A Poor Irishman Cannot Get Bread in his Own Country: The Saint Patrick’s Battalion in the Mexican War

Hundreds of foreign soldiers left the United States army and later fought against the United States invasion of 1846-1848, and many died in battle or were executed by American forces. In Mexico and Ireland today these men are remembered as heroes who opposed injustice, but close examination of their experiences shows the complicated ways in which their soldiering for first the United States and then Mexico was driven by the very limited choices that poor laborers like them faced in the nineteenth century world.

Peter Guardino is Provost Professor at Indiana University. He has published more than twenty articles and the books Peasants, Politics and the Formation of Mexico's National State: Guerrero, 1800-1857 (1996), The Time of Liberty: Popular Political Culture in Oaxaca, 1750-1850 (2005) and The Dead March: A History of the Mexican-American War (Harvard University Press 2017). The latter won the Conference on Latin American History’s Bolton-Johnson Award for the best book on Latin American History, the Society for Military History’s Distinguished Book Award for the best book on non-United States Military History, and the Western History Association’s Robert Utley Award for the best book on frontier military history.

RSVP NOW: bit.ly/guardino