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1 A New Ship for a New Ocean [W]e in accord with the laws of progress—are destined to civilize and control those nations. . . . [I]t is here . . . upon this [Pacific] sea . . . the ocean bride of America, that the East and West will join hands and the great circle of civilization will be complete. Robert Schufeldt, 1870 Hardly any of us today would remember—though their grandparents may once have told them of it—a time when California and the west coast seemed as distant to most Americans as the moon. America was an east coast nation, and few initially felt themselves hardy enough to attempt the trek to, let alone survive, the distant and uncivilized western frontier. The west coast, and the Pacific beyond it, was therefore born late into the American public consciousness, and it took major events like the gold rush of 1848 to accomplish this. Freshly minted cities like San Francisco, therefore, traced their earliest roots to these few eventful decades in the mid-nineteenth century. Everyone heard the stories of the Wild West, but it all lay thousands of miles from the familiar world, and the boundaries of East Coast civilization. The origins of USS Saginaw lie with this great westward movement, with the need for America to project power, to sail in support of commerce , and to show the flag in new and remote corners of the globe. And at the midpoint of the nineteenth century, any location on the Pacific was truly remote. No easy passage between the coasts existed for travelers to San Francisco or the gold fields, no transcontinental railway blazed its trail across the mountains and deserts. Ships had been sailing down the South Atlantic and rounding Cape Horn amidst the mountainous seas and gales of the “roaring ’40s” for hundreds of years, and they typically received a tremendous beating on the route. To enter the Pacific they pushed westward, against the prevailing winds and seas of the circumpolar ocean, 10 u A Civil War Gunboat in Pacific Waters straining the rigging and spars. Ice and Antarctic waves swept their decks, breaking equipment and sailors alike. But there was no major shipyard established anywhere in that distant ocean, and no permanent naval presence. Prior to 1849, San Francisco (or Yerba Buena, as it was known) was a sleepy little town consisting of a few dwellings, a supply store, and a church. The non-native population at the time numbered fewer than four hundred people. Going overland, travelers usually left from either St. Joseph, Missouri, or Council Bluffs, Iowa, on covered-wagon treks lasting from two to three months. And “if the emigrants conduct themselves properly, no danger need be feared from any Indian tribes through which the road passes.”1 Of course, if one preferred to rely on the proven ’roundthe -Horn sailing route, passage could be made by clipper ship from New York to California, a distance of roughly 14,700 miles around the Cape, in three to four months. Slower (less expensive) merchant ships that did not feature the sleek lines and tall masts of the fastest clipper designs could add two more months to that estimate. Shorter and safer means were pursued as competition arose for facilitating passage between the coasts. This meant going by ship but still avoiding the Cape route—in other words, paying more and crossing to the Pacific over the mountains of Nicaragua or Panama. The Nicaragua Company’s route, as advertised by railroad magnate and shipping-line owner Cornelius Vanderbilt, consisted of a 2,000-mile steamship passage from New York to San Juan del Norte, and thence onto river steamers for a 52-mile ascent up the San Juan River to the Castillian Rapids, where passengers left their vessel to climb above the roaring obstacle and make another 27 miles on the river to Lake Nicaragua. After transiting 42 miles more on this lake, they arrived at Virgin Bay, where a 13-mile land crossing on a plank road brought them to San Juan del Sud on the Pacific Coast. Reboarding a steamship there left them with only a 2,800-mile leg up the coast to San Francisco. By modern standards, this was a hellishly long and dangerous journey. The Panama Route advertised passage from New York to Colón in Panama via either Kingston, Jamaica, or Havana, Cuba. Colón was soon renamed Aspinwall after Baltimore businessman William Henry Aspinwall, who in 1848 organized with partners the Pacific...

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