page_title: Pig War (1859)
section_title: Military escalation
hierarchical_section_title: Pig War (1859) / Military escalation
caption_attribution_description: English: The redoubt had a commanding view of San Juan Island's southern tip and the water approaches to the prairie from Griffin bay (left) and the Strait of Juan de Fuca
context_page_description: The Pig War was a confrontation in 1859 between the United States and the United Kingdom over the British–U.S. border in the San Juan Islands, between Vancouver Island and the State of Washington. The Pig War, so called because it was triggered by the shooting of a pig, is also called the Pig Episode, the Pig and Potato War, the San Juan Boundary Dispute and the Northwestern Boundary Dispute. Aside from the death of one pig, this dispute was a bloodless conflict.
context_section_description: Brigadier General William S. Harney, commanding the Department of Oregon, initially dispatched Captain George Pickett and 66 American soldiers of the 9th Infantry Regiment under Pickett’s command, to San Juan Island with orders to prevent the British from landing; the regiment sailed aboard USS Massachusetts. Concerned that a squatter population of Americans would begin to occupy San Juan Island if the Americans were not kept in check, the British sent three warships under the command of Captain Geoffrey Hornby to counter the Americans. Pickett was quoted as saying defiantly, "We'll make a Bunker Hill of it," placing him in the national limelight. Pickett sited his company and battery near the Hudson's Bay Company's Belle Vue sheep farm located near today's Cattle Point Light, and directly under the guns of HMS Satellite, a British ship. When this tactical error was pointed out, Capt Pickett moved his battery of cannon a few miles north to high ground overlooking both Griffin Bay and the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and commenced to build a redoubt for his cannon. 
  Pickett established the American Camp near the south end of San Juan Island, today one of two historical sites on the island, the other being the British Camp, manned by the Royal Marines on the north end of the island. The camp redoubt was built under the supervision of new West Point graduate 2nd Lieutenant Henry Martyn Robert; Robert went on to become a General in the Army of the Potomac during the American Civil War and author of Robert's Rules of Order. Robert's Redoubt is considered the best-preserved fortification of its kind in the United States. (To the east is Jackle's Lagoon, named for George Jackle, a soldier stationed at the American Camp.)
  The situation continued to escalate. By August 10, 1859, 461 Americans with 14 cannons under Colonel Silas Casey were opposed by five British warships mounting 70 guns and carrying 2,140 men.
  The governor of the Colony of Vancouver Island, James Douglas, ordered British Rear Admiral Robert L. Baynes to land marines on San Juan Island and engage the American soldiers under the command of Brigadier-General Harney. (Harney's forces had occupied the island since July 27, 1859.) Baynes refused, deciding that "two great nations in a war over a squabble about a pig" was foolish. Local commanding officers on both sides had been given essentially the same orders: defend yourselves, but absolutely do not fire the first shot. For several days, the British and U.S. soldiers exchanged insults, each side attempting to goad the other into firing the first shot, but discipline held on both sides, and thus no shots were fired.
caption: The redoubt had a commanding view of San Juan Island's southern tip and the water approaches to the prairie from Griffin bay (left) and the Strait of Juan de Fuca
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