The United States Pacific Squadron in the early 1840s.
The Pacific Squadron, also known as the Pacific Station, was part of the United States Navy squadron stationed in the Pacific Ocean in the 1800s and early 1900s. Initially with no United States ports in the Pacific, they operated out of storeships which provided naval supplies and purchased food and obtained water from local ports of call in the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) and the Pacific coasts. Throughout the history of the Pacific Squadron, American ships fought against several enemies. Over one-half of the United States Navy would be sent to join the Pacific Squadron during the Mexican-American War. During the American Civil War, the squadron was reduced in size when Pacific Squadron vessels were reassigned to Atlantic duty. When the Civil War was over, the squadron was reinforced again until being disbanded just after the turn of the 20th century.
History
USS Levant
Established in 1821, this small force confined its activities initially to the Pacific waters off South America, North America and Hawaii protecting United States commercial shipping interests. It expanded its scope of operations to include the Western Pacific in 1835, when the East India Squadron joined the force. The squadron was reinforced when war with Mexico began to seem a possibility. Sailing from the east coast to the west coast around Cape Horn was a 13,000 miles (21,000 km) to 15,000 miles (24,000 km) journey that typically took from 130 to 210 days.
The Pacific Squadron's first First Sumatran Expedition conflict arose in February 1831. Off the coast of Sumatra, Maylaysia on February 7th, the American merchant vessel, Friendship, was attacked by Maylay natives described as "warriorpirates." The Americans were hoping to buy Pepper from the natives but were instead attacked by three small vessels. Three men aboard Friendship were killed, one of which was the First Mate, the remaining crew members abandoned their vessel and it was captured. The surviving sailors escaped to a friendly port nearby with the help of a friendly Maylay tribal chief. The merchant sailors then launched an expedition to retake the plundered Friendship. This was achieved and at about the same time; PresidentAndrew Jackson received word of the 'massacre' and ordered CommodoreJohn Downes in USS Potomac to punish the natives for their acts of piracy.
USS Potomac
Arriving off Sumatra exactly a year after the Friendship incident, Commodore Downes with just under 300 United States Marines and Navy sailors attacked Quallah Battoo, the capital village of the hostile Maylays. The men went ashore in launches during which a small naval engagement was fought. A few of the boats were armed with a light cannon apiece and ordered to sink three small pirate crafts in the port. The launches achieved their goal and then proceeded in assisting USS Potomac in shelling five enemy citadels. The five forts were attacked by land as well and all were eventually suppressed. Hundreds of matchlock armed natives were killed with a loss of only two Americans. After the battle, Downes warned that if any more American merchant ships were attacked, another expedition would be launched in reprisal.
The mission was technically a success for six years until 1838 when the Maylays attacked and plundered a second American merchantman. In response, the Second Sumatran Expedition was launched and the Americans returned to engage in the Bombardment of Quallah Battoo and the Battle of Muckie.
Capture of Monterey
In 1842 the Pacific Squadron commander CommodoreThomas ap Catesby Jones recieved false information that war had begun between the United States and Mexico and that the British HMS Dublin was cruising off California to take contol of the Mexican state. In response Commodore Jones in his frigateUSS United States and with the sloopsUSS Dale and USS Cyane sailed for California's capital, Monterey. They arrived on 19 October 1842 and took control of the city without bloodshed before returning it to the Mexicans on 21 October when Jones discovered that war had not actually been declared.
The Pacific Squadron was instrumental in the capture of Alta California in the Mexican–American War of 1846-1848 after war was declared on 24 April 1846. The American navy was essentially the only significant United States military force on the Pacific coast in the early months of the Mexican–American War. It had orders, in the event of war, to seize the ports in Mexican California and elsewhere along the Pacific Coast. The only other United States military force in California was a small exploratory force of Lieutenant ColonelJohn C. Fremont's sixty-man exploratory expedition in the United States Army Corps of Topographical Engineers. Under John D. Sloat, Commodore of the Pacific Squadron, the USS Savannah with USS Cyane and USS Levantcaptured the Alta Californian capital city of Monterey on 7 July 1846. Two days later on 9 July, USS Portsmouth captured San Francisco without firing a shot.
Shortly thereafter the short-lived Bear Flag Republic was converted into a United States military conflict for possession of California. Fremont expedition forces joined forces with a volunteer force of California residents. The frigate USS Congress was the flagship of Commodore Robert F. Stockton when he took over as the senior United States military commander in California in late July 1846. In July 1846 Stockton asked Fremont to muster the troops and volunteers under his command into the California Battalion to help garrison the towns rapidly being captured from the Mexican Californio governments. Fremont's California Battalion members were sworn in and the volunteers paid $25.00/month with higher pay for officers. The California Battalion varied in size with time from about 160 initially to over 450. Pacific Squadron ships served as floating store houses keeping Fremont's volunteer force in the California Battalion supplied with powder, lead shot and supplies as well as transporting them to different California ports. The USS Cyane transported Fremont and about 160 of his men to San Diego which was captured on 29 July 1846 without a shot being fired.
Leaving about forty men to garrison San Diego, Fremont continued on to the Pueblo de Los Angeles where on 13 August, with the United States Navy band playing and colors flying, the combined forces of Stockton and Frémont entered the town without a man killed or gun fired. United States Marine Major Archibald Gillespie, Fremont's second in command, was appointed military commander of Los Angeles, the largest settlement in Alta California with about 3,000 residents. Gillespie had from thirty to fifty troops stationed there to keep the peace. The USS Congress is credited with capturing the Los Angeles harbor and port at San Pedro Bay on 6 August 1846. He later helped capture Mazatlan, Mexico on 11 November 1847. [1]
After a revolt of some Californios in Los Angeles and Gillespie's departure, Commodore Stockton used about 400-500 marines and bluejacket sailors from his squadron to supplement the approximate ninety men supplied by Brigadier General Stephen W. Kearny and Fremont's California Battalion of about 450 men to re-take Los Angeles in the Battle of Providencia and resulting in the Californios signing the Treaty of Cahuenga on 13 January 1847, terminating the warfare in Alta California. On January 16, 1847, Commodore Stockton appointed Frémont military governor of U.S. territorial California - a move later contested by General Kearny.
The retired ship of the lineUSS Independence was brought back into service, cut down and recommissioned as a razee frigate in 1846. The newly reconfigured ship removed the old top deck and reduced the gun count from ninety to fifty-four making her much easier to sail. The rebuilt USS Independence, now classified as a 'heavy' frigate, launched on on 4 August 1846 when the nation was already at war with Mexico and departed Boston 29 August 1846 for California. She entered Monterey Bay on 22 January 1847 and became the flagship of Commodore William Shubrick, now commanding the Pacific Squadron.
USS Congress
In July 1846, Colonel Jonathan D. Stevenson of New York was asked to raise a volunteer regiment of ten companies of 77 men each to go to California with the understanding that they would be muster out and stay in California. They were designated the 1st Regiment of New York Volunteers and fought in the California Campaign and the Pacific Coast Campaign. In August and September the regiment trained and prepared for the trip to California. Three private merchant ships, Thomas H Perkins, Loo Choo, and Susan Drew, were chartered, and the sloop USS Preble was assigned convoy detail. On 26 September the four ships sailed for California. Fifty men who had been left behind for various reasons sailed on 13 November 1846 on the small storeship USS Brutus. The Susan Drew and Loo Choo reached Valparaiso, Chile by 20 January 1847 and they were on their way again by 23 January. The Perkins did not stop until San Francisco, reaching port on 6 March 1847. The Susan Drew arrived on 20 March and the Loo Choo arrived on 26 March 1847, 183 days after leaving New York. The Brutus finally arrived on 17 April 1847.
After desertions and deaths in transit the four ships brought 648 men to California. The companies were then deployed throughout Upper-Alta and Lower-Baja California from San Francisco to La Paz, Mexico. The ship Isabella sailed from Philadelphia on 16 August 1847, with a detachment of one hundred soldiers, and arrived in California on 18 February 1847, the following year, at about the same time that the ship Sweden arrived with another detachment of soldiers. These soldiers were added to the existing companies of Stevenson's 1st New York Volunteer Regiment.[2] These troops essentially took over all of the Pacific Squadron's on-shore military and garrison duties and the California Battalion's garrison duties.
After Alta California was secure most of the squadron proceeded down the Pacific coast capturing all major Baja California Peninsula cities and capturing or destroying nearly all Mexican vessels in the Gulf of California. Other mainland ports, not on the peninsula, were taken as well. The objective of the Pacific Coast Campaign was to capture Mazatlan, a major supply base for Mexican forces. Numerous Mexican ships were also captured by this squadron with the USS Cyane given credit for eighteen captures and numerous destroyed ships. [3] Entering the Gulf of California, Independence, Congress and Cyane seized La Paz on the Baja California Peninsula, and captured and or burned the small Mexican fleet at Guaymas across the Gulf on the mainland. Within a month, they cleared the Gulf of hostile ships, destroying or capturing thirty vessels. Later on their sailors and marines captured the town of Mazatlan, Mexico, on 11 November 1847. A Mexican campaign to retake the various captured ports resulted in several small battles and at least two sieges occurred in which the Pacific Squadron ships provided artillery support. USS Cyane returned to Norfolk on 9 October 1848 to receive the congratulations of the Secretary of the Navy for her significant contributions to American victories in Mexico. Other ships headed home too. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed in February 1848 and its subsequent ratification by the United States and Mexican legislatures, marked the end of the Mexican-American War.
In July of 1855, Chinese pirates in the Hong Kong area captured four merchant ships, apparently of British subject. In response on 4 August 1855, the Pacific Squadron frigate USS Powhatan and the Royal Navy sloop-of-war HMS Rattler attacked the pirates at the Battle of Kuhlan. The two warships accompanied by an unarmed steamer destroyed eighteen junks while sustaining considerable but comparatively light casualties. An estimated 500 pirates were killed or wounded and over 1,000 taken prisoner compared the an allied loss of nine dead and about a dozen wounded.
On 30 June 1861, USS Saginaw silenced a fort at the entrance to Qui Nhon Bay, Cochinchina, Vietnam. This was after a Vietnamese artillery battery had fired upon the Saginaw while she was searching for the missing boat and crew of an American merchant bark named Myrtle.
The extent of the Pacific Squadron's responsibility was further enlarged in the 1850's when California and Oregon were admitted as U.S. states and Navy bases on the west coast were established. The U.S. Sailing Navy's use of sailing ships declined as armored steamships were introduced before the American Civil War. The Pacific Squadron was far removed from the fighting during the conflict though some vessels of the squadron were reassigned to duty in the Atlantic and fought in engagements such as the Battle of Forts Jackson and St. Philip.
Battle of Boca Teacapan
In July of 1870 the pirate shipForward attacked and captured the Mexican port city of Guaymas, Sonora in the Gulf of California. There the pirates robbed the foreign residents and persuaded by force the United States Consulate to supply the Forward with coal, then the pirates sailed south for Boca Teacapan, Sinaloa. The Pacific Squadron, with Rear Admiral William Shubrick, was informed of the incident so the USS Mohican was sent to destroy the pirate threat. After arriving in the area in early August, Mohican's men discovered that the Forward was at Boca Teacapan's harbor in the Teacapan River. A boat expedition was launched and attacked the pirate ship on 17 August 1870. The battle ended with an American victory and the burning and sinking of the pirate steamer.
The squadron engaged during the Philippine-American War from 1899 to 1907 when the United States Pacific Fleet was formed. They saw combat during several engagements involving American troops on ground supported by naval gun fire. Also, marines and sailors from the Pacific Squadron vessels routinely went ashore to engage the Katipunan and Moros.
USS Philadelphia during her service int the Pacific Squadron.
In 1899 another civil war broke out in Samoa between rebels loyal to KingMataafa and federal forces of PrinceTanu. Pacific Squadron Rear Admiral Albert Kautz in USS Philadelphia launched an expedition to the island and occupied the capital of Apia on March 14, 1899 after a battle and bombardment at the port city. From there American, British and Samoan forces engaged in several actions against the rebels over the course of a few months. When the conflict ended the United States gained control of eastern Samoa which is today's American Samoa and the western half of the archipelago was taken by Germany, creating the short lived German Samoa which was conquered during World War I.
During the Boxer Rebellion in China that began in November 1899, the squadron was used to deploy United States troops for the China Relief Expedition. Sailors and marines from the Pacific Squadron engaged the Boxers and Qing Dynasty soldiers at Tientsin, and elsewhere before relieving the foreign delegation besieged in Peking.
Disbandment
USS Ranger
In 1903, the squadron consisted of armored cruiserNew York, cruisers Boston and Marblehead, and the gunboat Ranger. In early 1907, the Pacific Fleet became a reality. The Asiatic Squadron became the First Squadron and the Pacific Squadron became the Second Squadron.
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