Battle of Monterey - Preliminaries

Preliminaries

Prior to the Mexican-American War the Californio forces had already driven the Mexican appointed Governor Manuel Micheltorena and most of his soldiers from Alta California. The Californio Governor, Pio Pico, with about 100 poorly armed and poorly equipped soldiers, was nominally in charge in Alta California and had consolidated his forces in Pueblo de Los Angeles—the largest city then in California with about 3,500 residents.

The main forces available to the United States in California were the about 400-500 bluejacket sailors and U.S. Marines on board the five ships of the Pacific Squadron there. Speculating that war with Mexico over Texas etc. was very possible, the U.S. Navy had sent several additional naval vessels to the Pacific in 1845 and 1846 to protect U.S. interests there and prevent possible British action. It took about 200 days, on average, for ships to travel the over-12,000 miles (19,000 km) trip from the East coast around Cape Horn to get to California. More ships assigned to the Pacific Squadron would continue to arrive from 1846 to 1847.

Hostilities between U.S. and Mexican forces had been underway in Texas since April 1846 resulting in a formal declaration of war on May 13, 1846, by the U.S. Congress. On May 17, 1846, unofficial word reached the U.S. Navy fleet of four vessels at anchor in the harbor of Mazatlan, Mexico, that hostilities had begun between Mexico and the United States. Commodore (Rear Admiral) John D. Sloat, commander of the U.S. Navy's Pacific Squadron, dispatched his flagship, the Frigate USS Savannah, and the Sloop USS Levant to Monterey harbor where they arrived on July 2, 1846. They joined the sloop USS Cyane which was already there. There were U.S. fears that the British might try to annex California to satisfy British creditors. The British Pacific Station's ships off California were stronger in ships, guns and men.