The Mexican-American War (1846-48) found Americans on new terrain.
A republic founded on the principle of armed defense of freedom was
now going to war on behalf of Manifest Destiny, seeking to conquer
an unfamiliar nation and people. Through an examination of
rank-and-file soldiers, Paul Foos sheds new light on the war and
its effect on attitudes toward other races and nationalities that
stood in the way of American expansionism.
Drawing on wartime diaries and letters not previously examined by
scholars, Foos shows that the experience of soldiers in the war
differed radically from the positive, patriotic image trumpeted by
political and military leaders seeking recruits for a volunteer
army. Promised access to land, economic opportunity, and political
equality, the enlistees instead found themselves subjected to
unusually harsh discipline and harrowing battle conditions. As a
result, some soldiers adapted the rhetoric of Manifest Destiny to
their own purposes, taking for themselves what had been promised,
often by looting the Mexican countryside or committing racial and
sexual atrocities. Others deserted the army to fight for the enemy
or seek employment in the West. These acts, Foos argues, along with
the government's tacit acceptance of them, translated into a more
violent, damaging variety of Manifest Destiny.