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2 Seasoning on the China Station Commander Schenck reports to me that the number of sick he now has (eight), his working force is so much reduced, as to render the Saginaw inefficient and not able to weigh her anchors. Cornelius Stribling, 1860 The pressing need for strengthening the East India Squadron led to a fair deal of anxiety among those waiting for Saginaw’s arrival in China. Secretary Toucey had envisioned a multipurpose antipiracy patrol vessel and had communicated this to Captain Stribling, who had just replaced Flag Officer Josiah Tattnall as commander of the squadron, regarding USS Saginaw’s future role. The broad objective made clear in Toucey’s instructions was the protection of trade with China, Japan, and India, and the enlargement of commercial intercourse, no small task for the gunboat. The protection of American whalers was also singled out as a specific concern . The chief threat, according to the admiral, was piracy: “The East India Squadron has heretofore been much embarrassed in its operations from the want of suitable steamers of light draught. The Saginaw which has been constructed for service in that squadron will in some measure supply that want. While answering other purposes of the squadron, she can be particularly useful in suppressing piracies, as her light draught will enable her to reach the retreats of those who commit them.”1 Fortunately, South Carolinian Cornelius Kinchiloe Stribling was an experienced officer of some accomplishment. He had entered the navy as a midshipman in 1812, and had served in the Pacific beginning back in 1840. Like Schenck, he was also a veteran of the Mexican-American War, having been fleet captain on board USS Ohio. Later, Commander Stribling presided over the newly named United States Naval Academy as its third superintendent, quadrupling its size and enhancing its military character 38 u A Civil War Gunboat in Pacific Waters during his term there. Prior to the opening of the academy at Annapolis in 1845, midshipmen had been sent somewhat informally to a kind of sailor’s home to study for their examinations, such as the naval asylum in Philadelphia. That was an institution that lacked discipline, where students either studied or not as they pleased. Before that, some candidates took their naval examinations at Barnum’s Hotel in Baltimore.2 American naval officers in those days were more likely to be self-educated, achieving the finer points of their knowledge by their own resources. Much of the strict cadence of military life now associated with the U.S. Naval Academy started with the dedicated efforts of officers like Commander Stribling. Stribling had fought piracy in the West Indies in the 1820s, and he harbored no fanciful illusions regarding the American presence in China, for in 1860 the U.S. Navy’s position there was shaped more by circumstance than by intention. At times, the East India Squadron was so small as to consist of a single vessel, though the locations for American commerce in China had increased. The Treaty of Tianjin, forced on the Chinese government by the conclusion of the Second Opium War, had been signed on June 26, 1858. The interior of China was now open to foreigners, as were more ports as well. The practice of Christianity was officially protected, and the opium trade brought by the West legalized. But the Chinese had balked at allowing foreign ambassadors to reside permanently in the northern capital of Beijing, as stipulated in the treaty. And yet the war was not truly over. A signed piece of paper could not pacify an empire falling into chaos. The British once more had attacked the Taku Forts (also called Peiho Forts) near Tianjin, the critical entrance to the waterway leading to the Grand Canal and to the northern capital, but had been temporarily repulsed. The Chinese had reinforced the forts after their initial defeat almost twenty years earlier. Negotiators sent to the emperor in Beijing were arrested by Qing imperial forces, and some were executed.3 British and French expeditionary forces were again gathering off northern China, and hostilities were about to begin anew. Thanks to the most-favored-nation clause, the French, Americans, and other Western noncombatants benefited equally from whatever further concessions British forces could secure. In a letter dated February 14, the flag officer on board the 2,550-ton screw sloop USS Hartford at Hong Kong warned Secretary Toucey of the inadequacy of the American naval forces. Hartford was alone on station. Stribling petitioned...

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