“Blood is Thicker Than Water”
25 JUNE 1859
“BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER”
During the first half of the 19th century several Western nations, particularly England and France, opened trade with China. Several, including the United States, maintained naval forces in the region to protect these trading interests. By the 1830s, the Chinese were becoming increasingly dissatisfied with European trade practices, particularly the importation of Southeast Asian opium by the British. In fact, fighting between England and China over this issue erupted in 1839 in the first “Opium War.” The Chinese were no military match however, and in 1842, the British were able to dictate the Treaty of Nanking, under which, among other provisions, China ceded Hong Kong to the British.
Simmering Chinese resentment re-erupted fourteen years later, this time against the backdrop of a struggle between rival Chinese factions known as the Taiping Rebellion. In October of 1856, the British trading ship Arrow was seized in Canton. This time a combined Anglo-French force reacted by occupying Canton and Tientsin. Again the Chinese capitulated, this time reluctantly agreeing to legalize opium and receive foreign legations in Peking.
But the new treaty lasted only months. British ADM Sir James Hope was dispatched forthwith, up the Pei-Ho (Hai River), to chastise dissenters and re-exert Anglo control over Tientsin and Peking. At the mouth of the Pei-Ho however, he discovered the Chinese had obstructed the channel and rebuilt the daunting fortification at Taku. Stalled before these obstructions, his gunboats found themselves under heavy Chinese gunfire.
Also blocked by the obstructions was Commodore Josiah Tattnall and three warships of the US Navy’s East India Squadron. The United States was not officially involved in Anglo-Chinese hostilities, in fact Tattnall was on an independent mission to install our own diplomat, John E. Ward, in Peking. He observed ADM Hope’s gunboat suffering repeated hits and the British tars being driven from their guns by a storm of Chinese fire. Unable to stand idly by, he proclaimed “Blood is thicker than water,” transferred his flag to the steamer TOEY-WAN, and pulled alongside the admiral’s gunboat. Tattnall sent men across who turned to and brought the British guns smartly back into action. When the Royal Marines next attempted to storm the fort, TOEY-WAN helped pull the barges bearing the assault to the shore. One American seaman was killed and LT Stephen Decatur Trenchard was wounded.
The British were ultimately turned back at Taku, and Tattnall’s ambition in this second Opium War was regrettable considering Ward’s mission to declare US neutrality to Peking. But a supportive Congress later approved Tattnall’s initiative.
Watch the POD for more “Today in Naval History” 29 JUN 22
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Love, Robert W. History of the US Navy, Vol 1 1775-1941. Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1992, pp. 238-39.
Maclay, Edgar Stanton. “New Light on the ‘Blood is Thicker than Water’ Episode.” USNI Proceedings, Vol 151, Fall 1914, pp. 1085-1103.
Sweetman, Jack. American Naval History: An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 3rd ed. Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 2002, p. 57.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: Congress’ endorsement of Tattnall’s action in the face of defined US neutrality appears paradoxical. However, Congress may well have been sensitive to Tattnall’s situation. Naval officers in the 19th century frequently interacted with foreign governments in remote locations without the benefit of ready communication with Washington. As such they were entrusted to exercise good judgment as agents of the US government in whatever immediate circumstance they might find themselves. Naval and Marine Corps officers, in distinction to officers of other services, developed a reputation for diplomatic awareness. Recognizing this political acumen, Theodore Roosevelt’s Secretary of State, John Hay, complemented sea-service officers at the end of the 19th century, “I have always felt relieved when a Naval officer has arrived on the scene because he always kept within the situation.”
Trenchard was the son of a US Navy CAPT. His name, Stephen Decatur Trenchard, reflects child-naming trend common in the 1800s. The exploits of our Navy from the Revolution through the Civil War were so thrilling to ordinary US citizens that male children were occasionally named for naval heroes. Perhaps the most well-known such child was the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, born in 1807 and named for LT Henry Wadsworth who died heroically three years earlier when the bombship INTREPID exploded prematurely in Tripoli harbor.
Events in the coming two years were to split Tattnall and his flag LT Trenchard. With the outbreak of the Civil War, Tattnall sided with the rebel cause, becoming one of their most respected sea commanders. Two modern destroyers have since borne his name, TARRNALL (DD-125) and (DDG-19). LT Trenchard, on the other hand, survived his wounds to fight on the Union side in the Civil War. He commanded RHODE ISLAND on that ship’s ill-fated attempt to tow the MONITOR to Charleston. Trenchard retired in 1880 at the rank of RADM.
Hong Kong, a war prize that became a British colony in 1842, was returned to China 30 June 1997.
The three East India Squadron ships in Tattnall’s force were USS POWHATAN, GERMANTOWN and MINNESOTA. All had too deep a draft to cross the bar into the Pei Ho River, so Tattnall had chartered the steamer TOEY-WAN locally for use on the river.
