Combat· Mexican-American War
Stockton's occupations of Santa Barbara and San Pedro
The southward extension of the American occupation along the southern California coast.
In early August 1846 Commodore Robert Stockton, having taken over command of the squadron, brought the frigate USS Congress down the coast and landed parties of Marines and sailors to secure the southern ports. Santa Barbara was occupied on the 4th and San Pedro on the 6th, both taken without resistance. These bloodless landings put the chief coastal points of the south in American hands and gave Stockton his staging ground for the move inland, setting the stage for the first occupation of Los Angeles a week later by his combined force with Frémont. No casualties resulted. The operations were of a piece with the rapid, almost unopposed seizure of the California coast that summer, a sweep that masked, for a few weeks, the resistance soon to flare in the south.
Podcast episodes on Mexican-American War
Record no. 329