Combat· Mexican-American War
Landing at Burrita on the Rio Grande
The first American amphibious landing of the war, an unopposed move up the river.
On 18 May 1846 a party of about two hundred Marines and sailors from the Cumberland and Potomac took to small boats and pulled some fifteen miles up the Rio Grande from its mouth to land at Burrita. The Mexican force posted there withdrew before the Americans came ashore, so the landing was made without a fight. The operation showed American command of the river mouth and lent weight to General Taylor's pressure on Matamoros, further upstream. No casualties resulted. Modest as it was, the Burrita landing was the navy and Marines' first step ashore in the war, an early demonstration of the amphibious reach that would be used to far greater effect later at Vera Cruz, and a marker of American control over the lower Rio Grande from the outset of the conflict.
Podcast episodes on Mexican-American War
Record no. 348