Combat· Mexican-American War
California Campaign
The conquest of Alta California and the operations along the Mexican Pacific coast, in which Marines of the Pacific Squadron played a leading part.
It opened quietly, with Lieutenant Gillespie's secret messages carried overland to the American consul and to Frémont, and turned overt with Commodore Sloat's bloodless seizure of Monterey in July 1846, quickly followed by the occupation of Yerba Buena, Sonoma, Santa Barbara, San Pedro, San Diego, and Los Angeles. The easy conquest provoked a Californio uprising that autumn, and the hardest fighting came in the winter that followed, at San Pasqual, San Gabriel, and La Mesa, before the Americans reentered Los Angeles in January 1847. The squadron then carried the war down the coast, taking Guaymas, Mazatlán, and the Baja California ports, and holding small isolated garrisons there against Mexican counterattacks into 1848. Marines furnished landing parties and garrisons throughout the campaign.
Engagements in this conflict (22) Podcast episodes on Mexican-American War
Record no. 324