Authors: F. M. Parker

Tags: #Texas rangers, Alamo, Santa Ana, Mexico, Veracruz, Rio Grande, War with Mexico, Mexican illegals, border crossing, battle, Mexican Army, American Army

Soldiers of Conquest (47 page)

President Polk died in Nashville three months after leaving office, at the age of fifty-four.

General Scott retained his position as U. S. Army General and Chief. Once Scott reached Washington his friends rallied around and feted him as a hero. Congress presented him with a medal for his services, and New York held a grand celebration for him. In the second year of the Civil War, McClellan maneuvered Scott, then seventy-six, aside and became the General and Chief of the Union Army.

General Pillow went back to civilian life after the end of the Mexican War. At the beginning of the Civil War he returned to uniform, the uniform of gray of the Confederates. A young general named Ulysses S. Grant defeated him at Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River in 1862 and sent him into obscurity.

General Worth remained in uniform and died in 1852. A fort he established on what was then the Texas frontier, Fort Worth, immortalized his name.

Santa-Anna returned from exile to Mexico in 1853 and again became president. In 1855 he was exiled again. In 1874 he was permitted to return to Mexico. He died in Mexico City in 1876 at the age of ninety-two.

The Mexican War was the training ground for many Union and Confederate officers. More than 200 of the officers that fought in that war became Union or Confederate generals in the Civil War. A person could easily believe that this training in warfare led to the length and deadliness of the Civil War. Some of the most notable of the generals were:

Ulysses S. Grant
Robert E. Lee
Jefferson Davis
George McCllelan
P. G. T. Beauregard
Thomas Jackson
Joseph Hooker
D. H. Hill
George Meade
Joseph Johnston
Fitz-John Porter
Roswell Ripley
William Sherman
Zealous Tower
Don Buel
Ambrose Burnside
John Magruder

In May 1846 at the beginning of the Mexican War there were 637 officers and 5,925 enlisted men in the army. During the war 1,016 officers and 35,009 enlisted men joined the regular army, swelling its ranks to 42,587 men, while an additional 73,532 men appeared on the rolls of the various volunteer units. The table below lists the losses suffered.

Killed in action	1,192
Died of wounds	529
Disease, etc.*	11,155
Wounded in action	4,102
Discharged for disability	9,754
Deserters	9,207

*Includes deaths from disease, accidents, executions, and miscellaneous causes.

The 12,876 deaths make this war for its size the deadliest in American history.

The war cost the United States about $58,000,000 in direct costs for military operations.

Another $15,000,000 was paid to Mexico under the treaty. Miscellaneous other costs ran the total cost to about $100,000,000.

Soldiers of Conquest

F. M. Parker has asserted his rights in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

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This digital edition published in 2011 by Fearl M. Parker

ISBN 978-1-908400-99-4

The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

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