Mr. Polk's Army: The American Military Experience in the Mexican War

Drawing on numerous diaries, journals, and reminiscences, Richard Bruce Winders presents the daily life of soldiers at war; links the army to the society that produced it; shares his impressions of the soldiers he “met” along the way; and concludes that American participants in the Mexican War shared a common experiemce, no matter their rank or place of service.

In addition to the soldiers’ mundane complaints—bad food, hard marches, and long periods of incredible boredom—Winders discovers a ...