Chapters:

1. To Korea by Sea
2. Policy and its Instruments
3. War Begins
4. Help on the Way
5. Into the Perimeter
6. Holding the Line
7. Back to the Parallel
8. On to the Border
9. Retreat to the South
10. The Second Six Months
11. Problems of a Policeman
12. Two More Years

A Note on Source Material

Glossary of Naval Abbreviations

• Part 1. The Commodore's Treaty
• Part 2. The American Link
• Part 3. The Dominance of Japan
• Part 4. Return to Asia
• Source Notes

Part 1. The Commodore's Treaty

          As the sun rose from behind the Korean hills all was in readiness for the assault.  On the warships lying off Inchon plans and preparations were complete.  As morning wore on the boats were brought alongside and the landing force was embarked.  Upstream from the transport area Monocacy and the gunboats were already engaging enemy strong points, and toward mid-day, with the flooding tide, the landing craft left the anchorage and headed north.  At 1330, under cover of the continuing bombardment, the signal was given and the boats went in.  By 1345 the first wave of Marines was ashore and moving forward, while the boat crews and other members of the landing force struggled to get supporting weapons through the thick Korean mud and onto hard ground. So effective had been the bombardment that initial objectives on the heights overlooking the beaches were overrun without difficulty. By 1645 the artillery had been brought up, outposts were placed, the lines tied  in, and the force settled down to get such rest as it could prior to resuming the advance at first light. It was the 10th of June, 1871.

          The event is of some importance, if only for its illumination of the fact that the presence of the United States Navy in the Far East has been the alpha and omega of Korean-American relations. American naval activity was responsible for the opening of this distant nation and for its incorporation into the international system. When the decline of American interest resulted in naval withdrawal; Korean independence proved short-lived. In mid- 20th century the Navy's return to the Western Pacific was the precondition of Korean liberation from Japanese control; a second such return permitted the preservation of the Republic of Korea from Communist domination. Only through free access by sea can the United States wield influence upon this distant peninsula. When access is disputed only naval power can ensure it. The history of American relations with Korea has been in large degree a function of the availability of such power.

          The attack on the Korean forts in the summer of 1871 was one of the last acts of pre-industrial outward-looking America, the product of a pattern of overseas activity which dated back to the earliest days of the republic.  The importance of maritime trade to the young nation had led to the growth of a merchant marine second only, and barely so, to that of Great Britain, and had governed the development and activities of the United States Navy. Created to defend American commerce against the pirates of Algiers, the Navy developed into a police force for the seven seas, an instrument of scientific discovery, and a spearhead of western influence in distant places.  Campaigns against pirates were fought in the Mediterranean, the West Indies, and in China seas.  Exploring expeditions ranged the globe.  Naval diplomats sought commercial treaties from the princes of Barbary and the Sultan of Turkey, and the Mediterranean activities of Commodores Preble and Rodgers were followed by more famous efforts on the far side of the globe. As early as 1815 Commodore David Porter had proposed an expedition to the Pacific to open Japan, China, and surrounding territories to American commerce.  The suggestion was premature, and in China, at least, the merchants got there first without government help.  But the voyage of Edmund Roberts in Peacock, the activities of Commodore Kearny in China, and Perry's opening of Japan nevertheless bore witness to a navy and commercial policy of a remarkably forward nature for what was then one of the minor powers of the world.

          Although the  period of the Civil War brought the effective liquidation of the American merchant marine and a corresponding concentration on internal development, the old interest in the oceans and in what lay beyond them did not immediately disappear.  The decade after Appomattox, which brought the attack on the Korean forts, was an active one overseas.  These years saw the purchase of Alaska in the northwest, and proposals for the acquisition of Greenland and Iceland in the eastern approaches; interest was evidenced in the acquisition of a North African naval base; a reciprocity treaty was negotiated with Hawaii, and in Samoa an American agent became prime minister of that most beautiful of all kingdoms.  Divitis indiae usque ad ultimum sinum, the motto of the town of Salem, had been the operating motto of American merchants and sea captains and of the American Navy, and now at the end of a century of independence the uttermost gulf had been reached.  Across the Pacific, beyond the great bulge of the China coast and sheltered by the island screen that runs from Formosa to the empire of Japan, lay the Yellow Sea.  On its eastern shore, at the mouth of the River Han, stood the forts which guarded the capital of Korea, last of the isolated civilizations of earth.

          A generation before, Edmund Roberts had suggested that a Japanese treaty might lead to trade with Korea.  In the 1840's a resolution had been introduced in Congress urging the establishment of commercial relations with both countries.   But these proposals were nugatory, and in Korea, as so often elsewhere, the ultimately effective impulse to governmental action came not from home, but from the oversea activities of merchant marine and Navy.  In 1866 the American merchantman General Sherman was destroyed, and its crew massacred, in the Taedong River below Pyongyang. The report of this tragedy brought the dispatch of a ship of the Asiatic Squadron, the U.S.S., Wachusett, Commander Robert W. Shufeldt, to investigate the affair, and to communicate with the King of Korea.

          Shufeldt's mission proved fruitless, but the General Sherman incident led two successive commanders of the Asiatic Squadron, Rear Admirals Stephen C. Rowan and John Rodgers, to interest themselves in the possibility of a Korean treaty.  The latter's proposal of a naval expedition, modelled on that of Commodore Perry, brought government action, and the American minister to China was designated to carry out the negotiation in cooperation with the Squadron Commander.  Preparations were made, a force was assembled at Nagasaki, and on 30 May 1871 five United States ships of war, totaling 85 guns, dropped anchor off the mouth of the Han.

          For this procedure the Perry expedition was not the only precedent: in just such a manner an earlier John Rodgers had extorted a favorable treaty from the contumacious Bey of Tunis.  But the capital of the King of Korea, unlike that of the Bey, was upstream and beyond the range of naval guns; unlike the forces of the Bey, and indeed unlike the Japanese on the occasion of Perry's arrival, the Koreans opened fire; although Rodgers had strength enough to capture the forts he lacked that necessary to capture a treaty.  On 3 July, honor having been satisfied, the expedition withdrew.

          Nine years were to elapse before congressional pressure to obtain a treaty and the ambition of another naval officer to conclude it led to a second effort. In 1880 Commodore Shufeldt, who 14 years before had carried the first letter to the Korean King, returned to the Orient in the U.S.S. Ticonderoga with authority to treat.  Efforts to communicate with the Koreans through the government of Japan were unproductive, but in mid-summer an offer of assistance came from the Chinese viceroy Li Hung-chang.  China and Japan were currently at odds; as had been the case with other rulers subject to outside pressures, Li was desirous of American aid in developing his navy; in exchange for technical assistance he undertook to forward negotiations with Korea.  Shufeldt proceeded to China, advice and advisors were provided the Chinese, and talks with Li were begun.  In these discussions between Commodore and Viceroy may be seen some of the abiding realities of the situation: 71 years later, under very different circumstances, another American flag officer was to find himself negotiating with the Chinese concerning the future of Korea.

          Two years of complicated intrigue were required before Shufeldt could attain his goal.  But at last, on 22 May 1882, a treaty arranged in Tientsin by the Chinese Viceroy was signed on the Korean shore within view of the U.S.S. Swatara.  By this instrument, which provided for perpetual peace and friendship and for the exchange of diplomatic and consular representation, American citizens were granted trading rights, extraterritoriality, and most- favored-nation treatment.  The aims of commerce were satisfied and, as Shufeldt reported, the United States had brought "the last of the exclusive countries within the pale of western civilization."

          The movement to open Korea, with its inevitable impact on the equilibrium of eastern Asia, has been described as America's most important action in the Far East prior to the occupation of the Philippines.  Be this as it may, it was the last such action, and as such marked the end of an era both for the Navy and for the nation.  Industrialism was bringing the end of the period of free exchange of goods, the development of internal resources was replacing foreign trade as a prime source of wealth.  As nations became industrialized so did their navies, and the new complexities of maintenance, together with the new fuel problem, forced the fleets of the world to retire on their bases. With the development of new nationalisms the naval function shifted from one of exploring, opening, and policing to one of fighting.  Shufeldt had opened Korea, but although the Secretary of the Navy in 1884 urged the establishment of a naval station at Port Hamilton, off the southern Korean coast, and although it appears that such facilities were offered by the Korean government, nothing was done.  The next important American naval action in Asiatic waters came in 1898 in the Battle of Manila Bay.