U.S. ARMY, MEXICAN WAR, CAMPAIGN STREAMER, CERRO GORDO, 1847

Description

U.S. ARMY, MEXICAN WAR, CAMPAIGN STREAMER, CERRO GORDO, 1847
The Army adorns its flag with a separate Streamer for each important action in all wars in which it participated.  The Army currently allows 190 Streamers. This Campaign Streamer is regulation size at 2-3/4 inch x 4 feet long. This Streamer has a grommet at the hoist end (left side) to protect the material and provide a device to attach the Streamer to the ring holder and then to the top of the flagpole which is held in place by the top ornament (spear, eagle, etc)
Cerro Gordo, 17 April 1847
Scott began his advance toward Mexico City on 8 April 1847. The first resistance encountered was near the hamlet of Cerro Gordo where Santa Anna had strongly entrenched an army of about 12,000 men in mountain passes through which ther oad ran to Jalapa. Scott quickly won the battle with a flanking movement that cut off the enemy escape route, and the Mexicans surrendered in droves. From1,000 to 1,200 casualties were suffered by the Mexicans, and Scott eventually released on parole the 3,000 who had been taken prisoners. Santa Anna and the remnants of his army fled into the mountains. American losses were 64 killed and 353 wounded.
Scott quickly pushed on to Jalapa, but was forced to wait there for supplies and reinforcements. After some week she advanced cautiously to Pueblo. Wounds and sickness put 3,200 men in the hospital, and the departure for home of about 3,700 volunteers (seven regiments) whose enlistments had expired left Scott with only 5,820 effective enlisted men at the end of May 1847. Scott stayed at Puebla until the beginning of August, awaiting reinforcement and the outcome of peace negotiations which were being conducted by Nicholas P. Trist, a State Department official who had accompanied the expedition.
The negotiations having failed, Scott boldly struck out for Mexico City on 7 August, abandoning his line of communications to the coast. By this time reinforcements had brought his army to a strength of nearly 10,000 men. Santa Anna had disposed his army in and around Mexico City, strongly fortifying the many natural obstacles that lay in the way of the Americans.
The campaign streamers attached to the Army Flag staff denote campaigns fought by the Army throughout our nation’s history. Each streamer (2 ¾ inches wide and 4 feet long) is embroidered with the designation of a campaign and the year(s) in which it occurred. The colors derive from the campaign ribbon authorized for service in that particular war.
The concept of campaign streamers came to prominence in the Civil War when Army organizations embroidered the names of battles on their organizational colors. This was discontinued in 1890, when units were authorized to place silver bands, engraved with the names of battles, around the staffs of their organizational colors. When AEF units in World War I were unable to obtain silver bands, General Pershing authorized the use of small ribbons bearing the names of the World War I operations. In 1921 all color-bearing Army organizations were authorized to use the large campaign streamers currently displayed.
"The Army Flag and Its Streamers" was originally prepared in August 1964 by the Office of the Chief of Military History, in cooperation with the Office of the Chief of Information, and the U.S. Army Exhibit Unit, to provide general summaries of each of the campaigns displayed on the Army flag. It was subsequently updated by the Center of Military History to add the campaigns from Vietnam. This study covered named campaigns only and did not include the campaigns that were sometimes awarded to individual units for war service in engagements outside the limitations of the named campaigns (i.e., Virginia 1863). It only addressed those campaigns authorized for display on the Army flag.