Too Close to the U.S.
RODMAN, SELDEN
Too Close to the U.S. So Far From God: The U.S. War with Mexico, 1846-48 By John S. D. Eisenhower Random House. 436pp. $24.95. Reviewed by Seiden Rodman Author, "Mexican Journal," "A...
...Yet the exploits of Ulysses S. Grant and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson in the storming of Chapultepec are not mentioned...
...Reviewed by Seiden Rodman Author, "Mexican Journal," "A Short History of Mexico, "" Where A rt is Joy: Forty Years of Haitian Popular Art" The author's compelling title is taken from the saying "Poor Mexico...
...Eisenhower sets out to balance the underlying conflict between this country's notion of its "manifest destiny" and Mexico's corrupt inefficiency...
...But whoever is responsible for the aphorism, it captures the spirit of retired General John S. D. Eisenhower's retelling of our much neglected yet perhaps most dramatic and romantic war...
...He has righted the balance...
...The "heroes" include two brilliant generals, Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, other American officers who went on to become the principal commanders on both sides of the Civil War, and the Mexican soldiers who gallantly fought the invaders of their homeland...
...The President, meanwhile, recalled his peace negotiator, Nicholas Trist, before the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo could be signed...
...An energetic and pompous politician, as given to chicanery asPolk, he was nevertheless incapable of making intelligent battlefield decisions...
...Polk's fellow Democrats hoped as well to extend slavery beyond recall, and a significant number of Whigs supported that objective...
...This would complete the United States "from sea to shining sea"—our manifest destiny...
...Tired of their bungling leader, the Mexicans actually turned to the magnanimous victor, Scott, asking him to stay on as ruler...
...Santa Anna was called back to the presidency to galvanize Mexico's faltering troops when everyone else had failed...
...So far from God and so close to the United States," attributed to Porfirio Diaz...
...Although that probably cost Scott the Presidential nomination in 1848, when Taylor won without bothering to campaign, he received a triumphant welcome and remained commander-in-chief of the Army until the outbreak of the Civil War...
...Indeed, in speaking of a "dirty war" the author is not merely referring to the fact that their two small armies suffered twice as many casualties from disease than from enemy bullets...
...The Mexican strongman is not otherwise known to have uttered anything so witty and perceptive during his rule, running from the last quarter of the 19th century through the first decade of the 20th...
...So Far From God is a valuable work...
...Tilting against American aggrandizement, the son of our 34th President illuminates the Mexicans' heroism...
...If there is any weakness in Eisenhower's superbly documented and splendidly written account of the War with Mexico, it is in his downplaying the conflict as a "dress rehearsal" forthegreater struggle to follow...
...If his book is translated into Spanish and read south of the Rio Grande, it should also alleviate some of Mexico's understandable bitterness over the loss of Texas, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and parts of Wyoming and Colorado...
...As a final, venomous twist, Polk brought Scott home to face a nit-picking court of inquiry...
...Certainly he was no match for the charismatic Taylor or the supremely gifted Scott— whose self-pitying letters almost cost him command of the electrifying march from Vera Cruz to the Mexican capital...
...Of the major Civil War commanders on both sides, only William T. Sherman and Philip H. Sheridan were not participants south of the border...
...He does so with an admirable even-handedness that should help us understand a proud neighbor...
...Similarly, we are treated to Grant's dim view of the whole enterprise, expressed in his memoirs after he left the White House...
...Eisenhower does give Robert E. Lee, captain of the Corps of Engineers under Scott, full credit for his outstanding contributions to the battles of Cerro Gordo and Churubusco...
...At the same time, though, the President was waging a domestic political battle and almost succeeded in denying the two Whig generals, Taylor and Scott, the glory of victory...
...Beauregard, Braxton Bragg, James Longstreet, and George E. Pickett are scanted...
...Jefferson Davis' role as the colonel in charge of the Mississippi Rifles at Monterrey and Buena Vista receives adequate coverage...
...He was, of course, too good a soldier and too loyal to the United States to even contemplate such a maneuver, much as he despised Polk...
...The book describing the Mexican campaign written by George G. Meade, who would become famous for his victory at Gettysburg, is duly quoted however...
...sovereignty over the thinly-populated, indifferentlyruled provinces of northwest Mexico...
...Had Santa Anna been able at this point to rally his troops, whom Scott kept releasing after capture, he might have managed to obtain a better peace for his country...
...George B. McClellan is confined to a footnote, albeit a deservedly acid one...
...The actions of others, including PierreG.T...
...The "villains" in the drama that began to unfold in 1846 were James K. Polk, the eleventh U.S...
...After Scott took Mexico City, he was left dangling with his battered 8,000man force by the vindictive Polk...
...The wily, devious, mean-spiritedPolk was determined from the moment he took office to hold on to Texas, avenge the atrocities perpetrated at Golidad and the Alamo by General Santa Anna in 1836, and extend U.S...
...but Trist, feigning a communications gap, signed anyway...
...President, and Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, once and future Mexican President and commander of the numerically superior armies that squandered so many opportunities to defeat the North Americans...
Vol. 72 • April 1989 • No. 7
