The Battle That Never Happened: The Surrender of Saltillo and the Meanings of Local Citizenship in the Mexican-American War Sean F. McEnroe Southern Oregon University Traditional narratives of the Mexican-American War emphasize national politics over local politics and ground-level diplomacy. This study of Saltillo argues that its leaders and inhabitants privileged their identities as local vecinos, regional citizens, and soldier-settlers over their identities as national citizens. Documentation from censuses, military recruitment, draft exemp- tions, and municipal councils suggests that Saltillo operated more as an autonomous city-state than as a jurisdiction subordinate to the national government. In 1847, it made a series of decisions to protect its own population, resources, and institutions by surrendering to US forces at the expense of the larger Mexican war effort. Keywords: Battle of Angostura, Battle of Buena Vista, borderlands, citizen- ship, Coahuila, diplomacy, Mexican-American War, Saltillo, state formation. Las narrativas tradicionales de la guerra M´ exico-Estados Unidos enfatizan la pol´ıtica nacional sobre la local y la diplomacia de campo. Este art´ıculo argumenta que los l´ıderes y habitantes de Saltillo privilegiaron sus identi- dades como vecinos locales, ciudadanos regionales y soldados-colonizadores sobre sus identidades como ciudadanos nacionales. La documentaci´ on de censos, reclutamiento militar, exenciones de servicio militar y consejos municipales sugiere que Saltillo funcion´ o m´as como una ciudad-Estado aut´ onoma que como una jurisdicci´ on subordinada al Gobierno nacional. En 1847, en Saltillo se tomaron una serie de decisiones para proteger a su propia poblaci´ on, recursos e instituciones al rendirse a las fuerzas estado- unidenses a expensas del esfuerzo b´ elico nacional. 342 Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos Vol. 40, Issue 3, Fall 2024, pages 342–375. issn 0742-9797, electronic issn 1533-8320. ©2024 by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Reprints and Permissions web page, https://online.ucpress.edu/ journals/pages/reprintspermissions. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/msem.2024.40.3.342.