Combat· Korean Expedition (Shinmiyangyo)
Bombardment of Salee River Forts
The opening clash of the Korean expedition, and the incident that justified all that followed.
On 1 June 1871 a survey party, the gunboats Monocacy and Palos with four steam launches, was sent to sound the channel of the Salee River off Ganghwa Island. As the boats came under the heights crowned by the Korean forts, the shore batteries opened fire without warning. The Marines aboard the Monocacy and the launches returned fire and silenced the guns, the Americans suffering two men wounded in the exchange. The unprovoked attack on a peaceful survey party gave Admiral Rodgers his casus belli; he demanded an apology within ten days, and when none came, the punitive landing followed. The bombardment itself was a brief affair, but it set the whole expedition in motion, the spark that turned a diplomatic mission into the bloody storming of the Ganghwa forts nine days later.
Record no. 465