Amongst the Americans who opposed this war were the men that Harney executed at war’s end in Mexico City. Many Americans considered these actions part of a broader “Slave Power Conspiracy” by powerful Southern elites and their Northern allies that was designed to increase the number of slave states and create antidemocratic structures that empowered slaveholders. With reports of troops under fire, Polk gained bipartisan congressional support to fund an invasion of Mexico that enabled him to fulfill his campaign promise of territorial expansion. Lincoln argued (and most historians agree) that President James Knox Polk, sent American military forces into disputed territory to intentionally provoke a military response form Mexican forces who were defending their homeland from invaders. Northerners, such as then-Congressman, Abraham Lincoln, saw the US invasion of Mexico as “‘from beginning to end, the sheerest deception,” because it was unprovoked and unjustified. The war that Harney fought in had divided the American people. It was the largest collective execution ever ordered by the US military, and 12 years before he instigated the Pig War, William Harney was the executioner. This was the last of 3 mass executions that General Winfield Scott had ordered against the San Patricio (Saint Patrick) Brigade, a group of mostly Irish immigrants who fought on the side of Mexico in the Mexican-American War. Harney ordered his mule carts forward, tightening the nooses on 30 men who he led to the gallows. on the morning of September 13, 1847, the US flag rose above the Mexican lines, signaling that his side had won the battle. Future Pig War commanding general, William Harney watched as American forces stormed Chapultepec Castle, the last major citadel protecting Mexico City from the invading US Army.
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