The Irish folk group The Chieftans have teamed up with American guitarist, composer, and musical preservationist Ry Cooder and issued a disc honoring the San Patricio Battalion, the mostly Irish volunteers who deserted the American expeditionary force which invaded Mexico in 1846-48 and went over to the Mexican side. Numerous other artists got involved in this project as well, including Los Tigres del Norte.
San Patricio is an interesting combination of Celtic and Hispanic themes and instruments, and you can sample the tracks at the Amazon site.
There's also a 1999 Hollywood movie about the Battalion, One Man's Hero, which stars Tom Berenger as the organizer and commander of this ill-fated band of turncoats, John Riley, an adventurer from Galway. I've seen most of it, and it's not bad.
The San Patricios were mostly refugees from the Irish potato famine of the 1830's who ended up in New York and other U.S. cities on or near the eastern seaboard. On arriving in the New World they were met with virulent anti-Irish and anti-Catholic prejudice. This was the political age of the Know-Nothings, and "Irish need not apply" signs were everywhere. Some of the men who would become San Patricios were veterans of Europe's Napoleonic wars, and more than just a few were German or Czech Catholics.
Many of these sons of Hibernia saw enlistment in the American expeditionary army invading Mexico in 1846 as a means of escaping discrimination, chronic unemployment or menial work, and religious bigotry. They hoped to win honor and respect through service to their new country, but once in uniform encountered the same prejudice and roadblocks to advancement as they had in civilian life. In Mexico they began to sympathize with the Catholic population, whom they saw as fellow victims of the same bigotry and ethnic hatred that oppressed them. The Mexican government's offer to award free land to deserters from the American cause willing to enlist with Santa Ana supplied incentive as well.
Things ended badly for the San Patricios, and few survived the war. Sam Houston Chamberlain, the most accessible and comprehensive chronicler of our invasion of Mexico (though not always truthful) has supplied us with an exciting version of the tale. His claims to have been an eyewitness of the final chapter of this sad story could not possibly be true, as he was elsewhere at the time. However he did witness a lot of the Mexican War as a U.S. private, and probably heard reliable accounts of the end of the San Patricios from men who were there.
Chamberlain writes: "At one time they numbered over seven hundred men, regular desperados who fought with a rope around their necks. The commander was the notorious Reilly, a former Sergeant in the 4th. Infantry, now holding the commission of a Colonel in the Mexican service. At Contreras the Battalion held the Convent and fortified the walls of a Hacienda, two hours after the Mexicans had run away. Nearly one hundred of the Patricios was captured, tried by a Court Martial, fifty were sentenced to be hanged, the rest to dig the graves of their executed comrades," (and also received 200 lashes and were made to wear an iron yoke -- DB).
(Of those punished with the yoke, 23 were hanged at various places in September, 1847, then) "...thirty more were strung up...fifty in all! The execution of the last number was attended with unusual and unwarranted acts of cruelty. The day selected was the one on which the Fortress of Chapultepec was to be stormed, and the gallows was erected on a rising piece of ground, just outside of the charming little village of Mixcoac, in full view of the attack on the castle."
Thirty ropes dangled from a long beam, and the 30 men were seated on boards laid across wagons, with nooses around their necks. They were read the death order and watched as the American passed by them, moving to the storming of Chapultepec. Some of them during the ensuing battle cheered for "Old Bravo," the castle's commander.
The battle's outcome was in doubt for a time, but eventually "our glorious flag was flung to the breeze from the highest tower of the Castle..." At that moment the colonel presiding gave the order, the wagons lurched forward, "and thirty bodies hung whirling, swinging, kicking, and rubing (sic) against each other...Such was the miserable end of the infamous Legion of San Patricio."
The San Patricios are now nearly forgotten in the U.S., but their actions and legend are still celebrated in Mexico and sometimes in Ireland.
Quoted material is from Samuel Chamberlain, "My Confession: Recollections of a Rogue" (Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1996), pages 263-264
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