A Word on Words; 3609; Timothy Johnson

fb liz from nashville studio way celebrating offers the ideas for more than three decades this is word on words go on dancing in the once again welcome toward

on worked our guest today at the potomac ed johnson faculty member of history department lipscomb university is also the author of the new book a doubt and alarming to mexico city campaign of eighteen forty seven dan welcome to word on words thank you the it's great to talk to you brought to this book you have the autobiography on one coast guard and the dull army is once you've got starchy and it's interesting for readers to know when to start ornate military historians think of him as perhaps the most gifted of all the strategists have a fourteen us army that he almost missed the boat in aleppo the other parliament wagon and go into angola mexico must begin right there james k polk miles friend james k polk

once in allentown know washington and then he writes in and was another rock well yes you're right he was so scott was an outstanding general home but he at a bad habit of writing in temperate letters and so when war was declared against mexico and he was not inclined to leave washington with enough taste to say president polk pope instructed his sect a war to give him a little nudge to mars if we know marcy and dow are scott responded with a letter saying that it was too smart to general to leave washington with a fire from the rear meaning from the administration and afar from the far from the mexican so at the very outset he'd more or less suggested that he would be fighting against president polk as well as the

mexicans i didn't sit very well with president not with a strong willed polish like like pogo do much to harry truman in london james k polk with the pope has to outstanding job of the others secretary his old zachary taylor and burned and zachary a long way down to the rio but i love this piece food fight breaks out between the president and his commanding officer and scott at that point clearly armed had moments that has as its prominence over the reader along but he lives a pretty bold step mother present in all with top pick remove his commanding general it was it was ball on his part it was a little bit like god's image and truman is low but like truman macarthur we just got was the highest ranking officer in the army he had been the commanding general the army since eighteen forty one

he had been a hero since the war of eighteen twelve he had been the man who wrote the tactical manuals and regulations that govern the army the laws the art respected i admired albeit arrogant lofty general of the army and when he got off on the wrong foot with the president the president ahead and evidently had no problems in now they're telling him he was going to stay in washington they believe the ward the direction of the war to zachary taylor a subordinate to scott's but taylor was all the rio grande already he had already engaged the mexican army and a couple bottles in fact just ask scott was riding his intemperate letter to the president this is a mating forty six it's about the same time that president polk received news from the rio grande

the general taylor had met and had defeated the mexican army in a couple of bottles and that helps to convince president polk that he can in effect the moat scot award him to stay in washington and leave leave a warrant an entire sensory affectionately known as the band and command taylor five on right into mexico and others saw and suddenly is making himself of a folk hero right well be easy even on something here there was a political element to dallas or because because of course pope was a democrat scott and taylor both well scott was awake politically ambitious everyone knew he wanted to be president taylor was a little bit

of a question mark on the war began he appeared to be sort of a political but very quickly it became evident that that that taylor gravitated to the wakes and and you're right in the first few months of the war he emerges as a hero and i think one thing that the polk administration was a little bit concerned about was sending a weak general to mexico to become a hero who you couldn't come back and act and run for president meeting for yet and you know you when you i think about polk award wait was it and what's the worst absurdity ever heard it was wafer poker and here you get to generals the five four vote with him it's interesting that house he manages to come back into ascendancy and an end and you tell a story very well because of the poses they really needed that and

they did an end as i should mention too that scott had a history of the assad and i mean tom intemperate letter writing it got him into trouble with andrew jackson anything it may get him into trouble with john quincy adams when analysts predict that this is a repeat performance for scott but after he was reprimanded an order to stay in washington in spain and direct the war effort behind the best high heat that's a dude his arrogance he very quickly got into line he began to cooperate with secretary of war marcy through the summer he helped draft orders requisition of supplies to send to mexico he did his part as i am a staff officer really showed exactly but by the fall of aging forty six about six months into the war zachary taylor had fought and won three battles he had occupied several towns and cities in northern

mexico but the mexican government's deal was not inclined to negotiate the administration understood that they needed a different strategy and that is that the genesis of what would become the mexico city campaign by raising another army and sending it into central mexico and that goes on those gotten the laws the strategy the attack across the gulf scott always claimed that it was just his strategy in his memoirs he said that landing in vera cruz on the coast and marching in line to mexico city was an idea always mine scott wrote about but scott also had a penchant for attaching more importance to the things that he did and then perhaps he was entitled to so it's not real clear it where the idea originated it might have

originated within the pope administration but i suspect that the the original idea probably did come from scott president polk city marcy other members of demonstration began to kick the idea around landing an army on the coast they talk about temp ego as a possible landing site vera cruz but i think the idea probably originated from scott and then as the fall forty six progress is the administration increasingly turned to scott to formulate a plan and he wrote a detailed plan for an invasion of mexico and really regardless of where the idea came from here he really took ownership babar formulating all plants and by executing has and he is as successful in in in his attack from mexico city as taylor had been in

his than attrition north to south across real night you know there are a number of historical and then you're the singers as your arm but they're not miss orange juice olive stone suggested over the decades that really what happened was that game tape open to fight with a helpless but none the country that he won california mexico lot and then it was a home ruined needless war is an army that was i'm the man in ill equipped those battles were real world they were real and the the mexican army was much larger than the american army had that numerical advantage its weapons were not as as good they were

not as up up to date is the american muskets and artillery the american army had really just perfected of the use of mobile field artillery on the battlefield and then in terms of a leader she up the american officer corps no doubt was superior to the mexican officers officer corps with the americans are always outnumbered but when ainley on the battlefield these are the media says this is back in the age of frontal assaults bayonet attacks and it was often you know hand to hand fighting in the trenches close quarters out these could be a bloody battle just you know you do your book includes only interesting human interest anecdotes and some of those include letters from soldiers in which they recount

brutality or maybe a fierceness in the fighting so diseases compatriot go down the slain by and by aaron bullet from the mexican army and there is widespread carnage and there are heavy losses at times an end and gradually both again begin amount now the pope then finds himself in a position where you get to hear obama sent one of them head of mexico city of the bomb wherever of really wants to go to an end and there comes a moment when all their successes something is started as little talk about in history and that is the all mexico when success is a phenomenal success of a phenomenal poker run in his diary how incompetent

and inept both of them are gentle current is going west toward california and something starts said and you write about it doherty and will they all mexico movement talk about a whole electrical movement from the late in the war not only scots army black like you just said taylor's army other american forces had had such phenomenal success of that debt an idea began to percolate in the administration and within the army and really across the country americans began to talk about well let's just incorporate all of mexico and the united states there was in there was very little doubt when the war began what the united states wanted him what the united states would get out of the war and you see this in soldier's letters you mention that that quoted a number of town from soldiers letters not go all over the country and have read letters and diaries and

frequently they will write back home about the land that they expect the united states to acquire as a result of the war or california we know was an objective for president polk but as the war progressed and especially in the latter mart's more and more americans and even soldiers in the army began to say let's just take it all let's just incorporate all of it into the united states that the land is full of beauty and resources and an india should be ours and i think that's the one saying that i came across on a few occasions and i think probably did more than anything else to derail we all mexico movement is just the realization that and here's where here swears racial prejudice comes an hour the soldiers went to mexico with preconceived ideas about the

catholic religion that dominated the country about the mexican people and their culture and the thing that i've seen maintenance soldier's letters about what you hear is why we should not incorporate all of mexico and it has to do with that with just the fact that that would mean incorporating the entire mexican population into the united states and that wasn't an appealing idea it many many just a moment for those eu just joining us so i'm talking with dr timothy johnson a professor of history at lipscomb university looks and down the longing and the story is one about the mexican war and then the longer belongs to winfield scott let's think for just a moment about a country and they were and i mean immigration and on our minds and when i would say immigration we think

hispanic and whenever we think it's likely most often make mexico that porous border i'm anthony what the country would be like if we hadn't gone with your lexicon were just taken over the country and in at least twelve more states totally totally different populations a daily assimilation with long since have been accomplished where we would be going we would have gone through a century and a half ago the kind of a call to ration the kind of adjustments and assimilation that were now that we're now grappling with that's one thing that i think makes this study and makes this conflict with our southern neighbor so relevant because now because we are so sensitive to the immigration issue today and while most americans really know very little about the war with mexico most

americans know almost nothing about the mexico city campaign even though it's probably what most brilliant military campaigns in american history and most americans don't remember what the united states require org or obtained from mexico inland as a result of the war but but i will tell you and you know this of the mexican people remember they know that that california new mexico arizona tech says colorado part of wyoming nevada all that used to be a part of mexico and and you know that there is an animosity in now in mexico that traveled through the country are re retraced the army's pass and any of that they don't memorialize this war but they have not forgotten it and what we call it the mexican american war of the mexican war they call it the invasion of the north americans

and that ad and that attitude makes immigration today and it also creates problems aren't that really directed or culture ocean and how difficult it is to sell it at this point my career fall apart and i think you certainly would agree you but make the right decision he got what he wanted and the voice to increase the landmass of the country about thirty because you took the oregon territory where the british but you know when you remember this book of yours part of the part a knowledge of great fun when i read your accounts of the sodas oh

lansing michigan views it reminded me that this war wasn't that different from any other war of occupation on my guest worker was one of them one of the great love of the only army interesting that that is named joseph iran joseph hooker who later be famous as the union general in the civil war lauren ambrose burnside their relationship with the mexican war but but the one who reportedly had them most of the encounters with mexican women evidently was winfield scott hancock who would later the union general let's just talk about that you know you think about before and what it produced it produced land produce victory a substantial price both in money in and then blood loss of life but it also an army corps leaders

literally at war with each other during the storm both land and lead to begin with but as you pointed out so far beyond that that hundred and thirty about a hundred and thirty future civil war generals served under scott in this army if you look at all of the american army's zachary taylor now stephen kearney we look at all of the american forces at war with mexico you gonna come up with about three hundred future civil war generals whose or cut their teeth on the battlefield in mexico but justin scots army iraq lee grant beauregard are hearty john sedgwick the list goes on and on and on of both the union and and confederate generals who sells and many of them close friends in mexico who fought against each other on the battlefield and battlefields of the civil war and our big winner resident tennessee history will find it

fascinating in the role of gideon below folks off friend so clearly the promotion of the political flavor of a one point both at the book thomas hart benton and democrats in the senate in charge of military might imagine all of the alps pillow move to arrive to the two to merge or to low income to cross service and the song was self serving low in terms of his his view of his own roll in his own excesses been about getting below that and i find this conflict with scott which gets caught another demotion right right well well because president paul did not trust scott he was happy to be able to

assign his frame gideon pillow to scots ari pill was first a brigadier general benjamin motor to major general he served under scott for most of the campaign but he also served as polk live new year's drought can take this guy nate rott and eight and he would send letters directly year is a subordinate general under scott who is corresponding directly with the president united states' reporting on what what's god is doing giving his opinion about operations and immolating the campaign as you make him he did play a role and in several of the battles he was one did on two occasions and that was a brave man he did not shy away from the battlefield but his knowledge of strategy and tactics was a was walking hand down hardly any kind of credit for for a victory with which he has something to do but very little new in terms of what he claimed that act of the fighting just

south of mexico city in now and august of eighteen forty seven he claimed credit as the ones who devised the plan and gave all the orders for the battle of la what we call battle of contreras and then later that day the battle to reduce go and humor odin i can't or at least had a fellow officer right in the camp that portrayed him as the brains behind the operation in mexico a letter that was published in american newspapers under the pseudonym lee and i this infuriates oh it is it well scott had him arrested in and was going to put a pillow own trial and when president pope found out about it he said orders to mexico to really spill and put an end to put god on trial so scott ended up in a rather embarrassing situation at the end of the campaign having captured mexico

city and september eighteen forty seven but previously the campaign he had made some effort to or to get involved in a scheme to bribe the mexican government a million dollars for a peace treaty and out when president poll found out about that you he views that as there's a reason to to remove got from command and has got put before the court of inquiry which the court begin down in mexico and man it adjourned and it it resumed in frederick maryland where the us got a man who wanted to be a presidential candidate meeting forty eight to and in the spring of eighteen forty at his own trial and pope knows what he's doing he knows he knows that he's going to rupture lowest wage job need to do to be a candidate for president what he does and that was a medieval abbey when you've got office got rejected a look at it

turns out of the aggregate of it broke one running but he's short in low wages its aid and you know i i am fascinated by your research particularly research into the details of the battle about a minute i have slept you written two books now in which once you've got is the focal what's next for you well right now i am i'm editing a mexican war memoir that was written by a pennsylvania volunteer named john jacob was wandel that will be a pretty quick and easy project but after armed after i finished that project i had a civil war project in mind that deals with the atlanta campaign in eighteen sixty four but i'm not finished with the mexican war either i think there needs to be some work done on the anti war movement in the mexican war this is the first really

organized attempt by anti war advocate conscience with john and john quincy adams and ironically when just got was awakened when first thought was also opposed to the war effort he went down like a soldier he went down to mexico in the fall the worsening in the fall he'll be one of the he wrote it but the anti war movement needs work in and their other other topics near someone needs to do a study of robert e lee in mexico well when you do it come back i take to be here tamara thanks so much for coming to that is my pleasure thanks all of you for watching and john singing go there were no words they're the end of the va