In beginning the story of the Navy’s part in the war between Mexico and the United States, it is interesting to note that the first overt act of aggression on the part of the United States was made by a naval officer, because of his distrust of the British Government. It was in the year 1842, a long time before war was actually declared to exist. As the reader will remember, the present State of California was then a most inviting part of the Mexican domain—so inviting, indeed, that the long-headed statesmen of England were puzzling their brains to find a way of getting control of it without a too great expense of trouble and money. Just how far they would have gone in their efforts can never be known, of course, but no one now doubts that they were considering the matter. This is not to say that their wishes were discreditable; from the point of view of the American leaders at that time, the British statesmen were merely enterprising, for the Americans were looking at California with a thought quite as covetous as any that ever animated the mind of an Englishman. Mexico was but a feeble power. Stirring American frontiersmen had pushed over into the Mexican state of Texas and, wresting it from the Mexican rule, had set up an independent government. There were other restless Americans who were making their way into California. The American statesmen could not quite see their way to taking possession of the domain on the Pacific, but this they could do: They could and they would prevent England’s grasping it. To this end a strong squadron was ordered around Cape Horn to the Pacific, and the command of it was given to the hero of Lake Borgne, Captain Thomas ap Catesby Jones,—he who with less than two hundred brave seamen on open gun-boats withstood for an hour the shock of a British flotilla, manned by nine hundred and eighty men, besides the officers. His fleet included the brave old frigate United States, the captured sloop Cyane, the sloop-of-war Dale, and the schooner Shark.

On reaching Callao Commodore Jones “came upon a copy of Mexico’s somewhat querulous complaints” about the neutrality that the United States Government showed in Mexico’s war with Texas, while a Callao newspaper published as authentic news an article asserting that Mexico had just ceded California to England. This report appeared on September 6, 1842. As it happened, the big British frigate Dublin, flying a rear-admiral’s flag, appeared off Callao that very evening. Heaving to for a short time, the Britisher had a look at the Yankee squadron and then sailed away to the north without casting anchor.

That was a right curious action for a British frigate in those days, and Commodore Jones could explain it only by connecting it with the story that California had been ceded to England. And Jones, with his squadron, had been sent to the Pacific for the express purpose of preventing, by force if necessary, the establishment of a British Hong Kong on the coast of California. There was but one thing for him to do, and that was to up anchor and make all sail for California, and this he did. On October 19th he arrived in Monterey harbor, and, although nothing had been seen of the Dublin, he landed and took possession of the town.

A day later he learned that Monterey was still a Mexican town, and that Mexico and the United States were at peace. So he made such amends as he could, and surrendered the town to its lawful authorities.

Commodore Jones had carried out the policy of his Government, as he understood it, and his act was unquestionably approved by the Administration at Washington, but to conciliate the Mexicans Jones was recalled, though, of course, in nowise punished.

Of the causes of the war which followed, beginning by official declaration on May 13, 1846, it is not the province of this history to treat, but the writer may be permitted to observe that no one of those who protest most loudly against Anglo-Saxon aggressiveness has ever shown how to stop it; and, what is of more importance, it is absolutely certain that every territory that has been taken by Anglo-Saxon aggressiveness has been greatly benefited by the rule of the aggressors, whether found in Asia, Africa, or on the Pacific coast of North America. Not because of commercial considerations, for these are commonly detestable, but because “the only race that possesses a proper conception of the two pillars that support civilization—Liberty and Justice”—is the Anglo-Saxon race, every humanitarian views with satisfaction the spreading power of the English-speaking people, even though it be “inevitable that causes of offence should arise.” That policy which would confine the United States Government to its present geographical limits, however good the motives of its advocates may be, is short-sighted and wholly devoid of philanthropy.

No one proposes that as an act of justice either Calcutta or San Francisco shall be returned to their former rulers. The dominant race shall rule a willing world.

However false the declaration of the American Congress, made on May 13, 1846, that “war exists, and notwithstanding all our efforts to avoid it, exists by the act of Mexico herself” (and certainly that statement was absolutely false), a war was unavoidable. It was absolutely impossible to prevent the expansion of the American Republic to the Pacific. The American Government tried repeatedly to buy the territory, but Mexico would not sell, and where individuals led the way their government was compelled to follow.

When the war at last began, Captain John Drake Sloat, Commodore of the Pacific Squadron, was at Mazatlan, Mexico, in the frigate Savannah. He heard the news on June 8th, and sailed at once for Monterey, California, where he found the Warren, the Cyane, and the Levant at anchor. A force of two hundred and fifty men from the ships took possession of the town, and Commander John B. Montgomery of the Portsmouth, took possession of the settlement on San Francisco Bay the following week. The capitulation of Sutter’s Fort, on the Sacramento, and a couple of other stations followed.

On July 19th “the Pathfinder,” John C. Frémont, reached Monterey, and he, with one hundred and fifty riflemen, was sent in the Cyane to take possession of San Diego. The British liner Collingwood, bearing Admiral Sir George F. Seymour on board, was in port at this time, but there is no reason to suppose that the admiral was there in any other capacity than that of a spectator. Anyway, the Collingwood soon sailed from the coast. Then, on July 23d, Sloat gave up the command. He was in bad health and glad to escape the responsibility of the situation. The more vigorous Captain Robert Field Stockton took his place. Stockton’s first move was against Los Angeles. He had only three hundred and fifty men, all told, in the party that he landed at San Pedro, the port of Los Angeles, and these were armed with only ninety muskets and a few carbines, but cutlasses and boarding-pikes were plentiful. Indeed, when some of the enemy appeared under a flag of truce, Stockton felt obliged to resort to a trick (since familiar to cowboys with cattle for sale) to make his force seem larger than it was. He marched them around some buildings in a way to make them appear as an army several times three hundred and fifty. He also covered up all the six-pounders in his artillery but left a thirty-two’s muzzle peering out as if by an oversight. The trick, it is said, succeeded well. Anyway, Stockton, after falling in with Frémont’s men, en route, entered Los Angeles without opposition on August 13, 1846. The next day the Mexican governor, Andres Pico, and General José Maria Flores, were paroled.

After that Stockton organized a state government with Frémont at the head of it. Frémont then went to Sacramento to recruit men for an expedition which Stockton planned against Acapulco (there were plenty of United States citizens in the California region), but before the expedition was ready news came that the Mexicans had rallied against Los Angeles, under the lead of ex-Governor Pico and General Flores, who had broken their parole. The garrisons at Santa Barbara were also reported in danger.

Sending the Savannah immediately from San Francisco to help the forces at the South, Stockton followed in the Congress on October 12th, having Frémont with “one hundred and seventy good men” along with him.

Meantime the Mexicans had risen against the Americans at Monterey. In fact, the Mexicans in the country far outnumbered the Americans, and it was only the difference in races that prevented the Mexicans driving the Yankees into the sea. However, Stockton landed fifty men, under Midshipmen Baldwin and Johnson, at Monterey and hurried on to San Diego. Here an attack by the Mexicans was repulsed, and then came Brigadier-general Stephen W. Kearny over the mountains with one hundred men from Santa Fé, New Mexico. Kearny’s men, aided by the sea forces, attacked the Mexicans at San Bernardino on the morning of December 6th; but were repulsed with a loss that was in a way significant, for eighteen were killed to fifteen wounded, and Kearny and Captain Gillespie and Lieutenant Beale of the naval squad were among the wounded.

Meantime Captain Mervine of the Savannah, had tried to march to Los Angeles but had been driven back. The Mexicans were fighting fiercely for their homes.

However, Stockton was the man for the occasion. Kearny was reinforced by two hundred and fifty men, and then he was able to march to San Diego. Next a force of nearly seven hundred men was organized for another attack on Los Angeles. The road thither was one hundred and forty-five miles long, and it lay across a desert of sand. The weather was cold, the men were poorly clothed. The Mexicans were well mounted and accustomed to the country. They disputed the advance stubbornly, and on one occasion, by a plan that proved successful on the plains of Patagonia once upon a time, they stampeded a herd of wild horses toward the American force; but the horses did not take kindly to the task of trampling down Yankee sailors.

At the San Gabriel River a decided stand was made against the Americans, but the sailors crossed over and carried the enemy’s works by assault on January 8, 1847. That being the anniversary of the battle of New Orleans, the Yankees celebrated their triumph. They had lost two killed and nine wounded, while the Mexicans lost seventy killed and one hundred and fifty wounded. Los Angeles was retaken on January 15th.

Then Stockton left for the East and Commodore William Bradford Shubrick came to the coast with the liner Independence and the brig Preble.

Commodore Biddle also came to the coast at that time, and there was some little difficulty (not personal) over the question of which one was to have command, but it was settled by both doing the best they could for the Government while awaiting word from the Navy Department. Every Mexican port north of Acapulco was blockaded, and at Mazatlan the custom-house was administered by the Americans and some $300,000 collected on imports.

From a naval man’s point of view the most interesting deeds on this coast were a few cutting-out expeditions. The Cyane, under Commander Dupont, after landing and spiking all the guns at San Blas, went up the Gulf of California to Guaymas. There Dupont found two Mexican gun-boats and a brig. On seeing the Cyane the Mexicans burned their gun-boats but hauled their brig in close to the beach, where several hundred soldiers were able to cover her from the houses along shore. There were also a number of cannon to keep off invaders.

Captain Dupont, however, ordered out his launch and a cutter under Lieutenant G. W. Harrison, Lieutenant Higginson, and Midshipman Lewis. These, under cover of a fire from the Cyane, rowed in, cut the moorings and began towing the brig out unmolested. At that the Cyane stopped firing for a few moments, but the instant the Cyane stopped the Mexicans began. Then the Cyane opened again, when the Mexicans fled; but when the Cyane had to stop on account of the line of fire endangering her own men the Mexicans returned and began again. However, the Cyane finally drove them away by firing over her own boats, and the brig was towed out of the Mexican range and burned.

Lieutenant Harrison distinguished himself while the Cyane was blockading Mazatlan a little later. Mazatlan was dependent on the coasting trade for food, and the blockade reduced the town to a short allowance. Small schooners, however, managed to slip past in the shoal water alongshore, and the small boats of the Cyane had to look after them. On one occasion the Cyane was so far out from the beach that the Mexicans launched four big barges and put out to capture Harrison, who had three small boats with perhaps a third of the Mexican force in men. It was clear that Harrison could easily outrow the heavier boats of the Mexicans and escape, but instead of doing so he headed straight for them. The Mexicans were supported by field-guns on the beach, but they fled the moment the Yankee fire began to tell. The American seamen showed a feeling toward the enemy that was very much like that the English had showed for the French sailors in the wars with Napoleon. And it is certain that the self-confidence was commonly justified in both wars. On September 30, 1847, Lieutenant Craven of the Dale pulled up a creek at Mulijé and captured a schooner that mounted a nine-pounder without opposition, although more than one hundred soldiers were in the town. And the next day he landed with eighty men and drove one hundred and forty Mexicans three miles inland.

However, the fights were in reality skirmishes between small bands on both sides. The Mexicans had no navy, and they did not gather their soldiers in sufficient force at any point to permanently dislodge the Americans. Commodore Shubrick eventually had exclusive command of the American squadron, and he held the entire coast north of Acapulco. He would have held it to Salina Cruz or Ocos if he had had a few more men for garrison duty, but that was not necessary, for the hand of fate was against the Latin-Americans, and California was destined to become, because of the efficiency of the work of the Navy, a part of the United States; and it is now one of the most beautiful as well as one of the richest States of the American Union.

The work of the Navy in the Gulf of Mexico began during the battle of Palo Alto, when Commodore David Conner, who commanded the American squadron assembled off the mouth of the Rio Grande, landed about five hundred of his men to help protect the garrison which General Taylor had left at Point Isabel.

Unfortunately the Commodore had only ships of deep draught—vessels that could not cross the shoal water over the bars of Mexican streams. And the number of ships was small, so that when ordered to blockade the coast he was not able to do so for several months. As late as October, 1846, his force was “barely sufficient to close the ports of Vera Cruz and Tampico.” By October, however, he had three schooners and the shoal-draught steamer Vixen, and this force was subsequently increased to three light steamers and seven gun-boats, the whole flotilla carrying seventeen cannon.

Meantime, on August 7th, an attempt was made on Alvarado, an important port southeast of Vera Cruz. The ships were unable to get over the bar. On August 15th, a force was collected before Tuspan, but the brig Truxton grounded within reach of the shore-batteries and was captured, and the attack failed.

On October 16th a second attack was made on Alvarado. The steamer Vixen towed in the schooners Bonita and Reefer and a vigorous attack was made, but the steamer McLane, towing the Nonita, the Petrel, and the Forward, grounded. The steamer Mississippi had bombarded at long range the enemy’s works, but it was ineffectual, and this attack failed. The failures created a deal of dissatisfaction in the United States, but it is a fact that Commodore Conner had a wretched outfit for the work. The small steamers were especially bad.

On the day following the Alvarado failure Commodore Conner sent an expedition under Captain Matthew Calbraith Perry, then commanding the Mississippi, against Frontera. Perry was afterward distinguished for opening Japan’s ports to American commerce. He had with the Mississippi in his attack on Frontera the steamers Vixen and McLane, and the schooners Bonita, Reefer, Nonita, and Forward, and he carried two hundred marines, besides ample crews. Frontera was an important port, because the river that flows in the gulf there is the dividing line between the Yucatan peninsula and Mexico proper. Moreover, Tabasco was an important city lying some distance up the river. The Mexicans had a considerable fleet of merchant vessels in this river—two river steamers, in fact, besides five coasting schooners, a brig, a sloop, and a lot of small barges.

Captain Perry made a dash over the bar with the Vixen and two schooners, when he reached the mouth of the river. The Mexican fleet inside were taken almost unawares—there was, at any rate, no time to escape, and the fire of the land-batteries did no damage to the Americans. After the capture of the shipping the forts and town surrendered.

Captain Perry at once followed up his success by ascending the river with the Vixen and the captured steamer Petrita. A battery of four good twenty-fours, advantageously located at a bend in the river, was abandoned by the Mexicans, and at Tabasco, which lies seventy-two miles up the river, only three shots were needed to bring down the enemy’s flag.

The result of cutting the enemy’s territory in two here, was that Yucatan was thereafter governed and her resources appropriated by the Americans until the war ended.

Of course the chief work in hand was the capture of Vera Cruz. On the night of November 20, 1846, Lieutenant Parker, two midshipmen, and five sailors, in a small boat from the brig Somers, entered Vera Cruz harbor and burned the bark Creole that was lying under the guns of the forts. This was a right valorous but a mistaken expedition, for it appears from the papers of Commodore Conner that not only did he know nothing of it until the flames of the ship were seen, but had he known of it he would have stopped it. The Creole was supposed to be a blockade runner loaded with arms, and that she had slipped in. As a matter of fact, Conner allowed her to go in, and she was the medium by which communications were carried on with spies and disaffected Mexicans who had kept Conner well posted as to the condition of affairs in Mexico, and as to the troops, guns, etc., in and around Vera Cruz. Indeed, it is said that among the more valuable services of Conner in this war was the gathering of exact information about the enemy.

Another mishap occurred when the Somers, while chasing a blockade runner on December 8th, carried sail so hard that she capsized and lost over forty men—half of her crew. She was commanded at the time by Commander Raphael Semmes, who gained fame in the Confederate cruiser Alabama in the Civil War.

But the worst feature of the work on the coast was facing the tropical fevers. The men enjoyed meeting an enemy they could see, but there was no defence against the malarial germs from the swamps. The yellow fever appeared, as well as other less malignant fevers, and scurvy came in the list of terrors.

Nevertheless, the men remained at their posts uncomplainingly, and in March, 1847, the force before Vera Cruz numbered seventy ships and transports, with General Winfield Scott’s army of 12,600 men on board.

Not a little controversy has grown out of the work that followed. A number of good authorities were of the opinion that Vera Cruz should have been captured by the ships alone, while the friends of Conner maintain that an attack by the fleet would have been fatal to it. The question at issue is as to the strength of the castle San Juan de Ulloa, lying on Gallega Reef, just off the city—a reef that really forms the harbor. The city lies on the mainland with a fort at each end, and a wall all around it. It is said, on one hand, that the castle was old and weak, and on the other that it had been strengthened as to the mason-work, and with new and heavy guns, the whole number of efficient guns being at least two hundred. Commodore Conner had a fleet of ten vessels, ranging from the fifty-gun frigate Potomac down to a twelve-gun brig—in all two hundred and one guns, “of which number not half were fitted either by weight or shape to make any serious impression on the walls of a fortress.” The quotation is from a pamphlet on the subject by P. S. P. Conner, a son of the Commodore. Without trying to decide the matter it may be said that Farragut was of the opinion that the fort could have been taken.

However, no naval attack was made, but every preparation was made for a combined army and naval attack. Commodore Conner provided for landing a battery of six heavy guns from the ships, that were to be manned by seamen and sheltered by a sand-bag battery. At sunrise on March 9, 1847, Conner sent the steamers Spitfire and Vixen with four gun-boats to clear the beach near the town. Meantime the troops embarked in huge row-boats, made for the purpose, and by ten o’clock over ten thousand men had been landed with arms and stores. On the next morning the Spitfire was sent in to draw the enemy’s fire and disclose the location of the guns along the mainland. Every gun opened on her and she returned the fire, sending shells to the heart of the town, and then, the guns having been located, she retired.

The bombardment of the city by the land-batteries began on March 22d, and on the next day Lieutenant Josiah Tattnall, with the steamers Spitfire and Vixen and five schooners in tow, attacked the castle. One schooner was left off Point Honorios, but the others steamed up until within grape range of Fort San Juan de Ulloa. The Mexicans held their fire in ominous fashion until the American vessels were in position and then opened with scores and hundreds of guns, from the city as well as the castle. The vessels were in an instant almost obscured by the spray that arose in clouds where the shot of the enemy struck the water on every side of them. A more terrific fire has rarely been seen. It covered the vessels with water as well as hid them with spray, and the sailors came out of the fight at the end of an hour soaking wet and in real danger of taking cold.

But not a man had been hit by a missile. Only three of the vessels were struck, and those not seriously. It was a very poor exhibition of gunnery.

In the meantime, between the 10th and the 20th, the sailors had established their battery on shore and had arranged to work it as it would have been worked on a ship. So eager were the forces afloat to see service in this battery that the officers for it were chosen by lot. So effective was its work that the enemy, on the 25th, concentrated upon it all the guns that would bear, and the work there became the warmest any man present had ever experienced.

Seeing this, Commodore Perry, who had relieved Conner on the 21st, ordered four vessels into the harbor to divert the attention of the enemy from the battery. Lieutenant Josiah Tattnall was fortunate enough to get command of this little squadron, and with it discretion to go where he pleased. Accordingly he advanced to within eighty yards of the castle and then went still farther in. The fire he drew on his boats was terrific—so terrific, in fact that Commodore Perry, to save the vessels, that seemed doomed to immediate destruction, signalled Tattnall to return; but Tattnall was too busy to look for signals and did not see them. So a small boat had to be sent to bring the intrepid crews away.

While the navy must share some of the honor of the capture of Vera Cruz with the army, it is clear that between the ships and the naval battery ashore the seamen did the main part of the work. It was their battery that made the first and the largest breach in the forts attacked, and at two o’clock on the afternoon of the 25th, every gun in reach of this battery had been silenced. The battery lost four men killed and eight wounded.

Perhaps one of the most signal evidences of cool bravery shown by the sailors was when Santa Anna was landed from the American fleet. As the reader will remember, Santa Anna had been President of Mexico earlier in the trouble with the United States, but a revolution had overthrown him. The American Government thought to make a new revolution in Mexico and at the same time get a man in power there who could be bought into making a peace, by aiding Santa Anna to return. Negotiations were opened with him at Havana and some kind of an arrangement made by which he went to the American fleet off Vera Cruz, and it was then proposed to land him with his suite under a flag of truce.

A more dangerous movement for that brave Mexican could not be imagined, for he was outlawed, and any soldier might kill him at sight.

But Lieutenant Josiah Tattnall went ashore with him, and on landing took his arm, and then the two, at the head of the general’s suite, walked up the streets. The throng looked on in silence until a squad of soldiers recognized the old hero and saluted. At that everybody cheered, and Santa Anna was again, practically, master of Mexican affairs. And what was of more importance, he was a patriot first of all, and the Americans soon found they had made a mistake in sending him home.

A feature of the operations alongshore that deserves mention, if only to say a good word for a brave officer, was a third attack on Alvarado. The Mexicans had collected a lot of horses there that Scott needed for the advance on the capital after Vera Cruz was taken. The steamer Scourge, under Lieutenant Charles G. Hunter, was sent to blockade the place, while a larger force was to follow to attack it. General Quitman was to get in behind and cut off retreat. Hunter arrived at the port on March 30th, and immediately captured the town with his one ship. Quitman had not yet arrived in the rear, of course, and the enemy got away with the horses. Because of Quitman’s delay, Hunter had to suffer. He had, perhaps, exceeded his orders somewhat in capturing the place, but his gallantry in taking it single-handed where a squadron was thought necessary for the task, deserved a better fate than it received. He was court-martialled and dismissed from the service. One cannot help saying that a great wrong was done, not so much because one man suffered unjustly, but because no nation can afford to punish a man beyond a reprimand for an excess of bravery and zeal.

At 8 A.M. on March 25th, the firing at Vera Cruz ceased, at the request of the Mexicans, and after a talk between the commanding officers the town surrendered on March 28, 1847, and the important work of the navy for that war was done.

It was not a great war. For the American nation it was not a creditable war. Nevertheless, the naval men, although lacking opportunity for engaging in the kind of battles for which they had been especially trained—although lacking opportunity to meet an enemy afloat—showed in their energy and persistent bravery that they would not lower the standard of efficiency set for them in the War of 1812.