East India Squadron
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East India Squadron is a squadron of American ships which existed in the nineteenth century. In 1835, when the East India Squadron joined the force of the Pacific Squadron
[edit] Ships
USS Powhatan, under Commander William J. McCluney, was assigned to the East India Squadron and arrived on station via Cape of Good Hope 15 June 1853. Her arrival in Chinese waters coincided with an important phase of Commodore Matthew C. Perry’s negotiations for commercial relations with the Japanese and the opening of two ports. She was Perry’s flagship during his November visit to Whampoa. On 14 February 1854 she entered Yedo Bay with the rest of the squadron and the Treaty of Kanagawa was signed on her deck on 31 March 1854.
Assigned to the East India Squadron under Commodore Matthew Perry, the USS Macedonian with Capt. Joel Abbot in command, was one of the six American ships arrayed off Uraga, Japan, 13 February 1854 during Perry's second visit to negotiate the opening of Japan to foreign trade.
After completing her trials, which she began in January 1851, the side-wheel steamer USS Susquehanna sailed on 8 June for the Far East to become flagship of the East India Squadron.
The USS Dolphin got underway 6 May 1848 to join the East India Squadron, protecting American citizens in Asiatic waters.
Recommissioned on 12 August 1850, USS Saratoga got underway on 15 September and proceeded to the western Pacific for service in the East India Squadron.
USS Levant sailed 13 November for Rio de Janeiro, the Cape of Good Hope, and Hong Kong, where she arrived to join the East India Squadron 12 May 1856. On 1 July she embarked the U.S. Commissioner to China for transportation to Shanghai, arriving 1 August.
Departing Norfolk 4 August, the USS Germantown sailed via the Cape of Good Hope to Ceylon, where on 22 December she joined Flag Officer Josiah Tattnall's East India Squadron off Point de Gala. For 2 years she cruised Far Eastern waters and visited the principal ports of China and Japan, where she found "uniform friendly reception" as the squadron guarded American interests in the Orient. Sailing via the Cape of Good Hope, she returned to Norfolk in April 1860
After a four-day stop at Singapore, where Commodore Armstrong relieved Commodore Joel Abbot in command of the East India Squadron, the frigate USS San Jacinto reached the bar off the mouth of the Me Nam (later the Chao Phraya) River.
The new side-wheel steamer USS Saginaw sailed from San Francisco Bay on 8 March 1860, headed for the western Pacific, and reached Shanghai, China, on 12 May. She then served in the East India Squadron, for the most part cruising along the Chinese coast to protect American citizens and to suppress pirates. She visited Japan in November but soon returned to Chinese waters. On 30 June 1861, she silenced a battery at the entrance to Qui Nhon Bay, Cochin China, which had fired upon her while she was searching for the missing boat and crew of American bark, Myrtle. On 3 January 1862, Saginaw was decommissioned at Hong Kong
[edit] Commanders
James Armstrong served as the Commodore of the East India Squadron in 1855 during the Second Opium War.
Andrew Hull Foote commanded USS Portsmouth in the East India Squadron on November 20–21, 1856. Foote led a landing party that seized the barrier forts at Canton, China, in reprisal for attacks on American ships.
At Hong Kong on 29 January 1858, Commodore Josiah Tattnall relieved Commodore James Armstrong of command of the East India Squadron, breaking his flag in San Jacinto. During his two years in the Far East, Commodore Tattnall came to the assistance of a British squadron under fire from the Barrier Forts at the mouth of the Pei Ho River and, on his return voyage early in 1860, carried the first diplomatic embassy from Japan to the United States.
After two years as Commander of the East India Squadron, Capt. Cornelius Stribling returned home in 1861 to find the Union rent asunder by the Civil War.
[edit] Served in squadron
Also serving in the squadron at one time were:
- Thomas O. Selfridge
- John Pope
- Edward Terry served in the sloop Germantown, attached to the East India Squadron, from 1857 to 1859.
- William M. Wood served as fleet surgeon with the East India Squadron from 1856 to 1858
- Montgomery Sicard
