Combat· Mexican-American War
Loss of USS Truxtun off Tuxpan
A costly naval mishap on the Gulf coast.
On 17 August 1846 the brig USS Truxtun, newly arrived on station, ran hard aground off Tuxpan, Mexico, with a sergeant's guard of Marines aboard. Efforts to refloat the stranded vessel failed under the eyes of the Mexican forces ashore, and in the end the crew had no choice but to surrender. The Marines of the guard, about a dozen men, were taken with the rest of the company and held for a time as prisoners by the Mexicans before the brig itself was destroyed. No deaths are recorded among the Marines. The loss of the Truxtun was a real setback for the Home Squadron, costing it a warship without a fight and complicating the later operations against Tuxpan, which the Americans would not take until the following spring, in the course of Perry's Gulf coast campaign of 1847.
Podcast episodes on Mexican-American War
Record no. 350