Action at the Pearl River Forts
15-22 NOVEMBER 1856
ACTION AT THE PEARL RIVER FORTS
By the mid-19th century, most western nations had established commercial enterprises in China. China was, at the time, internally fractionated and militarily weak, and England, in particular, exploited this situation to compel one-sided trade agreements upon China. Resentment over these trade practices led to several uprisings, including the seizure of the British merchant lorcha Arrow in Canton, on the Pearl River, on 8 October 1856. Because the Chinese tended to look similarly upon all Westerners, the American consul in Canton requested protection for Americans in the area. The senior Naval officer on the scene was the aging and ailing CDR Andrew H. Foote, who responded by landing 150 Marines and bluejackets from the sloops PORTSMOUTH, 20, and LEVANT, 22, at the town of Whampoa at the mouth of the Pearl. Soon additional warships from our East India Squadron arrived, including Commodore James Armstrong’s flagship, the screw frigate SAN JACINTO. Armstrong approved Foote’s action but ordered the withdrawal of the landing party after accepting reassurances from local Chinese.
In accordance with Armstrong’s recall, on 15 November CDR Foote was proceeding up the Pearl River in a whaleboat, between five newly constructed Chinese fortifications known as the “barrier forts.” Unexpectedly, one fort opened fire with 4-5 rounds. The furious Armstrong ordered PORTSMOUTH to close the offending structure the following morning and begin a vigorous cannonade. (SAN JACINTO drew too much water to approach the forts, and LEVANT had the untimely misfortune to run aground). Chinese fire proved ineffective, and, in an impressive 90-minute display, the 20-gun PORTSMOUTH dismounted twice that number of Chinese guns.
Negotiations began. However, when Armstrong learned four days later that the Chinese were reinforcing the forts, he ordered another attack. LEVANT was towed upstream on the 20th to join PORTSMOUTH in a several hour bombardment. CDR Foote then gallantly led a storming party of 287 against one of the forts. The panicked Chinese fled, and Foote turned the 53 guns of this fort on the next. Over several days his party sequentially captured three other forts and a six-gun battery. Two Chinese mass counter charges with 2000-4000 men could not defeat the Americans. In total, over 400 Chinese died at a cost of only seven Americans killed. The cannon were spiked and the forts destroyed, causing seaman William H. Powell to remark, “Our Navy, though small, is still able to punish any insult…to our flag, come from whom it may.” Negotiations later established US neutrality in the Anglo-Chinese conflict, although Chinese enmity toward all Westerners would continue into the 20th century.
Watch for more “Today in Naval History” 22 NOV 23
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Heinl, Robert Debs, Jr. Soldiers of the Sea: The United States Marine Corps, 1775-1962. Baltimore, MD: Nautical & Aviation Pub., 1991, pp. 57-59.
Love, Robert W. History of the US Navy, Vol 1 1775-1941. Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1992, pp. 229-30.
Millett, Allan R. Semper Fidelis: The History of the United States Marine Corps. New York, NY: Macmillan Pub Co., 1980, pp. 84-85.
Pierce, Philip N. and Frank O. Hough. The Compact History of the United States Marine Corps. New York, NY: Hawthorn Books, 1964, pp. 102-08.
Simmons, Edwin H. The United States Marines, 1775-1975. New York, NY: Viking Press, 1976, pp. 41-42.
Sweetman, Jack. American Naval History: An Illustrated Chronology of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, 1775-Present, 2nd ed. Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1991, p. 62.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: Armstrong’s actions were at least in part motivated by a need to supply the small Marine detachment already posted in Canton.
At Foote’s initial landings at Whampoa, the mixed shore party of bluejackets and Marines was led by Marine CAPT John D. Simms, who had received a brevet promotion in the Chapultepec Castle assault a few years earlier. This was the first recorded time a shore party of bluejackets was led by a Marine officer.
Though plagued with medical issues, Andrew H. Foote would rise to the rank of RADM and command our Mississippi River Squadron in the early Civil War. Our later warships FOOTE (TB-8, DD-169, DD-511) remember the admiral. James Armstrong’s star was rising after this incident as well. In 1860 he was appointed to command the Pensacola Navy Yard. However, after Florida seceded from the Union, Armstrong was forced to surrender the Yard to Confederate forces on 14 January 1861. He was court-martialed and discharged from the service.
