SOUTH TEXAS, NORTHERN MEXICO GRAVE OF WAR DEAD

 By Juan Montoya

Did you know that if you live in South Texas or in Northern Mexico, it is highly probable that you have stepped on or reside in a place built over the graves of U.S. or Mexican soldiers of the Mexican-American War?

In fact, except for a few U.S. officers with influential families in the East Coast or high-ranking Mexican military officers who could afford to transport their remain home, the majority of the lower-ranked soldiers were buried where they fell.

Notable among those whose families retrieved their remains for a formal funeral and ceremony Colonel Trueman Cross, the very first U.S. officer to die during the war with Mexico, and Major Samuel Ringgold, a casualty of the Battle of Palo Alto. Other notable officers disinterred from their temporary graves and reburied back in the United States were Col. Archibald Yell, former governor of Arkansas, Col. John J. Hardin, a former Illinois congressman, and Lt. Col. Henry Clay, Jr., son of the distinguished Kentucky statesman. All three died at the Battle of Buena Vista.

Major Jacob Brown Brown was killed in action while defending Fort Texas, which was renamed Fort Brown in his honor. Brown had been hit by an artillery shell on May 6, 1846, during the Siege of Fort Texas. Brown survived for another three days, dying from his wounds on May 9. 

His remains were buried at the Alexandria National Cemetery in Pineville, Rapides Parish, Louisiana, after being moved from Brownsville, Texas, which also bears his name.

Cross was killed by guerrillas operating as irregulars for the Mexican side under the leadership of Generals Antonio Canales (the so-called Chaparral Fox) one of the best- known partisan leaders in northern Mexico. Cross had left the camp at Brazos Island to have a look-see at the countryside when he was waylaid by guerrillas.

Notes another writer: "Expert horsemen, Mexican guerrillas usually fought while mounted. Heavily armed with rifles, pistols, lances, sabers, and daggers, they showed particular skill with lassos and preferred to rope their victims and drag them to death when possible. They mastered the local terrain and had the ability to use complex networks of paths, trails, and roads to strike the unwary and then to disappear into the countryside."

In fact, until the armies met in May at Palo Alto and Rasaca de la Palma (Guerra) in May 1846, the only U.S. casualties were inflicted by these irregulars or by disease.

On March 25, 1846, even before those battles, the advance party of Taylor's "Army of Occupation" reached Point Isabel (now Port Isabel), where he established a fortified supply depot he named Fort Polk in honor of the President.

Throughout the Mexican War Fort Polk served the U.S. army as a supply depot and hospital. Many soldiers, who died of illness or wounds, were buried in unmarked graves outside the walls of Fort Polk. Shortly after the war the site was abandoned. In 1995, the Cameron County and Texas State historical commissions erected a marker there.

However, the larger number of these unfortunates who died were buried in mass graves on the battlefields, or in unmarked graves along the route of the armies. 

Notes one historian: "During the war with Mexico, more than 13,000 U.S. military personnel lost their lives. Most were buried at or near the spot where they drew their last breath, largely because there was no other practical option.

"This was hardly new in the annals of warfare. In all previous conflicts in which Americans or their colonial forebears had fallen, the bodies of dead soldiers had been treated in similar fashion. Yet for Americans this war was different. Because these men were fighting outside the United States, they were forced to inter the bodies of deceased comrades in enemy territory in places with unfamiliar names and frequently in remote spots that no friend or family member was ever likely to find even if they tried."

Eyewitness accounts tell of the human destruction at Resaca de la Palma; official reports describe 262 Mexican dead on the battlefield, while noting many more died while trying to cross the Rio Grande (U. S. Congress and Senate 1846). This number probably is the number of dead the U.S. soldiers buried the day following the battle. See Barbour (1936) and Frost (1849) for descriptions on the disposal of the dead.

Nine U.S. soldiers died and were buried at Palo Alto. Thirty-three American soldiers were killed and buried at Resaca de la Palma.

There were other reports following the war that describe the graves of the fallen soldiers. On March 18, 1848, nearly two years after the battles, Helen Chapman passed through the Resaca de la Palma area, noting:

"One of the long beautiful green vistas... [was] pointed out by Major Scott as the scene of the deadliest fighting. As we rode down to the spot, all along in relief against the green grass, were the blackened bones of horses and men, fragments of shoes, of woolen cloth, of harness, of capes, fertile proofs of a deadly encounter. They were mostly Mexicans who fell in that line and there they remained unburied, some were buried by our soldiers and some remained where they fell."

However, among the dead were American soldiers who were also buried in a mass grave. These piles of bones remained visible to all travelers and it wasn't until a 100-year storm in later years that the piles of bleached bones were scattered across the countryside and covered with sediment over time.

Chapman also noted that she had seen another mass grave:

"Further on... we came to a very beautiful spot, a large green open space which was the camping ground of General Arista where all his baggage and booty was found. On the opposite side of the road are two large circular places where the turf has been turned up, and there lie the bodies of those who fell upon the field. Two large pits were dug and into were thrown Americans and Mexicans. On the camping ground of Arista, are three or four graves, two of Sergeants and two, I believe, of Officers whose bodies have since been removed."

By mid-July General Zachary Taylor started to moved his army from its occupation by steamboat from Matamoros to Camargo, 250 miles upriver, which had been set up as a staging area for the campaign in Monterrey and Northern Mexico. Along the way, and soldier who strayed away from his companions was open game for the guerrillas who trailed the troops from the thick chaparral along the river.

Dysentery and other diseases wreaked havoc on the U.S. army garrisoned at Camargo in the summer of 1846. Approximately 1,000 U.S. volunteers died soon after their arrival in Mexico, and were buried along the banks of the Río San Juan.

Dysentery and other diseases wreaked havoc on the U.S. army garrisoned at Camargo in the summer of 1846. Approximately 1,500 U.S. soldiers (15 percent of the troops) – regular Army and volunteers – died soon after their arrival in Mexico, and were buried along the banks of the Río San Juan. Camargo was referred to by soldiers writing home as "the yawning grave."

The same treatment of offices and common soldiers was carried on throughout the war. It happened at Buena Vista and in other battles where U.S. soldiers fell, including Mexico City. It wasn't until 1852 that the Mexico City National Cemetery was established by congressional act to gather the American dead that lay in the nearby fields and to provide burial space for Americans that died in the vicinity.

The remains were gathered in 1851 and buried in a common grave at this cemetery. They were not identified so they are classified as unknown soldiers A small monument marks the common grave of 750 unidentified American dead of the War of 1847. Inscribed on the monument are the words:

To the honored memory

of 750 Americans

known but to God

whose bones collected

by their country’s order

are here buried.

This created the first U.S. national cemetery anywhere and still stands as the only significant effort made by the federal government to recover the remains of any soldiers who lost their lives during the war with Mexico and to memorialize them.

But the 1,000s of common soldiers – U.S. and Mexicans – who died in that war in South Texas and northern Mexico remain buried under us as we make our daily rounds.