USS San Jacinto (1850) - East Indian Squadron, 1855-1859

East Indian Squadron, 1855-1859

See also: Battle of the Pearl River Forts

Recommissioned on 4 October 1855, the screw frigate, now commanded by Captain Henry H. Bell, departed New York on the 25th and headed for the Far East as flagship of Commodore James Armstrong. After proceeding via Madeira, the Cape of Good Hope, Mauritius, and Ceylon, the ship arrived at Penang in the Straits of Malacca on 22 March 1856.

There, Townsend Harris, the recently appointed Consul General to Japan, embarked on 2 April; and the ship got underway that morning for Siam. After a four-day stop at Singapore, where Commodore Armstrong relieved Commodore Joel Abbot in command of the East India Squadron, the frigate reached the bar off the mouth of the Me Nam (later the Chao Phraya) River on the 13th. A few days later, Harris ascended the Me Nam to Bangkok where he negotiated a treaty establishing diplomatic and commercial relations between the United States and Siam. The King of Siam at the time was Mongkut, who was later the subject of the musical comedy, The King and I.

After succeeding in this delicate diplomatic mission, Harris returned on the morning of 1 June to San Jacinto, which awaited him at the mouth of the Me Nam; and the frigate departed Siam to carry Harris to his new post in Japan.

However, after only half an hour of steaming, engine trouble reappeared and plagued the ship throughout her painfully slow passage to Hong Kong, which she finally reached on the 13th. There, major repairs interrupted the voyage for almost two months.

San Jacinto finally got underway again on 12 August. While proceeding by the Pescadores toward Formosa, she assisted several junks recently disabled by a violent typhoon which had devastated much of the coast of China. The ship at long last reached Shimoda, Japan, on 21 August and remained there while Harris was negotiating with Japanese officials concerning the establishment of his consulate—the first official foreign diplomatic office to be permitted on Japanese soil. During his subsequent service as Consul General, Harris persuaded the Japanese government to sign a broad treaty which opened the country to commerce and brought the nation into the modern world.

On 4 September 1856, after a party from the ship had erected a flagpole in front of the new consulate and had helped Harris to raise the Stars and Stripes there for the first time, San Jacinto weighed anchor and headed for Shanghai.

Early in October 1856, mounting hostility toward foreigners in China erupted into the Second Opium War. Later that month, word of the fighting between British and Chinese forces at Canton reached Commodore Armstrong at Shanghai, and he proceeded in San Jacinto to the scene of the conflict. When he reached the Pearl River, he learned that Comdr. Andrew H. Foote, in response to a request for help from the United States consul at Canton, had landed a force of 150 men at Whampoa to protect American lives and property.

Armstrong approved of Foote's action and reinforced the shore party with a detachment from San Jacinto. A few days later, after receiving assurances from Chinese officials, the Commodore decided to withdraw the American force.

However, on 15 November, while Foote was passing the barrier forts in a small boat during preparations for reembarkation, Chinese guns fired upon him four or five times. The next day, Portsmouth closed the nearest fort and opened fire, beginning a vigorous engagement which continued until the Chinese batteries were silenced some two hours later. Meanwhile, efforts were begun to settle the matter by diplomatic means. Nevertheless, four days later, after receiving a report that the Chinese were strengthening their works, Armstrong again ordered his ships to open fire. They bombarded the two nearest forts until the enemy fire slackened. Then Foote led about 300 men ashore, took the first fort, and used the 53 guns captured there to silence hostile batteries in the next fort. The bluejackets and marines ashore subsequently beat off an attack by 3,000 Chinese soldiers from Canton. In the following two days, they first silenced and then took the three remaining forts. In all, they seized and spiked 176 cannon. Before the American ships departed Canton, their men had destroyed these riverside strongholds. During the fighting, negotiations with Chinese officials continued and resulted in the recognition of the rights of the United States as a neutral power.

Thereafter, San Jacinto served in Chinese ports for more than a year, principally at Hong Kong and Shanghai. After protecting American interests in the troubled waters of the Far East into 1858, the veteran steam frigate returned home on 4 August and decommissioned two days later.