Let me try this again - it looks like I lost my cookie. Thanks Seamus and Kevin for the song. Cant wait to give it a try with the lads.

Here are more notes from the Christensen book cited above.

San Patricios

Notes from Christensen:

@158 "Mexican Generals had been encouraging deserters form the US Army ever since Matamoros. The US deserters who formed the San Patricio Battalion had drilled with Santa Anna at San Luis Potosi and now fought well against their former comrades. Wrote US solider Samuel Chamberlain 'The Mexicans had a heavy battery of three guns, manned by Irish deserters from our Army. These desperadoes were organized as a battalion known as the Battalia San Patricio, or Legion of Saint Patrick; the commander was the notorious Reilly, who ranked as a Colonel in the Mexican Army. A beautiful green silk banner waved over their heads; on it glistened a silver cross and a golden harp, embroidered by the hands of the fair nuns of San Luis Potosi. The deserters pitched their shells into every part of the field, some bursting in the road a good mile in our rear."

@203 "Among the Mexican troops at the convent [Churubusco], none fought with more desperation than the two companies of soldiers from the San Patricio Battalion. They had fought well in other battles. John S.D. Eisenhower says, 'The San patricio battalion of American deserters, who knew that they would be hanged if they were captured, really stiffened the back-bone of Mexican resistance… and brought about a more serious battle than Scott had any reason to expect. It was expensive. Scott couldn't spare a man in his campaign. He was now down to about 8,000 effective troops, alone, in a foreign country. Finally, after nearly three hours of savage fighting, the US forces overwhelmed the convent. Seventy-two San Patricios, including Captain Riley, were taken prisoner."

" 'It was with much difficulty that the American soldiers could be prevented from bayoneting these miscreants on the spot. So deep was their indignation against them.' George Kendall, Ed. New Orleans Picayune"

@204 "Less than a month after the Battle of Churubusco, thirty of the captured US deserters from the San Patricio Battalion watched the US storming of the Castle of Chapultapec with ropes around their necks. It was the last image they would see. General Luis Garfias provides a Mexican perspective: 'The North American Army acted correctly from the point of view of military law. From the Mexican point of view, we use another criterion. We see a group who, for religious and political ideas, join the Mexicans and are hung… We understand that the decision of the North American army is correct. But Mexico remembers with respect because they were men who gave their lives for Mexico." ^^