The Story of the Mexican War

by Robert Selph Henry

An excellent history of the Mexican War of 1846-1848, with the US Army commanded by the likes of Zachary Taylor, Robert E. Lee, Winfield Scott, John E. Wool, Stephen Kearny, The Texas Rangers, etc., versus the Mexican Army with the likes of Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana, Jose Mariano, Francisco Perez, Jose Joaquin Herrera, etc. Illustrated with drawings, and the frontispiece is a photograph of General John E. Wool and his staff in Saltillo, Mexico, this photograph is believed to be one of the first war photographs to be made, there are also twelve maps, and a chronology of events leading up to the Mexican War from 1836 to the end of the war, May, 1848.

Genres: History, American History

424 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1950

About the author

Colonel Robert Selph Henry (October 20, 1889 – August 19, 1970) was an American lawyer, railroad executive and historian. He was an executive of the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway from 1921 to 1934, and the Vice President of the Association of American Railroads from 1934 to 1958. He was the author of several books about the history of the Southern United States, including the American Civil War and the Mexican–American War, as well as railroads. He was the 1957 president of the Southern Historical Association. A veteran of World War I, he was a reservist until his 1952 retirement as a colonel.

He died on August 19, 1970 in Alexandria, Virginia, and he was buried in Nashville.

Reviews

[Vanessa M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first time reading about the Mexican War of 1846-1848. I found Henry's book to be highly readable. This work was published in 1950. The maps were not terribly helpful to me but the illustrations were appreciated. In his biographical sketches of the various leaders on the American side, Henry uses their more well-known officer roles in the Civil War to add context. I enjoyed reading about Mexico's political history and of the major players in that time frame. Also, I found it interesting to read (and I've read this from other books) that the U.S. Army (regulars) loathed the volunteers.

[Jerome Otte · Rating 4 out of 5]

A balanced, well-written and witty history of the Mexican-American War. Henry tells the story of the war in a balanced, well-written fashion. His style is pretty matter-of-fact and he avoids sensationalism. Henry has a good grasp of the subject matter and his attention of detail is sharp. The book should be fine for both general readers and specialists, and Henry does a great job bringing all of the era’s figures to life, and he devotes the right amount of attention to issues like logistics, and he captures the atmosphere of battle and the mindset of officers and soldiers. Henry also argues that Polk did not want war.

The only drawbacks are a few minor errors: Henry mixes up the number of terms Polk served as governor and confuses Lincoln’s successor in Congress with somebody else. There is little in the way of analysis, and Henry rarely has anything good or bad to say about the subjects of his book. Interestingly, Henry is not particularly impressed with either Scott or Taylor; Henry concludes that Scott was a good organizer and an unremarkable tactician, and that Taylor was a great field commander with little grasp of logistical issues.

A solid, readable, well-organized and well-researched work, written in a simple, unpretentious style. The maps, however, are simple and mostly unhelpful, and a few Spanish words are mangled here and there (spelling and accents, mainly). A bibliography is lacking, and Henry’s habit of describing officers’ later Civil War careers is annoying because he usually discusses these in disruptive mid-sentence tangents, and there are a few run-on sentences here and there, and terms like “un-wisdom.” The tone can also seem a little condescending: “his name was George G. Meade and he was to be heard from seventeen years later at a place in Pennsylvania called Gettysburg.”

[Drew]

The story of the Mexican War by Robert Selph Henry (1989)