A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico by Amy S. Greenberg (review)

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It used to be that the U.S.-Mexican War was almost universally claimed as a “neglected war” by historians. And while comparisons to the volume of Civil War scholarship still might give such an impression, recent studies by, among others, Brian DeLay and Paul Foos, and now by Amy Greenberg, have brought the Southwest borderlands war much deserved attention as a key element of Jacksonian imperialism. The central argument in Greenberg’s Wicked War revolves around a claim that the U.S.-Mexican War, as an expansionist surge against a weaker militarily non-threatening republic, represented a break from the past in American history announcing U.S. arrival as an aggressive continental giant and as a world power heading toward internal conflict over slavery. What gives this book its allure is less this perfectly plausible claim than a persistent and insightful effort to examine the fractured character of the rising imperial power by spotlighting five men who held diverging perspectives on war and expansion.

Henry Clay, Nicholas Trist, John J. Hardin, James K. Polk, and Abraham Lincoln occupy center stage as Greenberg takes the reader through the presidential election of 1844, controversies linked to the annexation of Texas, expansionist visions and antiwar efforts, and the war itself with its profound effects on the national psyche before concluding with the rather confusing efforts of peacemaking. To some scholarly readers it may seem rather old-fashioned, and even insensitive, that rather than take the perhaps more academically trendy route of social history or cultural history of colonialism—the study of masses, race, class, gender, power, and discourses—the author places five white men representing the political elite at the center of her narrative. Once you accept Greenberg’s choice though, it is possible to enjoy an authoritative and exiting study that moves thematically from the intimate fabrics of domestic life to mentalities and public performances of power while trekking spatially from the halls of Washington, D.C. to provincial Kentucky, frontier Illinois, and the many battlefields of the war itself. Furthermore, the energetic narrative is solidly grounded on an ample primary source base that ranges from personal correspondence, newspapers, and government reports to published materials.

Greenberg displays an avid skill of getting inside the heads of her subjects and linking the personal to public life. While not all of the main characters received equal exposure—especially Nicholas Trist is left somewhat one-dimensional as a “man of justice” and in the shadows as Polk and Clay steal much of the limelight—the discussion on the experiences and views of these five men convey a nuanced understanding of how the war and the whole idea of expansion was cherished, marketed, and contested in late-Jacksonian society. Also, as Hardin and Henry Clay’s favorite son perish in battle we receive a poignant reminder of the personal costs of aggressive nationalism that impact not merely the masses but the elite as well. What some might judge as distracting from the main storyline, but what this reviewer found fascinating...