Combat· Mexican-American War
Occupation of San Diego
A quiet but strategically vital step in the conquest of California.
On 29 July 1846 the sloop USS Cyane, under Commander Samuel Du Pont, arrived off San Diego carrying Frémont's California Battalion, which landed and occupied the town against no resistance, the Cyane's Marines supporting the operation. Among the Marines who served in the California operations was Lieutenant Jacob Zeilin, later the seventh Commandant of the Corps. The bloodless occupation gave the Americans a sheltered harbor at the southern end of the province, and San Diego soon proved its worth: it became the base from which General Kearny's exhausted Army of the West was relieved after the bloody fight at San Pasqual in December, and from which the final reconquest of southern California was mounted in January 1847. No casualties attended the occupation itself. San Diego's quiet seizure secured an anchor point for the whole southern California campaign.
Podcast episodes on Mexican-American War
Record no. 57