Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very good in Good jacket. xxi, [1], 246, [6] pages. Color frontis. Footnotes. Maps. Appendix 1. The Pacific Squadron in 1846. Appendix 2. Muster Roll of the Portsmouth. Index. Minor soiling noted. Howard Roberts Lamar (born November 18, 1923) is a historian of the American West. In addition to being Sterling Professor of History Emeritus at Yale University since 1994, he served as Acting President of Yale University from 1992 to 1993. The second USS Portsmouth was a wooden sloop-of-war in the United States Navy in service during the mid-to-late 19th century. She was designed by Josiah Barker on the lines of a French-built privateer, and built at the Portsmouth Navy Yard, directly across the Piscataqua River from Portsmouth, New Hampshire. She was described as an improvement over USS Saratoga built in the same shipyard a year earlier. Portsmouth was launched on 23 October 1843 and commissioned on 10 November 1844, with Commander John Berrien Montgomery in command. Portsmouth had an important role during the Mexican-American War, seizing the port of Yerba Buena (today's San Francisco) from Mexico. She had set sail on 25 January 1845 from Norfolk, Virginia, on a cruise around Cape Horn to join the Pacific Squadron under the command of Commodore John D. Sloat. Upon arriving off the Departamento de Las Californias coast, with Lieutenant Benjamin F. B. Hunter as her Sailing Master, she was initially engaged in watching the movements of British vessels there to prevent the possibility of Great Britain acquiring the region during any conflict between the U.S. and Mexico. After the declaration of war with Mexico, a detachment of Marines under the command of Second Lieutenant Henry Bulls Watson rowed ashore on 9 July 1846, marched to the pueblo's main plaza, and raised the American flag, thereby seizing the city. In the square there is a US Flag and a commemorative plaque set by the Daughters of the American Revolution.