Gunboats, Land Ops, Marines

                                         11 MARCH-25 MAY 1885

                                     COLOMBIAN INTERVENTION

As Prestan’s fires left 8,000 homeless in Colon, the rebellious Azipuru was stirring again on the Pacific side.  Having initially been chased into the hills, Azipuru regained Panama City when Colombian troops crossed the isthmus to address the Prestan uprising.  Azipuru began a second killing spree and again declared himself supreme ruler of Panama.  Under an 1846 treaty with Colombia, the United States was pledged to maintain the neutrality of the Panama province and insure safe operation of the US-owned trans-isthmus railroad.  Both Azipuru and Prestan had ripped up track, tampered with switches, derailed engines, and robbed trains along the line.  Desperate railroad officials pleaded with the US for help.

On April 6^th two more screw frigates, USS SHENANDOAH and USS WACHUSETT, arrived off Panama’s Pacific coast.  In four more days our Navy arrived in force when RADM James E. Jouett in the screw frigate TENNESSEE reached Colon with an eight-ship squadron embarking 2648 bluejackets and Marines.  He immediately landed 600 Marines who seized Colon and the Atlantic terminus of the railroad.  The railway’s rolling stock was then armored with half-inch boiler plate and topped with Gatling guns.  The Marines moved down the length of the Panama Railroad thusly, securing key postings at the Barbacos bridge and Matachin.

Simultaneously, landing parties from WACHUSETT and SHENANDOAH secured Panama City.  Here too, the Marines carted their Gatling guns to and fro, on one occasion dispersing a large crowd with several bursts fired at the rooftops.  Azipuru persisted in his claims of sovereignty, even offering the promise of future cooperation in exchange for US recognition of Panamanian independence from Colombia.  But Jouett, who was under orders only to secure the railroad and avoid meddling in Colombian affairs, declined the offer.  [Ironically a nearly identical circumstance two decades later in 1903 would again transpire in Panama, and in this latter incident American recognition would be forthcoming.  In 1903 our interests in the railroad were augmented by then President Teddy Roosevelt’s driving desire to construct a Panamanian canal].

Azipuru surrendered to US Navy officers at the Central Hotel in Panama City on April 24^th, after which US forces began a month-long pull out.  Pedro Prestan fled to the jungle and was eventually captured and executed by Colombian officials.  Interestingly, this effective exercise of seapower in the protection of our national interests abroad vividly impressed the skipper of WACHUSETT, CAPT Alfred T. Mahan, who transferred shortly thereafter to begin an instructor’s tenure at the Naval War College.  Mahan’s writings on Naval employment would form the foundation of 20^th century naval reform.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  6 APR 26

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 6 “R-S”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1976, p. 482.

McCullough, David.  The Path Between the Seas:  The Creation of the Panama Canal – 1870-1914.  New York, NY: Simon and Schuster, 1977, pp. 175-79.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  This was RADM Jouett’s last mission in a Naval career that spanned 49 years.  He served initially in the African Squadron and during the Mexican War, then went on to command three Navy warships during the Civil War.  He retired in 1890 and lived for the next 12 years on an estate near Sandy Springs, Maryland.  He has been remembered with three destroyers, DD-41, DD-396, and DLG-29.