PBA Galleries

[6], [1] 2-444 pp. (vo) 23.5x16 cm (9¼x6¼"), contemporary three-quarter red sheep over mottled boards, marbled edges. First Edition , from a press run of about fifty copies that were never offered for sale. 

One of the most important accounts of the naval war in California. These documents, of course, present a far more relaxed and intimate tone than his official dispatches. Du Pont (1803-1865) was a career naval officer who went on to serve in the Civil War on the Southern blockade. He was relieved of his command after a failed attack on Charleston, South Carolina.

“These extracts from DuPont’s journal and letters, privately printed for his family by his wife after his death, are a valuable and almost unknown account of the United States Naval operations in the Pacific and Gulf of California in the Mexican War. After conveying Fremont and his battalion from Monterey to San Diego and participating in the taking of San Blas, DuPont entered the Gulf of California, seized La Paz, and at Guaymas burned the Mexican fleet. Within a few months, he had cleared the Gulf, and in 1847 aided Commodore Shubrick in the occupation of Mazatlan, and later led his ‘troops’ to the rescue of the American forces at Mission San Jose. DuPont’s official dispatches and letters had been printed at Wilmington in 1883, but these private journals and letters are of even greater interest” (Streeter). He includes this brief and blunt assessment: “I think the appointment of Fremont wrong and unnecessary” (p. 166).