. Connor and Odie B. Faulk. They present quite a different story that was unavailable to Lincoln and Grant and other Americans against the war.

The land below the Nueces was not accepted by anyone as the southern boundary of Texas until the US advanced below Corpus Christi and Mexico made that spurious claim. Further, both California and Texas were practically separated from Mexico on their own--the only problem being who would get them, the US or the British, or some other European power, like Spain or France. All of these other nations had already attacked Mexico during the Pastry War in 1839, to collect debts owed them by Mexico, during which Santa Ana had lost his leg successfully defending Mexico. They would do it again in 1861 during our Civil War, leaving France to rule Mexico until 1867.

The real quarrel was internal between Mexican political parties, the Centralists and the Federalists, and had been since 1821 and the final Mexican separation from Spain. It lasted until Porfirio Diaz took over Mexico City after the death of Benito Juarez, who had thrown the French occupiers out in 1867.

Mexico went to war with the US fully expecting to march on New Orleans and Mobile and win. After all they had been fighting a war with themselves since 1821 and had one of the largest veteran armies in the Western Hemisphere, regardless of their methods of command and conscription. Mexico's real problem was they their officers lacked a West Point education. But no one knew this would be a critical factor until after the war. Another advantage the US has was the "flying artillery," 6-gun batteries drawn by 6 horses per gun. These proved a critical factor in the US winning so many battles. None of these factors had proved decisive in any US war before that time. Both sides were surprised at the effectiveness of the US artillery and the US volunteers (mostly westerners and southerners who loved to fight) and the American officer corps.

What really happened was that Mexico declared war on the US before Polk got Congress to do it. But communications were so bad that no one knew this until later. Thornton's US dragoons were attacked in the disputed area after Mexico declared war in a legal attack as far as Mexico was concerned. This news reached Washington City before the Mexican declaration of war and Polk used it to sucker Congress into a defensive declaration of war that proved to be all he need to conquer Mexico and take half of her territory.

Given the political desires of certain Americans of Mexican descent (often referred to Chicanos in the Southwest today, as opposed to the rest of the media calling them Latinos or Hispanics) and their organizations, like La Raza, MECha, Lulac, to recreate the independent Spanish-speaking entity La Republica de Aztlan out of the Mexican cession of 1848, returning Santa Ana's wooden leg might mean more to the US than the above post indicates so casually. Mexicans don't call their presidents past and present los Ladrones (the Thieves) for nuttin'.

So let's call it a draw. Mexico got Santa Ana's leg bones when a couple of old soldados saved them from a mob hell-bent to throw him and all his bones out of the country one more time for his incompetent ruining of his homeland (the Texas Revolution, the Mexican War, the Gadsden Purchase), and we got his prosthesis. They got the real thing--we got the fake. History is never so simple as we Americans assume. Que viva!