The other two forts below the citadel being open to the rear from the main work were easily entered, no regular resistance being offered. The results of the forty-eight hours on shore, eighteen of which were spent in the field, were the capture of five forts—probably the strongest in the kingdom—fifty flags, four hundred and eighty-one pieces of artillery, chiefly jingals, and a large number of matchlocks. Of the artillery eleven pieces were 32,– fourteen were 24,– two were 20,– and the remaining four hundred and fifty-four were 2- and 4-pounders. The work of destruction was carried on and made as thorough as fire, axe, and shovel could make [[418]]it. A victory was won, of which the American navy may feel proud. Zeal, patience, discipline, and bravery characterized men and officers in all the movements.
The wounded were moved to the Monocacy. The forts were occupied all Sunday night, and early on Monday morning the whole force was re-embarked in perfect order, in spite of the furious tide, rising twenty feet. The fleet moved down the stream with the captured colors at the mast-heads and towing the boats laden with the trophies of victory. Reaching the anchorage at half past ten o’clock, they were greeted with such ringing cheers of their comrades left behind as made the woodlands echo again.
Later in the day, Dennis Hendrin (or Hanrahan) and Seth Allen, the two men slain in the fight, were buried on Boisée Island, and the first American graves rose on Corean soil. At 5.45 P.M. McKee breathed his last.[7]
Yet the odds of battle were dreadful—three graves against heaps upon heaps of unburied slain. Well might the pagan ask: “What did Heaven mean by it?”
The native wounded were kindly cared for, and their broken bones mended, by the fleet surgeon, Dr. Mayo. Admiral Rodgers, in a letter to the native authorities, offered to return his prisoners. The reply was in substance: “Do as you please with them.” The prisoners were therefore set ashore and allowed to dispose of themselves.
Admiral Rodgers having obeyed to the farthest limit the orders given him, and all hope of making a treaty being over, two of the ships, withal needing to refit, the fleet sailed from the anchorage off Isle Boisée the day before the fourth of July, arriving in Chifu on the morning of July 5th, after thirty-five days’ stay in Corean waters. He arrived in time to hear of the Tientsin massacre, which had taken place June 20th. “Our little war with the heathen,” as the New York Herald styled it, attracted slight notice in the United States. A few columns of news and comment from the metropolitan press, a page or two of woodcuts in an illustrated newspaper, the ringing of a chime of jests on going up Salt River (Salée), and [[419]]the usual transmission of official documents, summed up the transient impression on the American public.
In China the expedition was looked upon as a failure and a defeat. The popular Corean idea was, that the Americans had come to avenge the death of pirates and robbers, and, after several battles, had been so surely defeated that they dare not attempt the task of chastisement again. To the Tai-wen Kun the whole matter was cause for personal glorification. The tiger-hunters and the conservative party at court believed that they had successfully defied both France and America, and driven off their forces with loss. When a Scotch missionary in Shing-king reasoned with a Corean concerning the power of foreigners and their superiority in war, the listener’s reply, delivered with angry toss of the head and a snap of the fingers, was: “What care we for your foreign inventions? Even our boys laugh at all your weapons.” [[420]]
[1] Mr. Low, who had served one term in Congress and as governor of California from 1864 to 1868, had been chosen by President Grant to be minister to China the year before, 1869, was new to his duties. He was in the prime of life, being fifty-two years of age. All his despatches show that Chō-sen was as unknown to him as Thibet or Anam, and from the first he had scarcely one ray of hope in the success of the mission. [↑]
[2] Admiral Rodgers left New York, April 9, 1869, with the Colorado and Alaska. The Benicia had left Portsmouth March 2d, and the Palos set sail from Boston June 20th. These vessels, with the Monocacy and Ashuelot, were to form the Asiatic squadron of Admiral Rodgers. Of our vessels on the station during the previous year, two had returned home, two had been sold, the rotten Idaho was moored at Yokohama as a store-ship, and the Oneida, which had been sunk by the British mail-steamer Bombay, lay with her uncoffined dead untouched and neglected by the great Government of the United States. Admiral Rodgers was so delayed by repairs to the Ashuelot, that finally, in order to gain the benefit of the spring tides, had to sail without this vessel. [↑]