CYANE AT GUYAMAS

On this afternoon of the Mexican War, CDR Samuel F. Du Pont brought the 20-gun sloop USS Cyane into the seaside harbor of Guyamas on the Sonoran mainland of western Mexico.  His and other US Navy ships patrolled these villages enforcing a blockade of Mexico, indeed, the Sonoran region and California Sur (modern Baja) were primary targets of that blockade.  Only five vessels lay in the harbor, a Peruvian and an Ecuadorian neutrals, and three Mexican-flagged ships–the commercial brig Condor, and two former gunboats, Anahuac and Sonorense, both aground in stages of disassembly.  Du Pont was surprised to discover 500 militia troops ashore, armed with half-dozen field pieces and cannon landed from the gunboats–a force disproportionate to the importance of the town.  It seems a Mexican captain Du Pont had chased from La Paz weeks before had reached Guyamas warning of Du Pont’s approach.

 The following morning, Du Pont sent word to the local commandante that the Mexican vessels and any munitions of war were to be surrendered.  He refused, prompting a threat from Du Pont to bombard the town at 1000 October 7^th, allowing time for women, children, and personal property to be removed to safety.  That morning a deputation of local merchants approached Cyane in a small boat stating the time had been insufficient to clear the village.  Du Pont agreed only to an hour’s extension, not wishing to give the commandante more time to prepare.  As the boatload of locals returned to shore the Mexican flag was seen rising over the derelict gunboats, who soon erupted in flames.  The Mexicans were performing an act Du Pont had intended to do himself!

But Condor remained at anchor very near the dock, within a pistol shot of the militia position.  By 1130 no response had been forthcoming, and Cyane opened, concentrating her fire on the militia position.  Simultaneously two cutters from Cyane carried 45 men led by LT George W. Harrison, LT Higgins, Midshipmen Crabbe and Lewis, and boatswain Collins.  These closed the Mexican brig while shot and shell screamed alow and aloft in both directions.  A steel cable and anchor were cut, and the brig was set ablaze.  Harrison’s party then towed the burning brig away from the town, through a hail of whistling bullets.  Miraculously no one was hit!  Du Pont kept up a vigorous cannonade until the brig had been towed to a distant cove where she burned to the waterline.  Du Pont lingered in Guyamas despite Mexican reinforcements in the form of 400 troops from nearby Hermosilia and 300 mounted Yucca Indians.  No further fighting ensued, and Du Pont departed October 9^th having enforced the blockade and cemented a personal reputation for bold and forceful action.

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CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Rehabilitation Medicine

Du Pont, Samuel F.  Extracts from Private Journal-Letters of Captain S.F. Du Pont of the Cyane during the War with Mexico, 1846-48 (reprint).  Wilmington, DE: Ferris Brothers, 1885, pp. 61-70.

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. 47.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  By the outbreak of the Civil War Samuel F. Du Pont was an experienced and respected senior US Naval officer.  He commanded the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron from September 1861 to July 1863.  He was in the original group of officers promoted to RADM when that rank was authorized in 1862.  Du Pont Circle in Washington, DC, is named in his honor as are the former warships USS Du Pont (TB-7, DD-152, DD-941).

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                                       THE MARINES IN MEXICO

The period between the War of 1812 and the Civil War could be called the “doldrums” of US Marine Corps history, suffering as they did from insufficient manning and even scantier funding.  The end of June 1820 saw only 19 officers and 552 enlisted Marines left, including the Commandant, LCOL Archibald Henderson.  And despite their gallant service aboard ship during the Revolutionary War, by 1812 the Marines were being used increasingly to supplement Army ground forces.  In fact, after that war the Marines were brought under the jurisdiction of Army regulations, and by December of 1829 President Andrew Jackson recommended to Congress, “that the Marine Corps be merged in the [Army] artillery or infantry…, there being no peculiar training required for it.”

Bitterly resisting the dissolution of the Marines was the irascible, yet capable Commandant Henderson.  By deploying Marines in a series of actions during this period–against Caribbean pirates, at Kuala Battoo, in western Africa, and against rebellious Seminoles in Florida–Henderson was able to preserve their separate role.  With the outbreak of the 1846-48 war with Mexico, Marines of the Pacific Squadron performed notable actions in California, Mazatlan, Guaymas, and San Jose del Cabo.  But ever the politician, Henderson also wished to have a role in the strategic push to final victory, the campaign against Mexico City.  This campaign began with the landing of GEN Winfield Scott’s army of 8,600 on 9 March 1847 at Veracruz, on the eastern Mexican coast.  Itself no small logistic feat, the landing was followed by a successful siege of Veracruz.  Scott then paused for reinforcements, hoping to amass an Army large enough to move inland against the Mexican capital before the onset of the coastal yellow fever season.

Henderson, in Washington, convinced President James K. Polk that a Marine battalion could be more hastily recruited to reinforce Scott than an Army unit.  Three companies totaling 22 officers and 324 men were quickly mustered and set sail three days later from New York.  Veteran Marines from shipboard companies of the Pacific and Home Squadrons were reassigned to this battalion in the hopes of hastily imbuing war-readiness into the raw recruits.  Brevet LCOL Samuel E. Watson was pulled from CDORE Matthew Perry’s blockading squadron for overall command, and on 1 July 1847, the battalion arrived at Veracruz.  Here, they were incorporated into the Army division under (future President) BGEN Franklin Pierce.  On this day, Watson’s battalion stepped off toward Mexico City.  Few could have anticipated then how successful this green battalion would become in capturing the “Halls of Montezuma” two months later, nor how much their actions would echo through USMC history.

See related stories 13-14 September 2023

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Bauer, K. Jack.  The Mexican War  1846-1848.  Lincoln, NB: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1974, pp. 273-74.

Heinl, Robert Debs, Jr.  Soldiers of the Sea:  The United States Marine Corps, 1775-1962.  Baltimore, MD: Nautical & Aviation Pub., 1991, p. 49.

Millett, Allan R.  Semper Fidelis:  The History of the United States Marine Corps.  New York, NY: Macmillan Pub Co., 1980, pp. 76-77.

Simmons, Edwin H.  The United States Marines, 1775-1975.  New York, NY: Viking Press, 1976, pp. 28-42.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Watson was initially disappointed to be assigned to Pierce’s division–the force Winfield Scott had detailed to the inglorious task of guarding his supply trains.  After leaving the coast the battalion fought only six skirmishes with Mexican forces on its journey to Puebla, the staging area for the assault on Mexico City.  However, events in the battle of Molina del Rey, 6-7 September, outside Mexico City, would propel Watson’s battalion to the fore in the assault on Chapultepec Castle, the “Halls of Montezuma.”

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                           USS WOODBURY AND THE PASTRY WAR

The Mexican Federalist War of 1835-41 pitted the aristocratic Centralist Mexican rulers against the federalist peasantry of the provinces.  Foreign businessmen in Mexico who suffered collateral damages from Centralist Mexican Army operations had no redress of their losses.  When Centralist troops damaged the shop of French pastry chef Monsieur Remontel outside Mexico City to the tune of 1000 pesos, Remontel turned to his native French government.  His entreaties caught the ear of King Louis-Philippe who, in 1838, demanded of Mexico an astronomical indemnity of 600,000 pesos (3 million francs).  He then sent a French squadron to blockade Vera Cruz.  In what came to be known as the Pastry War, Mexican merchant ships, unable to land at Mexico’s busiest seaport, began off-loading at Corpus Christi (then the Republic of Texas) and trans-shipping cargoes overland to the south.  In response, the French Navy began patrols off Texas.  An alarmed President Andrew Jackson sent our warships.  For this purpose, the Revenue Cutter Service’s USRC LEVI WOODBURY was assumed into our Navy as USS WOODBURY.

The cutter’s cruising off Texas proved uneventful, thus WOODBURY was sent south in the autumn of 1838 to protect American shipping off Mexico’s Gulf ports.  Here she ran afoul of a French frigate.  No shots were fired, but a miscue of maneuvering resulted in a collision that damaged WOODBURY.  The French allowed her into Vera Cruz for repairs.  During her detainment she was able to observe the French bombardment of Fort San Juan de Ulloa and its surrender on 28 November 1838. On this following day, WOODBURY was freed to return to New Orleans.

Thus ended American involvement in the Pastry War between France and Mexico.  However, concern over French meddling prompted Jackson to return Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, who had been in exile in the United States, to Mexico.  Santa Anna organized a land army that surrounded the city of Vera Cruz in early winter.  There, in one of several skirmishes, Santa Anna lost his left leg below the knee.  British intervention ultimately settled the dispute, but among Mexicans, Santa Anna received the bulk of the credit.  He was propelled once again to “Presidency for Life,” though he was deposed and re-exiled in less than a year.  Overall, the French lost 12 killed, 85 wounded, and 24 victims of yellow fever in this Pastry War.  Santa Anna lost 224 killed and wounded. 

WOODBURY was returned to the USRCS and patrolled the Louisiana and Texas coasts for cotton smugglers.  She escorted ships and transported troops for BGEN Zachary Taylor at the start of the Mexican War.  But she was found to require extensive refitting and was decommissioned 14 September 1846.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  3 DEC 23

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Department of the Navy, Naval History Division.  Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Vol 8 “W-Z”.  Washington, DC: GPO, 1981. pp. 448-49.

Greenberg, Amy.  A Wicked War:  Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico.  New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012, p. 148.

Minster, Christopher.  “The Pastry War.”  Thoughtco website.  AT: https://www.thoughtco.com/the-pastry-war-mexico-vs-france-2136674, 26 August 2020, retrieved 22 April 2022.

“The Pastry War-1838. History of Yesterday website.  AT: https://historyofyesterday.com/the-pastry-war-1838-43699084f620, retrieved 22 April 2022.

ADDITIONAL NOTES:  Santa Anna was fitted with an artificial leg, which he wore for the remainder of his military and political campaigns.  When MGEN Winfield Scott’s troops sacked Mexico City in the 1846-48 Mexican War, two of Santa Anna’s artificial legs were captured by the 4^th Illinois Infantry.  Never has the Mexican government requested return of the unpopular dictator’s prosthetics.  One is on display today at the Illinois State Military Museum in Springfield.  The other, a peg leg, was used by LT Abner Doubleday as a baseball bat, and can be seen today at the Governor Oglesby Mansion in Decatur, Illinois.

Levi Woodbury, Andrew Jackson’s Secretary of the Navy and later, Secretary of the Treasury, was honored again by our Navy with the Clemson-class destroyer of the 1920s, USS WOODBURY (DD-309).  The 1830s schooner ANDREW JACKSON, the WWII troop transport PRESIDENT JACKSON (AP-37), and ballistic missile submarine ANDREW JACKSON (SSBN-619) all remember the no-nonsense President above.

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                    FORT STOCKTON, SAN DIEGO

On the morning of 29 July 1846, the sloop USS CYANE, 20, dropped anchor in the quiet Mexican harbor of San Diego, whose peacefulness belied the war then raging between the US and Mexico.  Navy LT Stephen C. Rowan and a Marine party under a LT Maddox were sent ashore to take possession of the Presidio (in modern Old Town).  This was accomplished without a fight, and the Marines held the town for eleven days until being relieved by troops of John C. Fremont’s Bear Flag battalion on August 9^th.  CYANE then departed, and all was well until October, when a Mexican force under Serbulo Varela moved to recapture San Diego.  Fremont’s outnumbered 15-20-man garrison fled to the safety of Stonington, a whaler lying in San Diego Harbor under US charter.  As US Army CAPT Ezekiel Merritt watched the Mexican flag being run up over San Diego’s Presidio, he began to worry that the Mexicans would use the two cannon that had been left in haste to bombard Stonington.  A request for help was sent to Navy Commodore Robert F. Stockton in San Pedro, who dispatched the 54-gun frigate CONGRESS.

Meanwhile Merritt took matters into hand locally.  A volunteer soldier, Albert B. Smith, was put ashore at La Playa (Point Loma), and using a circuitous route, he succeeded in sneaking into the Presidio and spiking the two cannon.  A heartened Merritt then re-landed his small force and attacked.  The routed Mexicans fled to the hill immediately overlooking Old Town while Smith climbed the courtyard’s staff himself and returned the American flag.  Over the next weeks the Mexicans were reinforced with 100 men and a cannon from Los Angeles.  A tense siege developed.

On this day, Stockton arrived in CONGRESS to a sorry situation.  Most of San Diego’s civilians had abandoned the town, and those who remained were nearly starving.  Stockton promptly sent Army CAPT Samuel Gibson in Stonington to Ensenada, from whence 200 head of cattle were driven north.  Next a brigade of Marines, bluejackets, and local volunteers stormed the Mexican siegeworks in a bold frontal assault.  The lone cannon was captured and turned on the enemy, who were driven from their trenches and up the valley toward Mission San Diego.

Stockton’s sailors now began speedy improvements to the breastworks above Old Town.  A perimeter ditch was dug, behind which were placed casks filled with earth at two-foot intervals.  Twelve guns from CONGRESS were landed to command the approaches from Los Angeles and Mission Valley.  Remnants of these fortifications, named Fort Stockton in the Commodore’s honor, can still be seen above Old Town today.  The American ensign has flown uninterrupted over San Diego since.

Watch for more “Today in Naval History”  28 NOV 22

CAPT James Bloom, Ret.

Site visit.  Old Town (Fort Stockton) Historical Site, San Diego, California, 15 July 1995.

Smythe, William E.  History of San Diego, 1542-1907.  The History Company, San Diego, CA, pp. 201-06, 1907.

Fort Stockton in modern times

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