After the Queenston affair, it is well to note, the English doctrine of perpetual allegiance was abated.  Twenty-three Irish-born men were among the captives of the English in that engagement.  They were manacled to be sent to Ireland to be tried for treason, not as enemies taken in the field.  Winfield Scott, then lieutenant-colonel, was also a prisoner with them.  He protested loudly against this infamous course.  Upon his release he laid aside twenty-three British prisoners to be treated like the Irishmen, eye for eye and tooth for tooth.  As a result, the Irish prisoners were exchanged.

Colonel John Allen, who fell at the head of the First Regiment of Kentucky Riflemen at the battle of the river Raisin on January 21, 1813, was one of the Irish Allens of Kentucky.  His father and mother were natives of Ireland.

The Mexican War (1846-48) again showed Irish valor at the front.  It was not a great war, though brilliantly fought and rich in territorial accessions.  The campaigning comprised the work of two main expeditions and a subsidiary movement in California.  One column, under General Zachary Taylor, penetrated northern Mexico and fought the battles of Matamoras, Palo Alto, and Resaca de la Palma, in May, 1846, with a force of 2,200 men; forced the evacuation of Monterey in September, his army swelled to 5,000; and defeated Santa Anna at Buena Vista in February, 1847.  General Winfield Scott, with a naval expediton, attacked Vera Cruz from the sea in March, 1847, and took up the march, 13,000 strong, to Mexico City, fighting the battles of Cerro Gordo, Contreras, Churubusco, Molino del Rey, and Chapultepec, and entered Mexico City on September 14.  General James Shields, born in Tyrone, Ireland, in 1810, was in command with his brigade under Scott.  A brilliant soldier, he was severely wounded at Cerro Gordo and again at Chapultepec.  He served as United States Senator after the war and again took the field in the Civil War, his forces defeating Stonewall Jackson at the first battle of Winchester in 1862.  The glamour of chivalry lights the name of Phil Kearney.  Here was a born soldier.  He was a volunteer with the French in Algiers in 1839-40.  He also commanded under Scott with brilliant bravery, and was brevetted major on the field for “gallant and meritorious conduct” at the battles of Contreras and Churubusco.  In the French war with Austria in 1859-60, Kearney fought with the French, distinguishing himself at the decisive and bloody battle of Solferino.  In the Civil War he was brigadier-general of New Jersey troops in 1861 and major-general in 1863, taking distinguished part in the battles of the Peninsula and second Bull Run, and was killed while reconnoitring at Chantilly.  General Stephen W. Kearney, with the Army of the West, by dint of long marches, secured California among the fruits of the war.  General Bennet Riley, born in Maryland of Irish ancestry, commanded a brigade at Contreras, making a wonderful charge, and also