Talk:Battle of Buena Vista

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this site does not tell enough about the battles

I am uncomfortable with the vague reference to "Washington,_D.C." causing Taylor's frustration. Explicit reference to President James K. Polk is more accurate--their partisan and personal rivalry was quite real. --JeremyToday 23:09, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Contents 1 Casualties 2 My Apologies 3 fighting on the 22nd? 4 Result

[edit] Casualties

Someone changed the casualty numbers to 25000 and 13000 without any reference... In fact, there are now more casualties than troops involved! Please don't change the casualty figures without a) source and b)keep track of reality --fdewaele 10:52, 29 Oct 2005 (CET) Yes. Apparently in all the battles of the Mexican-American War the mexican outnumbered the us army 2:1 or 4:1.I'm not sure of that numbers. I've presumed this is not all true, because of the lack of ammunition and firearms of the mexican army. It started an american tradition to exagerate the numbers of the enemies to make the victories more greater than they really are. Many of the mexican soldiers where not professional soldiers and with many casualities they would retreat far more easly that they really did. For example during the polkos revolt in the middle of the war, less than 1000 soldiers of the army spread with the sound of a single bullet shot by professinal soldiers guarding national palace (Guillermo Prieto recall this on one of his writings). Many mexican soldiers (the ones drafted out of levy) only engaged on oral attacks to enemies ("come cowards, yellows") and ran away with the first smell of gun powder. So if they were on the middle of the bloodiest battle (with a number of 1500 casualities they are) they absolutely will ran. Perhaps its time to put the mexican numbers in perspective I've always thought that of the total casualities only about a 30% were actual deads and 70% were wounded and abandoned the battle field soon after.

[edit] My Apologies

I made a minor edit to the article. I changed "casptured" (I assumed typo) to "captured". In my haste, I failed to mark it as a minor edit or to add a note. My first edit, or contribution other than talk, and it needs to be fixed. How do I go about fixing it..?

--Dogfish 19:20, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] fighting on the 22nd?

The infobox says the battle started on the 22nd, but the 22nd is not mentioned in the text. Was there fighting on the 22nd? -Gomm 16:35, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Result

Well whatever Santa Anna claims there is no way he can claim it as a victory considering the casualties his army sustained compared to what were inflicted. He also failed completely in his objective to destroy Taylor's army. It should be noted that he claimed victory after word had reached him about the coup in Mexico City. A victorious general looks a lot more impressive than a defeated one.Danwild6 06:28, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

You really need to be more objective & provide sources/footnotes. To claim it was a Mexican strategic blunder or an American strategic victory in the Results section of the article would be fine, provided it's backed up. However both sides did claim victory so it's up to wikipedia to provide facts not opinions. Fennessy 16:12, 3 December 2007 (UTC)