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VIDEO PROGRAM
Volume 278: Episode III: The Hour of Sacrifice
OBJECTIVE
Students will learn about the interactions between soldiers and civilians in occupied areas.
CLASS QUESTIONS
What laws should an army follow when it occupies a foreign city? Who has made these laws, if any, over the centuries?How do civilians suffer as a result of war?
What questions should a reader consider when researching primary source materials from earlier periods?
PRIOR TO CLASS VIEWING
Review the CLASSROOM TIPS FOR USING ANY VIDEO CHAPTER .Locate Saltillo on THE U.S.-MEXICAN WAR MAP. Review Mexico's cities that were already occupied by the U.S. Remind students that in each of these cities, the U.S. Army left behind an occupation force. How did civilians and guerrillas affect the relationship between the occupying force and civilians?
CONNECTIONS TO SEMESTER STUDIES
Discuss the behavior of civilian volunteers in previous wars.
STUDENT ACTIVITIES
Analyzing for Understanding
Ask students to write a journal excerpt about life at home and the life they see in Mexico from the perspective of a U.S. army volunteer.
Continue the journal exercise but switch the point of view to one of a Mexican civilian. Write about how it feels to have a foreign army invade your homeland.
Individual or Pair Activity
Discuss the works of Samuel Chamberlain and documentation of war events through painting and narrative. Have students illustrate an event in the U.S.-Mexican War accompanied by a personal narrative.
Letting the Numbers Speak
Compare the number of days that U.S. and Mexican armies actually fought with the number of days the U.S. Army was in Mexico during the war. Ask students to draw some conclusions on how soldiers' non-combat time was spent.
| NCSS Standards | United States | Mexico
| I, III
| After General Zachary Taylor's victory at Monterrey, U.S. Army operations were spread out in various directions. Taylor based his headquarters in Saltillo.
| Interactions between the U.S. Army and Mexican civilians ranged from friendly to violent. Events in Saltillo were typical of what happened in most places that the U.S. Army occupied.
| II, III
| Taylor experienced trouble with some volunteer soldiers. The army had no authority to use courtmartial proceedings against volunteers if their offenses were subject to civilian courts in the U.S.
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| I, II
| Private Sam Chamberlain, a self-described rogue and volunteer from Boston, painted first-hand, personal accounts of life during the U.S. occupation in Saltillo. His images and narrative of the massacre of civilians by Arkansas volunteers vividly portrayed violence that occurred off the battlefield.
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| II, III
| Taylor's only recourse to punish the Arkansas Rackensackers was to send them home in disgrace, but he relented when he heard of Santa Anna's approach. Taylor's army was depleted by General Winfield Scott's requisition of experienced troops, so Taylor needed all the men he had to fight Santa Anna.
| General Santa Anna approached Saltillo with a large military force.
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