corner bastions with a brick lighthouse, a cavalier (an interior fortress raised to fire over the main parapet), and a demilune on the seaward side with flanking redoubts and moats. The armament included 187 guns and the garrison, 1,200 men. Contemporaries considered it well-nigh impregnable, the “Gibraltar of America.” While that had been true theretofore, troubling disadvantages were evident to knowledgeable observers. The coral block walls were not likely to stand up to a sustained pounding by modern shell guns, there were almost no interior casemates to provide lateral protection to the gun crews, the artillery was small caliber and badly mounted, the gunpowder was inferior, and the men were poorly trained conscripts. The French fleet arrived in March, and the King’s Minister to Mexico, Baron Antoine-Louis Deffaudis, formally presented a list of demands to Bustamante that included payment of the debt by 15 April, the release of any French citizens held in Mexican jails, and the removal of “certain offending officials.” Bustamante labeled the demands “un verdadero libelo” (a true libel) and put his trust in el vomito and strong northers to drive away the enemy. In response, the French suspended diplomatic relations and blockaded Veracruz. Just as Bustamante had hoped, disease and storm afflicted the fleet, but it did not withdraw, and the standoff remained unresolved into the fall. Eager to force a conclusion, Louis-Phillipe sent more ships under Rear Admiral Charles Baudin. By October, two
Positions of French naval ships during the bombardment of the fort on 27 November 1838. This map was printed in an 1888 book on Admiral Baudin by Edmond Jurien de La Gravière, director of charts for the French navy and a prolific author on French naval history. dozen French vessels were holding station offshore, including transports loaded with 4,000 troops; three frigates armed with fearsome Paixhans shell guns; two bomb ketches; a sloop-of-war; two steamers, the Phaeton and the Météor, each boasting 160 horsepower engines; and a handsome twenty-four-gun corvette named La Créole under the command of the King’s son, twenty-year-old François d’Orléans, Prince of Joinville. Since the Mexicans were determined not to fire first, Baudin took the opportunity to dispatch crews in longboats to take soundings right up to the walls of San Juan de Ulúa. On hand to protect American interests was USS Erie, a trim sloop-of-war commanded by Captain David Glasgow Farragut. Before the hostilities started, the young American officer took the opportunity to visit the French admiral’s 52-gun flagship Néréide. He was impressed by Rear Admiral Charles Baudin (1784–1854) led the French assault on Veracruz.
Baudin, a balding, 53-year-old, one-armed fighter who had seen service in the Napoleonic Wars. Baudin, a master seaman and strategist, openly shared his plans. After an hour in his company, Farragut opined that he would have been a “rara avis in any navy.” He admired the admiral’s battleready decks, everything shipshape and squared away. He took particular interest in the 32-pounder guns equipped with new percussion locks, “no spring, no machinery, in fact, nothing that can become deranged” and expected the coming contest to be one-sided and short. The French had set 27 November as their new deadline, after which “war or peace would immediately follow.” Guessing that diplomacy had run its course, Farragut had his blue jackets embark all US citizens and their valuables. As expected, Bustamante was in no mood to concede anything to Baudin. On the appointed day Farragut anchored safely off to one side and watched as the Phaeton and Météor towed the frigates into the most advantageous positions.
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