Combat· American Civil War
Salvador capture
An anti-raider operation in the Pacific in the closing months of the war.
In November 1864 Marines under Captain David Cohen, from the steam frigate USS Lancaster of the Pacific Squadron, took part in the capture of the steamer Salvador off the Bay of Panama, on intelligence that Confederate agents aboard meant to seize her and turn her into a commerce raider on the Pacific coast. The boarding party took the suspected agents and the vessel was sent in for adjudication before a prize court. No casualties resulted; the affair was a clean preemptive seizure. It was characteristic of the Pacific Squadron's work in the war's final phase, guarding the western sea lanes and the isthmus crossing against Confederate schemes to carry the commerce war into the Pacific. The capture of the Salvador headed off one such attempt before it could begin, a small but useful stroke far from the main theaters.
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Record no. 457