In late April 1847 U.S. troops advancing toward Mexico City captured the Mexican Castle of Perote, also known as the Fortaleza de San Carlos (Fortress of San Carlos), an old Spanish fortress that they found abandoned and filled with Mexican munitions. The U.S. Army maintained a garrison there until the end of the war, using the fort as a base for anti-guerrilla patrols. The castle already had an infamous reputation as a political prison where numerous U.S. and Texan adventurers had previously spent time just before the war. These included men from the Texan Santa Fe and Mier expeditions as well as the prisoners taken by Mexican General Adrian Woll when he occupied San Antonio in 1842. Among the more celebrated of these prisoners were Samuel H. Walker, New Orleans Picayune correspondent George Wilkins Kendall, William A. W. ?Bigfoot? Wallace, Samuel Maverick, Sr., Judge Anderson Hutchinson, Thomas Jefferson Green, and William S. Fisher. The fort?s importance in Mexican history is also extensive. Mexican Generals José de Urrea and Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna himself were imprisoned there at different stages during their colorful careers, and Mexico?s first president, General Guadalupe Victoria died there in 1843.This 1850 lithograph was based upon an original sketch by Private James T. Shannon who arrived there in 1847 with Company A of the First Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. Shannon?s original sketchbook is also among the Special Collections at UT Arlington?s Libraries.San Carlos Fortress in Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Carlos_Fortress, accessed 6-4-2015; On Shannon see Sandweiss, Stewart, and Huseman, Eyewitness to War (1989), pp. 347-350.
