Born: 31 January 1868, United States
Died: 18 February 1939
Country most active: United States, Mexico
Also known as: Edith Louise Coues
The following is republished from the Library of Congress. This piece falls under under public domain, as copyright does not apply to “any work of the U.S. Government” where “a work prepared by an officer or employee of the U.S. Government as part of that person’s official duties” (See, 17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 105).
Edith O’Shaughnessy was a writer from South Carolina who was married to Nelson O’Shaughnessy, U.S. Chargé d’Affaires to Mexico in 1913, after two years serving as the Second Secretary to the Embassy. Edith O’Shaughnessy wrote her mother informative letters while residing in Mexico City. These detailed letters were gathered together in a book that offered insights into the U.S. view of the Mexican Revolution.
About the invasion of Veracruz she wrote on 12:30 pm 21 April 1914, “Nelson has been informed through Mexican sources – a most embarrassing way to get the news- that Vera Cruz was taken by our ships at eight o’clock this morning” (O’Shaughnessy, A Diplomat’s Wife in Mexico, 285). At 8 pm on 21 April, O’Shaughnessy wrote that Huerta had told her husband “You [the U.S.] have seized our port. You have the right to take it, if you can, and we have the right to try to prevent you. Su Excelencia el Señor Presidente Wilson has declared war, unnecessarily, on a people that only ask to be let alone, to follow out their own revolution in their own way,” (O’Shaughnessy, A Diplomat’s Wife in Mexico, 287).