Battle of Resaca de la Palma |
At the Battle of Resaca de la Palma, one of the early engagements of the Mexican-American War, Zachary Taylor
engaged the retreating forces of the Mexican "Army of the North" under Gen. Mariano Arista on May 9, 1846.
During the night of May 8, following disappointments at the Battle of Palo Alto, Arista chose to withdraw to the far more
defensible position of Resaca de La Palma, a dry riverbed (resaca is the Spanish term for a dry riverbed), and establish himself while waiting for Taylor's next move.
On the morning of May 9, Taylor's seventeen hundred troops engaged a Mexican force by
now swollen to four thousand with Arista's reinforcements. Arista's carefully laid plans for engaging the Americans at Resaca
were, however, somewhat diluted due to political infighting in the Mexican officer corps and difficulty communicating in the
rough terrain of the battlefield.
Resistance on the part of the Mexicans was stiff, and the U.S. forces nearly suffered a reverse before, in a stroke of amazing
good fortune, a force of their Dragoons managed to surprise the flank of the Mexican lines and force a retreat. Two
counter-attacks on the American position were defeated and the Mexican Army fled the field, leaving behind a number of artillery
pieces, Arista's silver service, and the colors of Mexico's lauded Tampico Battalion.
The resulting embarrassment at a near victory turned into a defeat caused the removal of Arista as commander of Mexico's Army
of the North and a serious reassessment of Mexican strategy. Unfortunately for the Mexicans, corruption at the very highest
levels of Mexican government failed to produce a cohesive strategy for much of the fighting, despite increased skill and success
on the part of the Mexican Army.
See also
Reference
Bauer, K. Jack The Mexican War, 1846-1848
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