On September 10, 1847, on the outskirts of Mexico City, and just two days before the Battle of Chapultepec, Captain George Turnbull Moore Davis, an aide-de-camp of General Winfield Scott, witnessed the execution of sixteen former US Army soldiers convicted of desertion. The hangings that day took place at San Angel. “The sixteen who were executed at our camp were launched into eternity at one and the same moment,” Davis wrote, “each being dressed in the uniform of the enemy in which he had been captured, the white caps being drawn over their heads.”

RIGHT: Hanging of the San Patricios following the Battle of Chapultepec. Painted in the 1840s by Sam Chamberlain. Source: Wikimedia. In the Public Domain.

Known as the ‘St. Patrick’s Battalion’ because of their predominantly Irish ethnicity, the former soldiers – frustrated with the disciplinary strictures of Scott’s West Point-officered army in the northern theater – were induced to betray their adopted country with offers of free land in California. Fourteen other deserters that day, including their leader John Patrick Riley (O’Riley), were branded with a “D” on the cheek rather than be executed. Davis explained Scott’s “invincible moral and physical courage to stand by the right in the legal protection of a human life” by surprisingly arguing against Riley’s death sentence. It was an unpopular decision at the time, by the legal reasoning was sound:

The facts upon which the action of General Scott was taken were simply these: Riley and his co-deserters, whose sentences he had commuted from death to whipping and branding, deserted during or immediately after the battle of Palo Alto, and before the United States had declared war against Mexico. Under the provisions of the provisions of the "Articles of War," deserters in times of peace can receive no greater punishment than whipping and branding, as the penalty of such desertion; whereas, in time of war the punishment of desertion is death, upon conviction of the offender. And as Riley did not desert in time of war (the United States not then having declared war against Mexico), to hang him in pursuance of the finding of the military court which tried and convicted him would have been nothing less than military judicial murder. The twenty-six other deserters who were hung deserted after we declared war, and richly merited the fate the Articles of War inflicted upon them. The unhung deserters spared by Scott’s intervention, including Riley, were: forced to dig the graves of those sent to the scaffolding, lashed, and “drummed out of camp to the tune of the 'Rogues’ March'”. [1]

Rogue’s March

Originating in England sometime in the seventeenth century, the Rogue’s March was a piece of music used by both soldiers and sailors to humiliate those reprimanded, ousted, or condemned for failing their duties. During the colonial period, Americans readily adopted the Rogue’s March, and its use was expanded to accompany the burning of effigies of those deemed unpatriotic or sympathetic to the British – and to deride the enemy himself.

LEFT: The Rogue's March. Click image to play the piece. Source: Wikimedia. In the Public Domain.

When the War of 1812 erupted, anti-British Fourth of July toasts were often punctuated with the designation to elicit an emotional response. “British ministers in America – A speedy departure from the land of liberty with a full band and the Rogue’s March. Rogue’s March… let the traitor be granted with a full suit of tar and feathers gratis. Rogue’s March.” A year later, in 1813, toasts from Fort Meigs in Indiana Territory, near the west end of Lake Erie, customarily invoked George Washington, “Liberty”, “Yankee Doodle”, and “Hail Columbia” – before turning their attention to the enemy.

“The tories and apologists for the wrongs done us by the British government where they ought to be, kissing their monarch’s toe. Rogue’s March.” During the Mexican-American War, one soldier caught stealing a fellow soldier’s pantaloons was court martialed and carried around the barracks on a wooden horse “to the tune of the ‘Rogue’s March.’” “This sentence was carried into full and complete execution,” the New York Herald reported from New Orleans, “and was borne by the culprit with the most becoming stolidity. Another who had taken a coat, was honored with the same tune to the gate of the barracks, where he received his dismissal.” American armed forces continued playing the Rogue’s March into the mid-twentieth century, before its use was curtailed due to criticism that it was unnecessarily cruel.[2]

Alice Blackwood Baldwin, the wife of decorated General Frank D. Baldwin, who served in the Civil War, Indian Wars, and Spanish-American War, noted in the biography of her late husband how she arrived in 1868 to Fort Wingate near Gallup, New Mexico, where her husband was stationed, which was “at that time was one of the most remote military posts on the frontier.” On the way there her party was in constant fear of being attacked, and while passing through one place they “saw a number of Navajo Indians – for we were now in their country.

RIGHT: Comandante John Riley bust in the Plaza San Jacinto, San Angel quarter, Mexico city. He served with the Saint Patrick's Battalion on the Mexican side during America's invasion of Mexico 1846-48. Souce: Wikimedia.

My nurse and maid-of-all-work was much alarmed, and I also had my fears, but nothing happened to increase them.” She also noted there were  “frequent” desertions at Ft. Wingate, and recalled seeing one “spectacle” there involving “an Englishman and an American,” who had deserted the fort but were recaptured. Both men had “one side of their heads shaved” and were “drummed out of camp to the tune of “The Rogue’s March”:

“Poor old soldiers, poor old soldiers! Tarred and feathered and sent to hell, because they wouldn’t soldier well!” The culprits were marched ahead of the drummer and fifer who followed closely behind them in line, the drummer beating and rattling his sticks furiously, while the fifer whistled away for dear life the ignominious and insulting air, as the entire garrison looked on. When the two deserters had reached the boundary line between the military confines and the surrounding country, the Englishman doffed his cap, turning the shaved side of his head toward the spectators and gave a mocking salute and a bow, shouting out that he “hoped we would all meet again.” The other man said nothing but went his way, and we saw them no more.[3]

‘Deliverance from death’

Just outside of Mexico City in 1847, Captain Davis took no delight in watching the US Army deserters die, but he did recall one “touching incident” where a pardoned prisoner “owed his deliverance from death” due to the actions of his eldest son, who was serving in the same company. He was an older man, who according to Davis “had been a loyal and faithful soldier for many years in the United States army until he was tempted and fell under the evil influence and example of Riley.” While the father had succumbed to the temptation, the “son had refused to desert, or to become a traitor to his flag.” Davis informed General Winfield Scott of the situation, and “without any expectation or design”, Scott spared the man’s life:  

The deserter condemned to death was unconditionally pardoned, and the only reason assigned by General Scott for this act of unexpected clemency was given in these few words: “In the hour of the greatest temptation the son was loyal and true to his colors.” I was privileged to communicate to the father condemned to death his reprieve and its cause, and when I said to him that “he had been ransomed through the loyalty of his son to the flag of his country,” the condemned prisoner dropped upon his knees, exclaiming: “This is worse than death! I would rather have died!” I looked upon the poor wretch with pity, but without the power of speech to reply; it was the last time I ever saw him, but the whole scene in his prison, saved as if by fire, is as vivid as in the hour when it occurred.[4]

[1] George Turnbull Moore Davis, Autobiography of the late Col. Geo. T.M. Davis, captain and aid-de-camp Scott's army of invasion (Mexico), from posthumous papers. Pub. by his legal representatives (New York: Jenkins & McCowan, 1891), 225–7.

[2] “The Independent Blues…” Aurora General Advertiser, Philadelphia, July 10, 1812; “Fourth of July In Camp.” Daily National Intelligencer, Washington DC, July 28, 1813; “From the New Orleans Tropic, May 21.” New York Herald, May 30, 1846.

[3] Alice Blackwood Baldwin, E. A. (Earl Alonzo) Brininstool, Cornelius Cole Smith, and W. C. (William Carey) Brown, Memoirs of the Late Frank D. Baldwin: Major General, U.S.A. (Los Angeles: Wetzel Publishing, 1929), 152 –5.

[4] Davis, Autobiography of the late Col. Geo. T.M. Davis, 228–9.