While perhaps not the most important thing in warfare, a large cultural part of war is the music soldiers sing during the conflicts. For example during the Vietnam War there were songs such as Fortunate Son, Hello Vietnam, House of the Rising Sun. Before that in the American Civil War such songs may have been Batte Hymn of the Republic, Yellow Rose of Texas, or Dixie. I am curious as to what songs were sung during the Mexican-American War by soldiers of both sides, Mexican songs and American songs alike. These could be professional marches played by military bands or folk songs soldiers may have played at camp. Any information on the subject would be much appreciated.
I can speak some to the American side only.
The largest collection I know of this music resides at The Jenkins Garrett Library at the University of Texas at Arlington. Beinecke Library at Yale has another collection.
I am aware of one piece of scholarship that discusses what is in UTA collections.
The music wasn’t what I’d call folk music. A god deal of it on the American side dealt with Santa Anna the Mexican General. It was largely produced by East coast publishers.
Marches included Rough and Ready Quickstep. A Yankee Doodle version called “New Yankee Doodle” that actually became popular during the Texas Revolution was also revived.
Jenkins Garrett, if I remember correctly, has a list of every known song published related to this conflict. It may be digitized now. I last delved in to this stuff in the late 90s before there was much digitization.
Source: Kirk, Elise. “Sheet Music Related to the United States War with Mexico in the Jenkins Garrett Library,” Notes, Second Series, Vol. 37, No. 1, Sept 1980 discusses some of the music. (I don’t know if this is on JSTOR or in other databases, but I do have a paper copy of the article).
For sure find the article if you are looking to study this. It will help you go in the right direction.