Okay, most Dopers have at least a passing familiarity with the Hymn of the United States Marine Corps. The lyric goes:
From the halls of Montezuma
To the shores of Tripoli
We fight our country’s battles
in the air, on land, and sea
etc…
Okay, I know that the “shores of Tripoli” line harks back to the battles with the Barbary pirates. But where did they get that “halls of Montezuma” stuff? Chasing Pancho Villa across the Rio Grande? Fighting for the interests of the United Fruit Company?
I totally forgot about the Mexican War! Never paid much attention to it in history class, except the part about remembering the Alamo. And that the Marines played a role never even came up on my radar. Seeing that they wouldn’t have needed a ride from the Navy to get to Mexico, it wouldn’t have occurred to me that they’d be interested in going…
Different war. The Alamo was the secession of Texas from Mexico in order to form the Republic of Texas. The Mexican War was when the southern democrat slavers baited Mexico into attacking us so that they could justify a massive land grab and eventually have a larger balance of power in Washington.
In that case I guess I never paid any attention to it at all, with the exception of the tidbit that the US got to buy the Gadsden Purchase at a steep discount.
Before railways, if a trip could be made by land or by sea, by sea was usually easier, cheaper and quicker. And the larger the number of people travelling/the amount of stuff they were bringing with them, the truer this was.
I think you’re right. In my case at least I cited the Wikipedia page because it was the first that came up after a casual Google search, as always seems to be the case for practically any search term these days. (Maybe due to people like me always linking to the first one they find.) It can be useful for a quick cite on something already widely known and uncontroversial. But here is the same answer from another source, the USMC Press. (unless they get their information from Wikipedia.:eek:)