Mr. Polk's army Book

On a trip back to the States, I spent quite a bit of down time catching up some American TV. All of that time was spent locked on the Discovery Channel, the History Channel and a couple of other adjacent education channels. During the wee hours of the morning wide awake due to my jet lag, I was able to catch some good, old-fashion, traditional historical documentaries on the History Channel before it reverted to a Pawn Stars marathon. On one particular morning, there were a couple of hours of documentaries about the Mexican-American War, of which I knew little about.

Since Richard Winders, the author of this book, was one of the historians guest appearing on this program, I decided to pick up this book, which was also mentioned on the History Channel documentary. I was ready to read more about the Mexican-American War, especially since I hadn't been able to watch the documentaries all the way through.

When I opened this book, I was ready to expand my knowledge of this time period is U.S. and Mexican history with information that I missed from the documentary along with more detail that couldn't be covered in an hour documentary. Unfortunately, I was able to get loads of details, but it was very detailed information in one specific area.

The title, Mr. Polk's Army, isn't a catchy title to describe the Mexican-America War; it is about exactly what the title states - the U.S. Army that was under the control of James K. Polk, the 11th President of the United States.

Needless to say, this wasn't exactly the type of book that I was looking for. I was hoping for a book that would tell the overall story from the start of the belligerence between the United States and Mexico, through the battles that took place, and all the way up to the end of the war.

Despite lacking what I wanted, there was still plenty of insightful information about the people that served in the U.S. Army along with all of the politicking in the U.S. that surrounded the events of the war. Winders was able to provide lots of accounts from actual documents from the time period. Some passages could be dry and hard to get through. This included the list of Democratic officers that were appointed to the volunteer army under the patronage of President Polk. Other sections included gripping accounts of hardships that the soldiers had to face in this time period.

After this book, I feel much better informed, but I definitely want to read more books about this time period in order to get a more overall picture. Winders doesn't paint a pretty picture of President Polk, and now I feel a bit of ambivalence when I listen to one of my favorite They Might Be Gaints songs, James K. Polk.