The St. Patrick's Battalion: The Irish Who Fought for Mexico

Few people outside Mexico and Ireland have heard of this Mexican army unit that helped defend the country during the Mexican-American War of 1846-48. Although eventually named after St. Patrick, the body was neither entirely Irish nor totally Catholic. Nevertheless, its most famous commander, John Riley, was Irish as were many of the men who served in the unit. Furthermore, most of the volunteers were actually men who had deserted from the American ranks and then cast in their lot with Mexico. This makes the St. Patrick's Companies - they were only raised to a battalion at the end of the war - fairly unique in military history. Other countries have had their foreign legions, but Mexico is one of the few that has managed to recruit soldiers from the enemy's forces in sufficient numbers to keep two companies of just over a hundred men each in the field until the war ended.

Forming The Unit

The origins of the St. Patrick's Battalion are not hard to fathom. In early 1846 as war with the United States loomed, the Mexican military commanders in the north made a concerted effort to entice American soldiers to desert. Leaflets were produced which offered land to any man who would change sides, and it was also pointed out that the pay they could expect in the Mexican army was higher than they were receiving in the American ranks. Finally, rapid promotion, and thus higher pay and a land grant at the end of their service, probably also played its part. So even before the war began, a steady trickle of men were crossing over the lines and taking up the Mexican offer. Once the war began, and until the last American soldier left Mexico after it was over, the Mexicans continued to offer places in their army to anyone who would desert the invaders' ranks.

The Americans indirectly encouraged this trickle by their behaviour towards the foreign born troops in their ranks, and this was especially true with regards to their treatment of their Irish-Catholic soldiers. The country was groping towards a national ideology, and various alternatives were being tried out. One of them was the anti-Catholic, anti-foreigner attitude that led to the creation of the American Party during the early 1850s. The xenophobia that led to its birth was well represented amongst the Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, American officer corps. Put bluntly, Catholics and foreigners did not feel very welcome in that army.

Discipline seems to have been fairly arbitrary and administered according to an officer's whim. George Ballantine was a former soldier in the British army, and he recorded that: "I have frequently seen foolish young officers violently strike and assault soldiers on the most slight provocation... In fact, such a bad state of feeling seemed to exist between men and officers throughout the service, that I am not surprised that it would lead to numerous desertions."

One of the men who changed sides before the war broke out was John Riley, a private in the American army, who may once have served in the British army, probably as an artilleryman. Certainly he knew how to service cannons, and could train the men under his command to do the same. This suggests that he was rather more than a gunner when he served in Britain's army; most likely he was a sergeant, as he certainly knew how to command men in action.

Historians have always assumed that Riley deserted first from the British army in Canada, but this may not be the case, and certainly no evidence has emerged to back up the claim that he deserted from two armies. When he enlisted in New York in 1845 he gave his age as 28, but people who met him during his time as an American prisoner in 1847/8 wrote that he was a man in his mid-30s. When he died in August 1850, the parish priest who conducted his burial gave his age as 45. Now, if Riley was closer to 45 than 28 when he died, that might suggest that he could have completed his service with the British and received a discharge from them. When he joined the American army he wrote that he was determined to recover his former rank; and the fact that he was still a private when he deserted leads one to speculate that anger at the American army's failure to promote him could have been one of the factors that led to his desertion. The Mexicans did not make the same mistake. Private John Riley deserted from the American army on the 12th April 1846 and by the end of that month he was a first lieutenant in Mexico's service.

Along with the others who were changing sides he served in the regular Mexican army, but at some point it was probably decided that they should all serve together, probably in Riley's artillery regiment. That made sense, given the language problems. Thus was born, probably in May or June 1846, the St. Patrick's Company which served as part of the Mexican artillery. The name probably reflects nothing more than Lt. Riley's whim, although in a letter that he wrote to the Mexican President, he did boast that he recruited 48 Irishmen during this period, and that they formed the initial company.

As the war went on the St. Patrick's unit grew to over 200 men in two companies. Aside from the Irish who formed just under half the outfit they ranged in nationality from Americans to Germans to English, with seemingly a bit of everything in between, but the Irish nature of the unit, at least in the popular imagination, was set by Riley's choice of its name and the decision, almost certainly taken by him, to create Irish-themed colours for the company. This emerald green flag had an Irish harp on one side surmounted by the Mexican coat of arms. Above were the words "Libertad por la Republica Mexicana," and below "Erin go Bragh". The other side of the colours contained the image of Saint Patrick, with the words "San Patricio" underneath. These colours were first sighted in January 1847 and may have been stitched together by the nuns of San Luis Potasi.

Fighting For Mexico

The unit served in the defence of Monterrey and then at the Battle of Angostura - which the Americans call Buena Vista - on the 23rd February 1847. They seem to have been equipped with two 24 pound cannon and one 16 pounder. (Jack Bauer, the author of The Mexican War claims that all three cannon were 16 pounders) They used these weapons to great effect to blast holes in the American ranks. The Mexicans were able to take advantage of the chaos to advance and capture two American 6 pounder guns.

Although the battle was technically a draw, the Mexican forces withdrew south the next day. The St. Patrick's men had suffered horrendous casualties: 23 dead and 6 wounded out of their complement of about 80.

On the 18th April 1847 the foreign volunteers fought in the battle of Cerro Gordo in Veracruz. We don't know what their casualties were, but given that Cerro Gordo was a clear defeat for the Mexicans, they cannot have been any less than those suffered at Angostura.

The final battle took place on the 20th August 1847 at Churubusco, a large, walled monastery in Mexico City that guarded the southern approach to the city. In preparation for the city's defence, the government had created a foreign legion that was open to any foreign national resident in Mexico. Many of the recruits were actually deserters from the American army who had made the way to Mexico City, and in July 1847 the military authorities combined the St. Patricks's artillery unit with this foreign legion. Riley later claimed that he brought 142 men to Mexico City, so the Foreign Legion cannot have numbered much more than about 60 or 70 because out of the union two infantry companies were formed of about 102 men each. In overall command was a Mexican officer, Colonel Francisco Moreno, and the first company was headed by Captain Riley and the second by a Captain Santiago O'Leary. It is possible that this officer was actually an American named Reid who deserted from a Louisiana regiment. However, he managed to escape from Churubusco and vanished from history, so we shall never know for certain.

The Mexicans dug earthworks around part of the monastery's walls, and seven cannon were positioned just behind them. Most of the 2,000 or so Mexicans who defended the position had never seen action before and had been hurriedly recruited as the American army approached the city. Nevertheless, the position was very strong, with a 15' wall running all around it, as well as the earthwork in front. It should have been possible to hold it for several days - unfortunately the Mexican supply system got in a tangle and the wrong calibre of ammunition was sent to the defenders.

After fighting off two assaults the Mexican fire began to slacken. American soldiers were able to climb over the garden wall to the rear of the position, and the gunners and infantry who had been defending the earthworks outside were withdrawn into the building. Some were sent to the garden, but most took up positions on the walls to prepare for the final assault. When this came and once the Americans began to stream over the walls the defenders retreated into the buildings to prepare for their final stand.

The Mexicans began to wave white cloths as a sign of their surrender and this enraged the foreign volunteers who tore those flags down and continued to fight. A massacre was close at hand, and it took an American officer to stop it. He took out a white handkerchief and waved it over his head. The Mexican troops took the hint and began to drop their muskets as if they had suddenly become red hot.

The St. Patrick's men were in a hopeless position. Between 80 and 90 took advantage of the confusion to escape, either alone or in small groups. Of those who remained inside, 35 were dead, and the remaining 85, many of whom were wounded, fell into enemy hands.

Dying For Mexico

Retribution followed swiftly. The American established two courts martial to try the seventy survivors who had deserted from their army, plus two others who were accused of desertion, but had not served in the St. Patrick's Companies. Fifteen of the men taken at Churubusco had not served in the American army and were either released or sent to the prisoner of war camps that were being established by the American forces. Of the seventy two who went on trial, two were found not guilty. One by reason of insanity - he was dismissed from the army - and the other because nobody could prove that he had actually been mustered into the army. Five had their sentences commuted, either on the basis of previous good service, or because there was some doubt as to whether they had actually joined the Mexican side or not. That left 65 men who were guilty as charged.

Fifteen, including John Riley, had deserted before the war broke out. They were sentenced to receive 50 lashes on the bare back and to be branded with a letter D for deserter on their cheeks. The remainder were sentenced to hang.

On the 10th September 1847 the men who were to be whipped were tied to trees in Plaza San Jacinto, in the centre of San Angel. Afterwards the air reeked with the stench of their burning flesh as the branding iron was applied. Captain Riley was branded twice, probably out of spite, as the first brand was put on his cheek upside down. Following consultations, the order was given to brand him again on the other cheek. As soon as this was done, the first batch of 16 volunteers were hanged from one enormous gallows.

When it was all over, Riley and the other men dug graves for nine of the men and buried them in the square. The remaining seven were Catholics and the church buried them in holy ground.

The next day a further four were hanged at Mixcoac, about two miles north of San Angel. Finally on the 13th, the remaining 30 were brought out to die at Mixcoac. The officer in charge of the executions, one Colonel William S. Harney, decided that the men would have to wait until the American flag was raised at Chapultepec, a hill fortress that was then under assault by U.S. forces. He sat the men on boards placed across the rear of the waggons and prepared to give the order. The condemned men passed the time tormenting Harney, one asking if he would allow him to light his pipe, using the colonel's hair as a match. Harney hit the man, knocking out some of his teeth, only to hear the mocking remark that so long as he lived the man would never be able to smoke a pipe again.

Then Harney realised that only 29 men were noosed and ready so he demanded that the 30th take his place. Upon being told that the man was dying after having had both legs blown off at Churubusco, the colonel exploded in rage, much to the amusement of the condemned men. The legless prisoner was brought out and took his place with the others. Shortly afterwards the order was given to drive the carts away...

That was not the end of the unit, however. Many of the men who had escaped from Churubusco joined with other, more recent deserters, and managed to put together a company of about 80 men that joined the Mexican government at Queretero. By March of the following year, it had grown to 230 men and had been formed into two companies again.

The St. Patrick's Battalion

When the war ended in June 1848, Riley and his men were released from captivity. At that time about a dozen or so stragglers who had been hiding in the city joined his group, so Mexico City had a nucleus of about 25 veterans for a third St. Patrick's company. Actually, they had rather more because the city was crawling with deserters from the American army who had nothing to do, so by the middle of June two companies were formed in the capital. Then, on the 18th June 1848, all four companies were bolted together as the St. Patrick's Battalion. John Riley was promoted to major, given the brevet rank of colonel, and put in charge of the two companies in Mexico City.

By August of that year the battalion had been disbanded. Mexico was in turmoil and every putative coup leader wanted the battalion on his side. It was about the only decent military formation left in Mexico, so nobody could even think about plotting a coup unless they could be sure that Riley's men were with them. The offers came thick and fast, and some of the battalions' officers, including Riley, were only too willing to listen.

Riley managed to talk his way out of trouble, although he did spend about a month behind bars. The battalion was disbanded and most of its former members probably left Mexico. About 50 were retained in the army, including John Riley, who remained in service until either June or July of 1850. He was then discharged from the army on medical grounds - quite what they were is unclear - and received his back pay. His final posting had been to the city of Veracruz, so the assumption has always been that he took a ship from the port and returned to Ireland. Sadly this did not happen. He died in Veracruz, probably on the 30th August 1850, from the effects of drunkenness, according to the priest who interred his body the next day.

Postscript: untangling a few myths.

There are many myths about the St. Patrick's volunteers. The most common is the one that states that they were Irish Catholics who fought because they felt some affinity with Catholic Mexico. The evidence doesn't back up this assertion. John Riley may have talked about the "Irishmen" that he had recruited in an August 1848 letter to the president. However, Riley was in prison at the time and may have done this to draw attention to his own Irishness, the implicit assumption being that only John Riley could have recruited them.

Actually, of the 85 men who were taken prisoner at Churubusco, only 27 were Irish, according to Jack Bauer. For his part, Robert Ryall Miller investigated the backgrounds of 103 volunteers, and he found that 40 were Irish by birth, 22 American, 15 came from Great Britain, 14 from the German speaking states and seven from Mexico. Canada provided two and France, Italy, Poland and Spanish Florida gave one each. Now, this is only 103 out of about the 500 or so who served in the unit at one time or another, but on the basis of the available evidence, a total of forty percent cannot be said to amount to an entirely Irish outfit. Irish themed, certainly, especially given the colours that they carried, but not an Irish unit.

Secondly, not all the men were Catholic. Looking again at the list of 103 volunteers, the Americans were unlikely to be Catholics because the USA had very few at that time, and Great Britain probably had even less. When the sixteen who were to be hanged at San Angel were asked to state if they were Catholic or not, only seven replied in the affirmative. They were buried by the church, but the other nine were not. This writer finds in impossible to believe that Catholics, standing on the cusp of the grave, would not claim comfort from their church. and would not seek to be buried in its soil. The fact that over half did not avail themselves of the church's services leads this writer to the inevitable conclusion that they were not Catholics.

Finally, why did they fight for Mexico? The myth makers have it that it was out of love for the country, but none of them stated that at their trials. The excuses they gave were feeble in the extreme, just the type of thing that a bewildered and not very educated man would give when the chips are down. They were drunk, the Mexicans forced them into it, they were seduced by a pretty girl. Since for most of them the trial was a mere formality, why not tell the truth, if the truth involved the love of a country?

A more likely reason for their enlistment is the same one that led them into the American army in the first place: money. Most of the St. Patrick's men were foreigners, and enlistment in the American army gave them three meals a day, a uniform and seven American dollars a month in their pockets. As foreigners they were treated badly by their officers - and along came Mexican agents who offered them more money, a grant of land at war's end, and the chance to earn rapid promotion. As for the Americans in their ranks, something similar was probably at work. Nationalism was still unformed in the USA at that time, and many men were loyal to their region or state. Other ranks were treated badly in that army and desertions were high across the board. All in all some 9,000 men deserted from the American forces during the war, and 4,000 of them vanished into Mexico. Not all of them joined the St. Patrick's Companies, of course, but some did.

None of this means that the men of the St. Patrick's Companies were not heroes. They fought much harder than most Mexican units, and at least 60 of them died in battle, to say nothing of the 50 who were hanged when the fighting had stopped. Mexico can honour them without pandering to myths about them. They deserve no less.

Bibliographical Essay The main source for this essay has been Robert Ryal Miller's Shamrock and Sword, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman & London, 1989. This is probably the standard work on the subject and the author used just about every primary source in the USA that he could. Until the Mexican archives are reopened to civilian scholars, it is liable to remain the standard text. Michael Hogan is an American resident in Mexico who has written a history of the St. Patrick's Battalion, and an essay which is archived here. Unfortunately, in this writer's opinion, his judgement has been coloured by his admiration for their heroism, and desire to paint the volunteers as all-Irish, all-Catholic and all in love with Mexico. This essay has tried to give a more nuanced version of the unit's history, but hopefully one that allows for full recognition of the men's heroism.

K. Jack Bauer's work, although first published in 1974, still remains a standard text for any study of the conflict. Bauer does not have a great deal to say about the St. Patrick's Companies, but he has managed to add to the confusion that still surrounds them by stating that the cannons that they serviced at the battle of Angostura were all 16 pounders. Miller believes that they had two 24 pounders and one 16 pound gun. Given the havoc that they rained down on the Americans that day, this writer tends to agree with Miller's version of the weapons that they deployed. K. Jack Bauer's work did provide the numbers of Irishmen who were taken at Churubusco, and confirmed what this writer had already begun to suspect: namely that 27 Irishmen out of a total of 85 men taken prisoner does not make for an Irish unit. (The Mexican War, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman and London, 1974 & 1992).

Probably the finest, most moving, account of the executions can be found in Robert Leckie's From Sea to Shining Sea, HarperCollins, New York, 1993. Finally, for background on the way in which other ranks were treated in the American army, as well as for a good account of the political divisions at home during the war, this writer recommends Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, HarperPerennial, New York, 1980 & 1995.