Scholars of the antebellum era in U.S. history have traditionally understood the Mexican-American War of 1846 to 1848 as an extension of Manifest Destiny, the belief that the United States had a divine mandate to spread across the breadth of North America. Historians usually describe this ideology as a distinctly Protestant phenomenon, especially in the case of the war with Mexico, noting the existence of widespread anti-Catholic prejudice among the men who fought in the war and the citizens of the nation at large. This article seeks to problematize that picture by discussing the service of Catholics among the volunteer units of the U.S. Army in Mexico. Why did U.S. Catholics volunteer their services to fight a Catholic neighbor in the name of an overwhelmingly Protestant nation? This and other questions challenge our understanding of Manifest Destiny, American expansionism, and nationalism in the early republic
David L. Leal, “The Multicultural Military: Military Service and the Acculturation of Latinos and Anglos,”Armed Forces & Society29, no. 2 (Winter 2003): 205-226. I hope to contribute to the study of religion and war and their interactions, including how religious beliefs shape national loyalties and perceptions of citizenship.
2.
in St. Louis Catholic News-Letter, August 22, 1846.
3.
and Robert Ryal Miller, Shamrock and Sword: The Saint Patrick’s Battalion in the U.S.-Mexican War (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989), 9-9, 20-21.
4.
Robert W. Johannsen, To the Halls of the Montezumas: The Mexican War in the American Imagination (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 276-277.
5.
and Paul W. Foos, A Short, Offhand, Killing Affair: Soldiers and Social Conflict during the Mexican-American War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 128-128.
6.
It is not possible at this time to quantify the number of Catholics who served in volunteer regiments, due to the difficulties of correlating muster rolls with data relevant to the religious persuasions of soldiers. In my next project, I hope to expand this study and attempt an estimate of Catholic numbers.
7.
in Pittsburgh Catholic, April 17, 1847.
8.
Sangamo Journal, July 2, 1846.
9.
and Woodstock Letters, vol. XVII, 151-153, 155-156.
10.
and Stanislaus Lasselle to Caroline Lasselle, November 13, 1846, Charles B. Lasselle Collection, Indiana State Library, Indianapolis [hereafter Lasselle Collection].
11.
and Oran Perry, ed., Indiana in the Mexican War (Indianapolis, IN: William B. Burford, 1908), 335-337.
12.
Elizabeth Kane to Felicite Kane, July 30,1843, Kane-Bissell Papers, Illinois State Historical Library, Springfield [hereafter ISHL].
13.
Several of the Lasselle sisters apparently attended St. Mary’s of the Woods academy in Terre Haute, IN. Also, the fact that Jacques Lasselle read devotions from the Apocrypha in the Bible indicates that he owned a Catholic Scriptures. See Sister Basilide to Mr. Lasselle, December2, 1845, Lasselle Collection; and Jacques Lasselle, December 4-10, 1842, diary entries, Lasselle Collection.
14.
Julia F. Lasselle to Stanislaus Lasselle, August 23, October 12, and November 26, 1846, Lasselle Collection; and Caroline Lasselle to Stanislaus Lasselle, January 3, 1847, Lasselle Collection.
15.
Jay Dolan, The American Catholic Experience: A History from Colonial Times to the Present (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1985), 40-41, 97-97.
16.
Ibid., 44-45, 48, 127-28.
17.
and Albert Hamilton, The Catholic Journey through Ohio (Columbus: Catholic Conference of Ohio, 1976), 13-13.
18.
and Stanislaus Lasselle to Caroline Lasselle, December 1 and December 17, 1846, Lasselle Collection.
19.
and Luther Giddings, Sketches of the Campaign in Northern Mexico in Eighteen Hundred Forty-six and Seven by an Officer of the First Regiment of Ohio Volunteers (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1853), 21-21.
20.
Richmond Palladium, September 1, 1846.
21.
Miller, Shamrock and Sword, 156-157, 160-161.
22.
Sister Blanche Marie McEniry, “Catholics in the War with Mexico” (Ph.D. diss., Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, 1937), 47.
23.
Thomas Barclay, May 25, 1847, Volunteers, 100-100.
24.
and John C. Pinheiro, “‘Religion without Restriction’: Anti-Catholicism, All Mexico, and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo,”Journal of the Early Republic23 (Spring 2003): 76-76.
25.
and McCaffrey, Army of Manifest Destiny, 72-72.
26.
and Jamieson, Journal and Notes of a Campaign in Mexico, 49-49.
27.
Stanislaus Lasselle to Melanie Lasselle, February 19, 1847, Lasselle Collection. Some of the more rabid pro war papers had promised “golden Jesuses” to prospective volunteers as potential recompense for their service. In other words, they promoted the pillaging of churches.
28.
Indiana State Sentinel, June 11, 1846.
29.
and Pinheiro, “Religion without Restriction,”70-70. Trying to get a handle on the number of Catholics who deserted, both regulars and volunteers, is a difficult prospect. Miller asserts that approximately 4,000 out of 9,207 wartime desertions actually occurred within Mexico, but this of course includes all desertions not just those by Catholic soldiers. He does say that about 200 Catholic deserters ended up joining the San Patricio Battalion and fighting with the Mexican army, but any statement of the total numbers of Catholic deserters can only be speculative at this time (pp. 24, 166). Nonetheless, the mere existence of any Catholic deserters, especially those who went over to the Mexicans, fed the fires of nativist prejudice and presented a thorny problem for Catholics desperate to prove their loyalty to the United States. The intensity of the patriotic rhetoric illustrated in succeeding paragraphs may reflect an undercurrent of uneasiness brought on by the scandal of their coreligionists deserting to the enemy.
30.
St. Louis Catholic News-Letter, May 30, 1846.
31.
in Catholic News-Letter, August 22, 1846.
32.
St. Louis Catholic News-Letter, July 10, 1847.
33.
and Pinheiro“Religion without Restriction,”69-69.
34.
and Jacques Lasselle to Unknown [a cousin], June 20, 1846, Lasselle Collection.
35.
Joshua Jackson Diary, typescript, ISHL.
36.
Lasselle Collection. Both of these letters went to the same person, their sister at home in Logan sport. The spelling of her name varied depending upon the letter writer.
37.
James Mahon and Family Papers, ISHL.
38.
and Milton Jamieson, Journal and Notes of a Campaign in Mexico, 48-48.
39.
and Stanislaus Lasselle to Malenia Lasselle, March 4, 1847, Lasselle Collection.
40.
and James Mahon, September 21, 1846, Diary, James Mahon and Family Papers, ISHL.
41.
and Stanislaus Lasselle to Malenia Lasselle, March 4, 1847, Lasselle Collection.
42.
and Joseph W. Emmerson to Jonathan and Elizabeth Emmerson, November 8, 1846, James W. Emmerson Letter, ISHL.
43.
Engelmann Letters, 445. Engelmann might have belied some Whiggish political sentiment with this remark, as the Whig Party, while supporting the vigorous prosecution of the war, blamed Polk for starting the conflict and attacked him for meddling in the actions of generals running the campaigns.
44.
and Stanislaus Lasselle to Malenie Lasselle, November 24, 1846, Lasselle Collection.
45.
and James Mahon to Margaret Mahon, January 1 and 18, 1847, James Mahon and Family Papers, ISHL.
46.
C. Delano to Philemon B. Ewing, May 4, 1846, Philemon B. Ewing Papers, OSHS; and Adolph Engelmann to Theodor and Elizabeth Engelmann, January 2, 1847, Engelmann Letters, 424.
47.
and Joshua Jackson, February 28, 1847, Joshua Jackson Diary, ISHL.
48.
in St. Louis Catholic News-Letter, August 21, 1847.
