The Death of John Riley Revisited

 Posted by michael hogan on March 10, 2014 at 7:30pm

 View Blog

By Michael Hogan, Ph.D.

Historian from Guadalajara, Jalisco, México

John Riley, the twenty-eight year-old Irishman who is credited with organizing the San
Patricio Battalion during the Mexican War, has been the subject of much speculation in
recent years. Much of it has come about because of renewed interest in Ireland as it
approaches 2013, the “Year of the Gathering”, and new memorials and historic landmarks
appear across the country. There have been two such memorials for Riley recently, one a bust
in Mexico City, the other a small sculpture in Clifden, Co. Galway.

Riley deserted the United States Army on the eve of its invasion of Mexico in April, 1846,
along with a handful of other soldiers, mostly Irish immigrants. During the course of the
unpopular Mexican American War, over 5,280 soldiers would defect. Many of them simply
went back home or disappeared into the hinterlands; however, several hundred joined Riley
and fought on the Mexican side. They formed the Battalion of St. Patrick (Los San Patricios),
a crack artillery unit, and were honored by the Mexicans for their bravery in several of the
war's major battles.

At the termination of hostilities, forty-eight were hanged for desertion during wartime. Riley
and several others, who defected prior to the war and thus escaped death, were whipped and
branded with the letter “D” by a cattle iron on the cheek. The soldier who applied the brand
on Riley’s cheek placed it upside down, and was ordered to brand him correctly on the other
cheek. The result was a large ugly welt on each cheek which were highly noticeable and
commented upon not only during the time Riley served in hard labor, but even years later
after he was discharged and went to on to serve as a Brevet Major in the regular Mexican
Army until the end of the war. Indeed he grew his hair long in order to partially conceal the
heavy ridges of scar tissue.

Riley served with distinction in the Mexican army near Veracruz until he suffered from a
bout of yellow fever in late 1849 and was sent to Puebla to recover. On August 14th, 1850 he
was discharged at the rank of “Permanent Major” with full pay for reasons of disability. He
was sent back to Veracruz for his discharge and according to Mexican pay records he
received full back pay on the date of his separation from the service, August 14, 1850.

In 2000, Robert Ryal Miller referenced an 1850 death certificate from the Mormon Archives
taken from the records of a church in Veracruz which purported to be that of Riley, and it has
since appeared on several important genealogical sites. The document was first printed in an
article in The News (Mexico City, April 11, 1999) which was then re-published in the Society
of Hispanic and Ancestral Research newsletter (Feb. 2000) and which has now received
thousands of hits in The Genealogy Forum on-line. It reads: “In the Heroic City of Veracruz,
on August 31, 1850, I, Don Ignacio Jose Jimenez, curate of the parish church of the
Assumption of Our Lady, buried in the general cemetery the body of John Riley, 45 years
old, a native of Ireland, unmarried, parents unknown. He died as a consequence of
drunkenness, without the sacraments.”

Although Miller at the time believed this was in fact the death certificate of the San Patricio
commander, both his own research and that of subsequent scholars suggest that he was
mistaken. Unfortunately, Miller passed away in 2004 before he could write an addendum. I
have taken the liberty here of doing it for him.

 The U.S. Army enlistment records from September, 1845 indicate that John
Riley was born in Clifden, Co. Galway, and was twenty-eight years old at the
time of his enlistment. That would mean he had been born between 1817 and
1818 so would have been 33 years old in 1850.The Juan Riley buried in the
churchyard was 45 years old according to the curate. It could not have been
the leader of the San Patricios.

 Major Riley was a teetotaler and his sobriety, leadership, ambition and
example was commented on by several people who knew him. Even those
who condemned his desertion were aware of these qualities. A death from
drunkenness would have been highly unlikely.

 Major Riley had been discharged on August 14th with medals for heroism, with
uniforms, with a well-equipped horse and tack, with over $800 in retirement
pay (the equivalent of $20,000 today). The death certificate for the indigent
“Juan Riley” was dated August 31, just seventeen days later.

 No robbery was mentioned in any newspaper in Veracruz during this period,

nor were there any police reports of big spenders. In such a small town they
would have been noticed. Thus is highly unlikely that the well-known and
 highly decorated major, a redhead over six feet tall and handsome except for
his scars, would have been suddenly impoverished and buried (as “Juan
Riley”) without last rites in the general cemetery just weeks after his
discharge.

 The curate who was attentive enough to state the deceased’s age (“45 years
old”), his origin (“a native of Ireland”) and how he died (“as a consequence of
drunkenness”) could not have failed to notice that he had two large scars on
both his cheeks where a hot cattle iron had branded large “D”s on both
cheeks, leaving two high ridges of scar tissue. It was his most noticeable
feature and is not mentioned.

There were other Rileys in the U.S. Army who served in Mexico; in fact, there was even
another Riley in the San Patricio Battalion. However, in the latter case he was even younger
than the San Patricio major. Regardless, it was a common Irish name and it seems clear that
the “Juan Riley” interred was not the leader of the San Patricio Battalion. Moreover, Major
Riley would have been referred to by his rank by his men and by civilians, and by his proper
name “John” in the case of his fellow officers.

My own research in September of 2012 in Clifden, Co. Galway failed to turn up any John
Riley who would fit into the age described on the death certificate. Peter F. Stephens, author
of The Rogue’s March: John Riley and the St. Patrick’s Battalion, agrees that the only Rileys
which fit the profile had to be born in County Galway in 1818, a year that marks the birth of
two male children to two different families each of whom were named John Riley, both of
which were duly recorded by the Catholic Church records in Clifden, Co. Galway.

The search for the burial place of the true John Riley, Mexican major, decorated hero, and
leader of the Irish battalion, must continue. It is hoped that new evidence will be uncovered
as both Mexico and Ireland work together in this “Year of the Gathering” to record their
common narratives of the past, a past marred by invasions from their Anglo-Saxon neighbors,
and mutual histories which have previously been consigned to the dustbin of history.

(Dr. Hogan is the author of The Irish Soldiers of Mexico, Fondo Editorial Universitario,
1996. His book is the only historical work on the St. Patrick’s Battalion which utilizes
Mexican documents in addition to those found in U.S. and Irish archives. The book is
available in Spanish as well, under the title Los Soldados Irelandeses de México.)