376 : The Atlantic 



terey, San Diego, San Francisco and finally secured Los Angeles in 

 1847. 



In the Atlantic the navy was also kept busy. Land fighting had 

 been going on in the large vague area along and beyond the Rio 

 Grande without notable result. Then the fleet under Commodore 

 Matthew Calbraith Perry was called on to transport a large force to 

 Vera Cruz to take that port by a naval action and support the troops 

 on their way to Mexico City. As a preliminary step the navy took 

 Tampico and Panuco. Then the land force was transported to Vera 

 Cruz and on March 9 12,000 troops were landed three miles south of 

 the city. After four days of shelling by smaller naval vessels and by 

 shore batteries landed from the larger ships and by army batteries, the 

 city surrendered on March 29, 1847. Other ports in Mexico and Yuca- 

 tan were taken by the navy to cut off any flow of arms to the Mexi- 

 can forces. Mexico City, attacked by army and marine troops, was 

 taken in September and the peace of Guadelupe-Hidalgo was signed 

 on February 2, 1848 under which the northern boundary of Mexico 

 was fixed at the Rio Grande and California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona 

 (parts) New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming becoming United States 

 territory. 



The newly acquired territories in the west kindled considerable 

 interest in men's minds even in the Atlantic seaboard states and this 

 broke into flash fire when gold was discovered in California. This 

 gave that added impetus that made the Fifties the flashing culmina- 

 tion of America's rapid development as the world's foremost mari- 

 time nation. That sweep carried America forward until almost with- 

 out realizing it she was in a depression and on the eve of civil war. 



There is a general belief held particularly in the United States that 

 ironclad vessels appeared for the first time during the American Civil 

 War and that the duel between the Monitor and the Merrimac was 

 notable because it was the first engagement fought by this type of ves- 

 sel. As a matter of fact it was during the Crimean War that ironclad 

 vessels were first developed and first demonstrated their effectiveness 

 in battle. 



In 1853 Czar Nicholas assembled his men in ships for a campaign 

 against Turkey with the object of capturing Constantinople. This did 

 not at all appeal to England and France who promptly came to Tur- 

 key's assistance. The first naval engagement was that of Sinope dur- 

 ing which the Russians, using newly developed shell guns, practically 

 wiped out the wooden navy of the Turks, destroying ten vessels out 

 of a fleet of eleven. The three allies had to accept the fact that the new 



