1846 POEM OF VOLUNTEERS IN MEXICAN WAR, AND THE REALITY

SONG OF THE VOLUNTEERS

By Charles Webb, Esq.

The Mexicans are on our soil

In war they wish us to embroil

They've tried their best and worst to vex us

By murdering our brave men in Texas

Chorus:

We're on our way to Matamoras

On our way to Matamoras

On our way to Matamoras

And we'll drive the foe before us

We are the boys who fear no noise

We'll leave behind all of our joys

To punish those half-savage scamps

Who've slain our brethren in their camps

(Chorus)

We'll cross the famous Rio Grande

Engage the villains hand to hand

And punish them for all their sins

By stripping off their yellow skin

(Chorus)

And when we've punished them enough

We'll make them shell us out the stuff

To pay the war's expense, and then

We'll have besides, Old Yucatan

(Chorus)

So every honest volunteer

May now come forth ~ the coast is clear

We ask no odds, for we are bent 

On having this whole continent

(Chorus)

The God of War, The mighty Mars

Has sailed upon our Stripes and Stars

And spite of any ugly rumors

We'll vanquish any Montezumas

We're on our way to Matamoras

On our way to Matamoras

On our way to Matamoras

And we'll drive the foe before us

By Juan Montoya

The recent presence of "volunteer" militia members along the river brings back memories of other volunteers who flocked to the river in the past saying they want to help to seize and secure the new border as far back as 1846.

After Zachary Taylor defeated the Mexican forces at Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma in May 8 and 9, 1846, thousands of "volunteers" streamed into northern Mexico to join him and fight against the Mexicans who had "shed American blood on American soil," a lie repeated on the very first stanza of Webb's poem.

Taylor had to wait until May 18 for boats to move his army across the Rio Grande.

When Taylor and his army moved into Matamoros, they found that the Mexican force had disappeared into the interior. It wasn't until August that the U.S. army could move upriver to Camargo on the Mexican side on steamboats which finally arrived then.

Meanwhile thousands of volunteers had poured into Matamoros. Historians are unanimous in documenting that "the conduct of the U.S. volunteers left much to be desired. After an area was occupied, and there was little left to do, they often resorted to theft and treated the Mexicans abusively."

This was plain from the outset of the war, when Texas volunteers (called devils by their Mexican victims) preyed on the ranches in northern Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon.

Although Jerry D. Thompson has documented the atrocities committed against civilians by these "volunteers" in Matamoros in numerous books, more recent academic studies have confirmed the disastrous results of having an angry, idle, and unbridled mass of volunteers with no military discipline or chivalry to control their action set loose upon northern Mexico. Randy L. Yoder, in his December 2006 Master's thesis for the faculty of the Graduate College of Oklahoma State University, summed it up succinctly.

"The civilian population of Mexico was not exempt from the sufferings faced by both the Mexican and American armies. The presence of volunteer units had a significantly adverse effect on the inhabitants of northern Mexico throughout the conflict. American volunteers serving in the United States Army during the Mexican War – many of them motivated by a thirst for adventure, and at times, personal vengeance – committed numerous atrocities against the civilians and non-combatants of northern Mexico. 

A massacre of Mexican civilians in a cave at Agua Nueva by American cavalry. One eyewitness wrote: "...The cave was full of volunteers, yelling like fiends, while on the rocky floor lay over twenty Mexicans, dead and dying in pools of blood, while women and children were clinging to the knees of the murderers and shrieking for mercy..."

"Two factors explain why such incidents occurred. First, the volunteers and their respective units were often beyond the control of the formal military discipline imposed upon army regulars. This military discipline, for the most part, espoused conciliation and proper treatment of Mexican civilians and non-combatants. 

"Second, continuous harassment from guerrillas and irregular Mexican troops created frustrations among American volunteers that resulted in retaliatory actions, often direct – intentionally or unintentionally – at Mexican civilians and non-combatants. This situation was unique to the American army’s northern campaign, and several firsthand accounts serve as evidence to the undisciplined nature of volunteer units and the atrocities that resulted."

U.S. Samuel Chamberlain: "General Taylor not only collected the money assessed by force of arms, but

he let loose on the country packs of human bloodhounds called Texan Rangers. Between the Rangers and the guerillas the unfortunate inhabitants of the states of Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas had a hard time of it during the summer of 1847, plundered by both sides, their lives often taken, and their wives and daughters outraged and carried off. The names of "Old Reid, Captain Bayley, Harry Love, Ben McCulloch and, more terrible than all, "Mustang" Gray will always remain fresh in the memory of the Mexicans, as the fearful atrocities committed by them now form part of the Nursery Legends of the country"

Mustang Gray with his command on one occasion started out from camp at midnight and after a two hours' ride reached the San Francisco ranch on the Camargo road near Agua Fria. The place was surrounded, the doors forced in, and all the males capable of bearing arms were dragged out, tied to a post and shot! Most of them was shot by an old mountain man known as "Greasy Rube" who had been castrated by Mexicans in Chihuahua. 

"The victims were tied to a post on which was placed a light, the grim old Ranger would coolly fire his rifle from the distance of one hundred yards and send the ball crashing through the poor devil's brain, keeping tally by cutting a notch on the stock of his fatal Rifle. Thirty-six Mexicans were shot at this place, a half hour given for the horrified survivors, women and children, to remove their little household goods, then the torch was applied to the houses, and by the light of the conflagration the ferocious Tejanos rode off to fresh scenes of blood.

"For weeks this work of carnage and devastation continued until the entire country from Monterey to Camargo, a distance of one hundred and eighty miles, with the exceptions of the towns Marin, Cerralvo and Mier, was depopulated.

"The guerillas, if possible, were guilty of worse acts than the Rangers, and the conflict was no longer war but murder, and a disgrace to any nation calling itself Christian. Our officers became disgusted with the many revolting acts committed by volunteers and Rangers, and no reports were ever made of these cruel raids."