Montgomery and The Portsmouth

Originally published in 1958, this book tells the story of the capture of Yerba Buena, now San Francisco, and the first raising of the American flag in Mexican Territory in the conquest of what is now California. The leader of this battle was Commodore John B. Montgomery, 1794-1873, who led the attack from his flagship, the USS Portsmouth, built at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in 1843.

            Although Montgomery defeated the Mexicans without firing a single shot, the Portsmouth saw action in China, where she was hit in the hull and rigging eighteen times in a furious battle against the Canton forts in 1856. After a long career, serving in the Atlantic and the Pacific and as a Union vessel in the Civil War, the old ship was sold out of the Navy in 1915. Efforts to preserve the Portsmouth because of her age and importance in California history failed and she was burned in Boston Harbor in 1915.

            This limited edition reprint was produced to support the Portsmouth Historical Society and the John Paul Jones House Museum in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.