Editing Saint Patrick's Battalion (section)

==Motivations==
The great majority of those men who formed Saint Patrick's Battalion were recent immigrants who had arrived at northeastern U.S. ports. They were part of the [[Irish diaspora]] then escaping the [[Great Irish Famine]] and extremely poor economic conditions in [[Ireland]], which was at the time part of the [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sanders |first=James E. |url=https://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/215/chapter/108964/The-San-Patricio-Battalion |title=The Vanguard of the Atlantic World: Creating Modernity, Nation, and Democracy in Nineteenth-Century Latin America |date=2014-10-03 |publisher=Duke University Press |isbn=978-0-8223-7613-2 |pages=64–80 |language=en |doi=10.1215/9780822376132-004 |doi-access=free}}</ref> The U.S. Army often recruited the Irish and other immigrants into military service shortly or sometimes immediately after arrival in America in [[coffin ships]] with promises of salaries and land after the war.{{citation needed|date=February 2023}}

Numerous theories have been proposed as to their motives for desertion, including cultural alienation,{{sfn|Mermann-Jozwiak|2001|p=150}}{{sfn|Rollins|2008|pp=91–92}} mistreatment of [[immigrant]] soldiers by [[Nativism (politics)|nativist]] soldiers and senior officers,{{sfn|Ballentine|1860|pp=34–35 & 281–282}}{{sfn|Rollins|2008|pp=91–92}} brutal military discipline and dislike of service in the U.S. military,{{sfn|Rollins|2008|pp=91–92}} being forced to attend Protestant church services and being unable to practice their [[freedom of religion|Catholic religion freely]]{{sfn|Radford Ruether|2007|p=81}} as well as religious ideological convictions,<ref>{{Citation |last=Pinheiro |first=John C. |title=Religion, Anti-Catholicism, and the Mexican-American War |date=2017-09-26 |encyclopedia=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion |url=https://oxfordre.com/religion/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.001.0001/acrefore-9780199340378-e-395 |access-date=2024-02-18 |language=en |doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.395 |isbn=978-0-19-934037-8}}</ref>{{sfn|Rollins|2008|pp=91–92}} <ref>{{Cite book |last=Pinheiro |first=John C. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N0isAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA86 |title=Missionaries of Republicanism: A Religious History of the Mexican-American War |date=2014 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-994867-3 |pages=68–148 |language=en}}</ref> the incentive of higher wages and land grants starting at {{convert|320|acre|km2}} offered by Mexico,{{sfn|Downey|1955}}{{sfn|Rollins|2008|pp=91–92}} and viewing the U.S. invasion of Mexico as unjust.{{sfn|Radford Ruether|2007|p=81}}{{sfn|Woolf|2015}}

It is believed primary motivations were shared religion with the Mexicans and sympathy for the Mexican cause based on similarities between the situations in Mexico and Ireland. This hypothesis is based on evidence of the number of Irish Catholics in the battalion, the letters of [[John Riley (soldier)|John Riley]], and the field entries of senior officers.{{sfn|Lloyd|2000|p=104}}{{sfn|Hogan|1998|p=152}} Irish immigrants had been faced with animosity both as a result of their [[Anti-Catholicism in the United States|Catholic faith]] and [[Anti-Irish sentiment|ethnicity]].<ref>{{Citation |last=Hendrickson |first=Brett |title=Religion and race: The U.S.-Mexican War and Mexican Americans |date=2021 |work=Mexican American Religions |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/mono/10.4324/9780429285516-5/religion-race-brett-hendrickson |access-date=2024-02-18 |publisher=Routledge |doi=10.4324/9780429285516-5 |isbn=978-0-429-28551-6|s2cid=238671319 }}</ref> Catholic immigrants were regularly met with discrimination from their Protestant peers, sentiments which sometimes boiled over into events such as the [[Philadelphia nativist riots]] against Irish Catholic immigrants. Catholic churches had been similarly defaced by the American military in Mexico during the war. Additionally, both the Mexicans and the Irish were subjected to racism and [[xenophobia]] based on [[Scientific racism|racist pseudo-science]] and treated as inferior to American nativists.{{sfn|Hogan|1997}}

Another hypothesis is that the members of the Saint Patrick's Battalion had been unhappy with their treatment in the U.S. Army; this was the conviction of George Ballentine, an Englishman who served in the American army. Ballentine stated that while "there was a portion of truth" in the view—commonly assigned by officers—that the deserters joined the Mexican army due to their Catholicism; he said, "I have good reason to believe, in fact in some cases I know, that harsh and unjust treatment by their officers operated far more strongly than any other consideration to produce the deplorable result [desertion]," and described how he found the punishments used for "trivial offensives" to be "revolting and disgusting".{{sfn|Ballentine|1860|p=281–282}} Another theory some historians hold is that the soldiers were attracted by the incentives offered by the Mexican government: safe passage throughout Mexico for deserters, generous land grants, and the offer of potential military commissions.{{sfn|Ramold|2010|p=39}} For poor people coming from famine conditions, economics was often an important incentive.{{sfn|McCornack|1958|p=255}}

Mexican author José Raúl Conseco noted that many Irish lived in northern Texas, and were forced to move south due to regional insecurity.<!-- Presumably this is found in José Raúl Canseco Botello's "Historia de Matamoros" --> Mainly Irish settlers from [[San Patricio, Texas]], had previously sided with Mexican forces against Texan rebels at the [[Battle of Lipantitlán]] in the [[Texan Revolution]].{{sfn|Super|1992|p=136}}

Irish expatriates had a long tradition of serving as mercenaries in the military forces of Catholic countries, including in [[Flight of the Wild Geese|European countries after the Williamite War]]. In the decades leading up to the Mexican-American War many Irish fought in the [[South American wars of independence]].{{Ref label|C|c|none}}