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  • A Gallant Little Army: The Mexico City Campaign
  • Samuel Watson
A Gallant Little Army: The Mexico City Campaign. By Timothy D. Johnson . Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007. ISBN 978-0-7006-1541-4. Maps. Illustrations. Notes. Selected bibliography. Index. Pp. x, 365. $39.95.

Despite several books recently published on the U.S.-Mexican war, this is the first major campaign study in more than forty years. Although Timothy Johnson tells the story almost entirely from the American side, he has put his past study of Winfield Scott to excellent use, and has crafted the definitive study of Scott's advance against Mexico City in 1847. [End Page 243]

Johnson deals expertly with each of the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of war, providing the perspectives of American soldiers and commanders of every rank. The Americans had the advantage of initiative and agility at every level. These qualities won them an unbroken string of battlefield victories against superior numbers, but Scott's strategic and operational patience won the war. Whatever James K. Polk's political and administrative abilities, Johnson argues that he "lack[ed] understanding of the military prerequisites for waging war" (p. 12), while the cautious Scott "foresaw all of the potential dilemmas that an invading army would face and crafted policies to deal with them" (p. 269). These policies often opened Scott to partisan criticism—usually from the Polk administration itself—but proved a solid basis for an informal accommodation with the Mexican people, helping to avert a large-scale insurgency that might have annulled American victories on the battlefield. Indeed, Scott and his army expected an insurgency, and his decision to sever his line of communications with the seaport of Veracruz was a calculated effort to reduce the number of targets U.S. forces offered to insurgents. As a result, some three-quarters of the army was able to focus on conventional operations, a crucial economy of force since Scott never received more than half the troops promised him. (Notably, only three of the 25 U.S. regiments at Mexico City were state volunteer units, though seven more were new regiments created for the war and disbanded afterwards. All but one of the fourteen pre-war regular army regiments served in the campaign.)

Scott did make two significant military mistakes. The armistice after Churubusco was one, but Johnson notes that the army had only two days rations remaining at the time. The storming of Molino del Rey was the other, due like the frontal assault on Churubusco to poor reconnaissance and intelligence. But these were rare exceptions to perhaps the most effective tactical and operational intelligence efforts the U.S. Army has ever achieved. More troubling was the constant tension between Scott and the Polk administration, and that among the officers of the army themselves, over credit for victory. Yet there was glory enough to go around, and the army remained cohesive enough to defeat its poorly coordinated opponents, their mobilization crippled by the divisions of Mexican society.

Interpretations of the U.S. victory against Mexico tend to emphasize resources, technology, and political leadership or divisions, often conveying a sense of inevitability to the outcome. As crucial as the strategic context was, and as much as Johnson rightly praises Scott, A Gallant Little Army reminds us that the United States won the Southwest in close quarters combat, through valor intelligently applied. This is not just battle history, though: Johnson shows us the army between battles, and presents convincing evidence that Scott's conciliatory strategy, his vision of the war, the battlespace, and his opponents' center of gravity, were indispensable. Smooth, engaging reading, balanced in approach, A Gallant Little Army is a superb example of campaign history in the most holistic sense.

Samuel Watson
U.S. Military Academy
West Point, New York
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