Battle of Buena Vista
| date | 22. bis 23. February 1847 |
|---|---|
| place | near Buena Vista , Mexico |
| output | United States victory |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
| 4,500 | 16,000 |
| losses | |
|
267 killed |
594 killed |
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The Battle of Buena Vista was a major battle in the Mexican-American War .
prehistory
Major General Winfield Scott , the commanding general of the US Army, withdrew about 8,000 soldiers from General Zachary Taylor from the occupied cities of Saltillo and Victoria in early 1847 . These soldiers were needed for the planned attack on Mexico City by sea. When General Santa Anna (General of the Mexican Armed Forces ) heard of this withdrawal and the only approx. 5000 American soldiers left at Saltillo, he set off for Saltillo with 15,000 men.
General Zachary Taylor then hurriedly moved his troops to Buena Vista, a village south of Saltillo, as the area there offered better defense options for his 5,000 troops.
course
After Wool informed him of the approach of Santa Anna at the end of January, Taylor gathered his scattered units and the incoming reinforcements, among which Davis was, in Saltillo. In total he had eight regiments of infantry and almost 5,000 men. Doubting the troop strength of the Mexicans to the last, Taylor concentrated his armed forces on February 21, 1847 in Agua Nueva about 30 km south of Saltillo. Since the position was not very advantageous and the first reports about the size of Santa Anna's army were confirmed, General Wool was able to convince Taylor to retreat to a place a few kilometers away south of the Hacienda de Buena Vista, which was known as the "bottleneck". Taylor put Wool in charge of the troop formation and returned to Saltillo for the night, still more concerned about the safety of the supply base than that of his army. In the late morning of February 22, Taylor found a defensive position favored by the terrain on his return. The road to Saltillo was a ravine here, which led past an impassable, deeply cut water channel to the west and was bordered to the east by several ridges that tapered finger-like stretched for several kilometers from the Cordillera . There the fingers united to form a plateau on which Buena Vista lay. In the ravine stood a battery under John MacRae Washington , which was covered by two regiments, one of which stood on one of the ridges. The left wing was covered by two lines up to the plateau. Shortly after his arrival, Taylor received a message from Santa Anna, in which the latter predicted the complete annihilation of the army should he not surrender. Taylor refused this in a nutshell.
The Battle of Buena Vista began in the early afternoon. Santa Anna led a diversionary attack on the battery in the ravine that was thrown back from Washington. When Taylor heard that the Mexican infantry under Ampudia wanted to encompass his left wing on the plateau, he sent reinforcements there, consisting essentially of a mounted regiment under Colonel Humphrey Marshall and a rifle battalion under Major Willis A. Gorman . The advance of the Mexicans had stopped by evening, but they were able to hold on to the plateau. Taylor, who was still not sure about the critical point of his position, spent the night again in Saltillo. In the morning the fighting flared up again with a Mexican diversionary attack in the "bottleneck", which was repulsed despite artillery support. On Taylor's left wing, an inexperienced regiment from the Indiana Brigade, General Joseph Lanes, came under heavy pressure from two enemy divisions. Since the reinforcement by a regiment under Colonel William Henry Bissell arrived a few minutes late, it could no longer be saved. With the support of other units, Bissell finally succeeded in stabilizing the American line parallel to the road. Taylor ruled out a possible withdrawal proposed by Wool because of the inexperience of the troops and calmed the command post with his steadfastness . When the two Mexican divisions swayed under the artillery fire of guns that had meanwhile been regrouped on the plateau, the regiments of Bissell, Colonel John J. Hardin and William R. McKee counterattacked. As the pressure on the American center eased, Taylor dispatched mounted forces under Marshall and Colonel Archibald Yell to the hacienda, where they were able to repel a cavalry attack by Torrejón.
In the morning Santa Anna directed the offensive against the left wing of the Americans again with the division Francisco Pachecos. Davis held the position there with a regiment from Mississippi, which was soon reinforced by a regiment from Indiana and the units of the Lanes Brigade that were scattered that morning. The units took up an inverted V-formation there as a line-up. They let the enemy penetrate into the resulting corner, come within a few dozen meters and then open fire at the same time. The Mexican division collapsed and made a disorderly flight, which marked the turning point of the battle. When Mexican officers from that division showed the white flag, Taylor ordered a ceasefire and dispatched Wool to clarify the situation. The Pachecos troops trapped behind American lines took this opportunity to escape. Santa Anna now ordered all available units to attack the center of the "Army of Occupation", which had previously relocated most of its batteries to the left wing in order to counter Pacheco's attack. Taylor, in turn, assumed the Mexican army was withdrawing and allowing the central lines to advance. This allows the two attacking formations clashed, resulting in a confusing battle that the added hurrying batteries of captains Braxton Bragg and Thomas W. Sherman by grapeshot decided. After this further setback, the Mexicans withdrew and stopped fighting. Taylor's army had lost nearly 700 men by the end of the day; among the fallen were the son of Henry Clay and Yell. They owed their victory above all to the rapid shifts of troops on their internal battle lines and the time that Santa Anna necessarily needed to mass his troops between the various attacks. At dawn Taylor and Wool found the Santa Anna encampment deserted to their relief; the Mexican army had lost nearly 3,500 men and withdrew overnight. At home, Taylor's victory in that David versus Goliath battle made him a national hero overnight . With this prestige he found himself on an unstoppable road to political success.
The weakening of Santa Anna's troops in this battle further boosted the American campaign in the south and ultimately brought about the end of the war.
literature
- John S. D. Eisenhower : Zachary Taylor (= The American Presidents Series. Ed. By Arthur M. Schlesinger , Sean Wilentz . The 12th President). Times Books, New York City 2008, ISBN 978-0-8050-8237-1 , pp. 62-72 (= 7. Buena Vista ).
- K. Jack Bauer: Zachary Taylor: Soldier, planter, statesman of the old Southwest. Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge 1985, ISBN 0-8071-1237-2 , pp. 186-214 (= Chapter X: Buena Vista ).
Web links
Individual evidence
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↑ K. Jack Bauer: Zachary Taylor: Soldier, planter, statesman of the old Southwest. Pp. 193-198.
John SD Eisenhower: Zachary Taylor. Pp. 66-69. -
↑ K. Jack Bauer: Zachary Taylor: Soldier, planter, statesman of the old Southwest. Pp. 198-202.
John SD Eisenhower: Zachary Taylor. Pp. 68-70. - ↑ K. Jack Bauer: Zachary Taylor: Soldier, planter, statesman of the old Southwest. Pp. 202-206.
- ^ Jörg Nagler: Zachary Taylor (1849-1850): The apolitical president. In: Christof Mauch (ed.): The American Presidents: 44 historical portraits from George Washington to Barack Obama. 6th, continued and updated edition. Pp. 153–157, here: p. 154.
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^ John SD Eisenhower: Zachary Taylor. Pp. 70-72.
James M. McPherson : Dying for Freedom: The Story of the American Civil War. Anaconda, Cologne 2011, ISBN 978-3-86647-267-9 , p. 52 (English: Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. New York 1988. Translated by Christa Seibicke).