Mexican War Midshipmen's Monument

The United States Naval Academy was established in response to a mutiny. In 1842, two sailors and a midshipman made a "determined attempt to commit a mutiny" aboard the brig USS Somers.[2] Although the mutiny was prevented and the three ringleaders hung, the Somers affair caused widespread concern among American leaders and naval officers. Deciding that young naval midshipmen needed proper training and discipline before taking to sea, in 1845 a Naval School was established at Annapolis, Maryland. The Naval School eventually became the United States Naval Academy in 1850, following the Mexican-American War.

During the Mexican-American War, the U.S. Navy's primary role was to blockade Mexico's Gulf ports. The Navy also assisted in bombarding Mexican coastal fortifications (notably at the port of Vera Cruz), chasing down blockade runners, and helping secure American control of California. The Mexican War memorial on Naval Academy grounds honors the four U.S. Navy midshipmen who died during the conflict: Henry A. Clemson, John R. Hynson, J. Wingate Pillsbury, and Thomas Branford Shubrick.

Midshipmen Henry A. Clemson and John R. Hynson served aboard the USS Somers during the war, the same ship which suffered attempted mutiny just four years before. The Somers was commanded by Lieutenant Raphael Semmes, who later gained notoriety as the commander of the Confederate commerce raider Alabama. Midshipmen Hynson proved a "promising officer."[3] In late 1846, he helped lead a nighttime raid along the coast of Vera Cruz, burning a Mexican merchant ship just under the walls of the fortress San Juan de Ulúa. Midshipman Henry Clemson served as the Somers' Acting Sailing-Master.

On December 10, 1846, the Somers was chasing a blockade runner when it was hit by a sudden squall. The ship capsized and sank within ten minutes. A boat was launched from the Somers with enough room only for men who couldn't swim. Midshipmen Hynson, suffering a burn from his raid on the merchant ship, was offered a place in the boat but refused. He drowned. Sailing-Master Clemson joined five other men in grabbing a piece of the ship's boom when the ship sank, but "being a swimmer, and perceiving that the boom was not sufficiently buoyant to support them all, he left it, and struck out alone."[3] He drowned also. Only half the Somers' crew survived.

Midshipmen Thomas Branford Shubrick, who hailed from seafaring family, and J. Wingate Pillsbury were both assigned to the USS Mississippi, the flagship of Commodore Matthew C. Perry. Midshipman Pillsbury drowned off the coast of Vera Cruz on July 24, 1846. Midshipman Shubrick participated in the bombardment of Vera Cruz eight months later in March 1847. Hoping to capture the city prior to invading central Mexico, the U.S. Army and Navy coordinated in besieging the city. The Army's guns proved insufficient to pierce the city's walls. Commodore Perry agreed to send six large naval guns ashore with gun crews; Midshipmen Shubrick commanded one of the guns. On March 25, 1847, in the midst of directing fire from his artillery piece, Shubrick was slain.

To honor their four fallen comrades, in 1848 the midshipmen of the Naval School erected a monument on their behalf. It was the first monument erected on Naval School grounds. The Mexican War Midshipmen's Monument consists of a marble obelisk decorated with bronze wreaths. The obelisk sits atop a square marble base, with four cannon tubes standing vertically at the base's corners. Surrounding the monument are four cannons captured by the U.S. Navy during the war. Just two years after the monument's erection, the Naval School was officially designated the United States Naval Academy.

The monument was restored in 2016, thanks to a gift of the Naval Academy Class of 1986.

1. "Mexican War Midshipmen's Monuments." Smithsonian Institution Research Information System (SIRIS). Web. Accessed September 28, 2020. https://siris-artinventories.si.edu

2. "A Brief History of USNA." United States Naval Academy. Web. Accessed September 28, 2020. https://www.usna.edu/USNAHistory/index.php

3. Raphael Semmes. Service Afloat and Ashore during the Mexican War. Cincinnati, OH: William H. Moore & Co., 1851. Web. Digitized. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433081801312&view=1up&seq=7&q1=Clemson

4. James Grant Wilson and John Fiske, eds. Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography. Vol. 5. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1888. Web. Digitized. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89001522226&view=1up&seq=17

5. "Restoration of the Mexican War Midshipmen's Monument." September 9, 2016. Aeon Quarterly. Aeon Preservation Services. Web. Accessed September 28, 2020. https://aeonquarterly.wordpress.com/2016/09/09/restoration-of-the-mexican-war-midshipmens-monument/

6. K. Jack Bauer. The Mexican War, 1846-1848. 1974. Reprint. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992.