For being the United State’s first war on foreign soil and featuring a Who’s Who of future Civil War leadership, the Mexican War gets little attention. On several occasions the US was on the brink of disaster, only to pull out a surprise victory. Arguably the most significant turn of fortune came on General Winfield Scott’s march to Mexico City at a small choke point called Cerro Gordo. There, the outnumbered and out-positioned Americans employed grit and ingenuity to turn the battlefield around and make the war’s conclusion inevitable.
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