Knickerbocker Commodore , livre ebook

Knickerbocker Commodore
John Drake Sloat. (Braun Research Collection, Autry National Center, Los Angeles; 92.140.1detail.)
Knickerbocker Commodore
The Life and Times of John Drake Sloat, 1781–1867
BRUCE A. CASTLEMAN
Cover image of Commodore John Drake Sloat, unknown artist, 1846.
Courtesy of the Navy Art Collection, Naval History and Heritage Command.
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2016 State University of New York
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Marketing, Fran Keneston
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Castleman, Bruce A., author.
Knickerbocker commodore : the life and times of John Drake Sloat, 1781–1867 / Bruce A. Castleman.
pages cm. — (Excelsior editions)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4384-6151-9 (hardcover : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4384-6153-3 (e-book)
1. Sloat, John D. (John Drake). 2. Mexican War, 1846–1848—Biography. 3. Ship captains—United States—Biography. 4. United States. Navy—Officers—Biography. 5. Monterrey, Battle of, Monterey, Mexico, 1846. I. Title.
E403.1.S6C37 2016
973.6'2092—dc23 [B] 2015036645
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Penny Castleman
Contents
List of Illustrations
Preface
1. Indecision at Monterey?
2. Upstate Knickerbocker
3. Mr. Midshipman Sloat
4. Schooner Skipper
5. Sailing Master
6. Blockaded Lieutenant
7. The First Luff
8. Pirates in the Caribbean
9. New York Interlude
10. South American Cruise
11. Beached in New York
12. Portsmouth Commandant
13. Mexican California
14. Squadron Command
15. Norfolk and Retirement
Conclusions
Appendix A. General Order to Men Landing at Monterey
Appendix B. Proclamation of the Annexation of California to the United States
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Illustrations
Figures John Drake Sloat 2.1. Birthplace of John Drake Sloat 3.1. United States Frigate President, by Jean-Jérôme Baugean, ca. 1814 4.1. Detail of New York from Long Island , unknown artist, ca. 1800 4.2. View of the Great Harbor of Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe 5.1. USS United States under Full Sail , unknown artist 5.2. Main deck of the frigate USS Constitution 5.3. USS United States and HMS Macedonian, unknown artist after Thomas Birch 6.1. Detail from map of Long Island Sound 7.1. Rio de Janeiro , ca. 1860 7.2. James Biddle, Esq., of the United States Navy 8.1. Capture of the Privateer Palmira by the USS Schooner Grampus, by Irwin Bevan 8.2. Map of the West Indies 8.3. Wanted poster for the pirate Roberto Cofresí 9.1. South St. from Maiden Lane , by William James Bennett, 1828 9.2. City of Washington from beyond the Navy Yard , by William James Bennett, ca. 1832 10.1. Map of South America, ca. 1830 10.2. Guayaquil , ca. 1860 10.3. Detail of View of Callao , ca. 1817 11.1. Broadway, New-York , by T. Marner, 1836 11.2. Interior of the Park Theatre , by John Searles, 1822 11.3. View of Brighton, Staten Island, New York , unknown artist, 1857 11.4. Matthew Calbraith Perry , by William Sidney Mount, 1835 11.5. “James Fenimore Cooper,” engraving by E. Scriven 12.1. View of the United States Navy Yard at Portsmouth, N.H. , unknown artist, 1853 12.2. John and Abby Sloat 13.1. A California Wedding Party in 1845 , by Emmanuel Wyttenbach 13.2. Mission San Juan Bautista 13.3. Juan Bautista Alvarado 13.4. José Castro 14.1. Commodore John Drake Sloat , unknown artist, 1846 14.2. Thomas O. Larkin 14.3. John C. Frémont 14.4. Monterey customs house, mid-nineteenth century 14.5. Map of Northern California, 1849 14.6. Robert Field Stockton 15.1. U.S. Navy Yard at Mare Island, California , 1855 15.2. Stevens Battery 15.3. Rear Admiral John Drake Sloat, 1866
Table 12.1. Daily Wage Rates at the Portsmouth Navy Yard, November 1842
Preface
L et me state emphatically and unequivocally at the outset that I consider the 1846–1848 war with Mexico to have been a war of aggression on the part of the United States against a weaker neighbor. This book is in no way intended to justify the Mexican War, even though it is a biography of a United States Navy officer who played an important role in the conquest of Mexican California. By accepting the role of his biographer, I sought to understand how the commodore in command came to be the man that he was, and in so doing, to contribute to the historiography of the antebellum United States and its navy.
Rear Admiral John Drake Sloat is one of those historical actors whose memory has receded from common recognition into the fog of historical recollection. Like a number of my Latin Americanist colleagues who also trained in United States history, I shifted my research focus northward after retiring from university teaching. While reading California history looking for a new research possibility, I came across the controversies surrounding Sloat’s actions at Monterey in command of the United States Navy’s Pacific Squadron. I have been fortunate to have had two distinct careers in my adult life, and the first was as a seagoing officer in the United States Navy for twenty years. Commodore Sloat, to use the rank title by which he is more commonly remembered, stood at an intersection of my own background and interests. So I ended up researching the life of a New Yorker whose trail of records is mostly on the opposite coast of the one on which I live.
Because the sources were scattered far and wide, I traveled to many places and piled up a large debt to many people and institutions, only some of whom can be named here. W. Jeffrey Bolster, Michael Crawford, Todd Creekman, Timothy Francis, John Schroeder, and Gene Smith all encouraged me in this work and provided their insights into maritime and navy history. Christine Hunefeldt and Charles Walker encouraged me in this project and helped me to deepen my knowledge of Andean history in the nineteenth century. Cornelia Bush, Ann Roche, Jean Krish, and Pat Schwetje found documents and guided me through records of local institutions of Goshen, New York. Diane Norman did the same for Norwich, Connecticut. Frank Sloat, a distant cousin of the admiral, kindly shared his genealogical research. Robert Chandler pointed me toward sources about antebellum mail steamers. Wayne Franklin, Rochelle Tuck, and Jeff Walker shared their understanding of James Fenimore Cooper. Steven Lubar shared his work on the Naval Lyceum even before it appeared in print. David Pelfrey of the National Park Service cleared up some misconceptions that this steamship sailor had about sailing ship equipment.
A work of this sort could never be done without the help of archivists and librarians, and I have enjoyed the collegial cooperation of so many. Christopher Damiani of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania provided letters of Thomas Truxtun. Eileen Keremitsis and Allison Moore of the California Historical Society’s North Baker Research Library, Gina Bardi and Ted Miles of the San Francisco Maritime National Historic Park Research Center, Jennifer Bryan of the U.S. Naval Academy Nimitz Library Special Collections Branch, and Janice Torbet of the San Francisco Public Library all pointed me in the right direction on a variety of topics. I also thank the San Francisco Public Library for its support through its own extensive collections, and for obtaining many necessary books from other libraries. I am also indebted to the staffs of the New York Public Library, the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library of the New-York Historical Society, the Library of Congress, the Bancroft Library, the libraries of the University of California at Berkeley and at Davis, the Episcopal Diocese of New York, and the Athenaeum of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. As a naval officer, John Drake Sloat was a federal person and so most of his paper trail lies in the various branches of the National Archives of the United States. Trina Yeckley of the Northeast Region–New York branch first showed me how to wend my way through the system. I also benefited from the assistance of the staffs at Archives I and Archives II in Washington, D.C., and the branches in Waltham, Massachusetts; in Philadelphia; and in San Bruno, California.
I also thank the editorial staff of the State University of New York Press and am especially indebted to Amanda Lanne-Camilli and Jessica Kirschner for their support of the wide range of efforts required to bring this book into existence. Each of the two anonymous peer reviewers provided incisive and insightful comments on the manuscript. Of course, I alone bear complete responsibility for any errors or shortcomings that remain.
The illustrations for this book became a sort of extra chapter unto themselves. My thanks go out to Marilyn Van Winkle of the National Autry Center, Claudia Jew of the Mariners Museum, Karen Paige and Keli Skoglund of the California State Library, Tracie Logan of the U.S. Naval Academy Museum, and at the Navy History and Heritage Command, Pam Overmann, curator of the Navy Art Collection, and Lisa Crunk, curator of the NHHC photograph collection.
Iris Engstrand helped develop my interests in California histor