The First U.S. Korea War

ARCHIVES: Articles you should have read but missed the first time around—
The complicated (and tragic) story between America and Korea goes farther into the past than many would have assumed…

BY S. BRIAN WILLSON
The history of U.S. nineteenth century military intervention in Korea included the first American Korean War in 1871, a war noted by its belligerence. Five years earlier, in July 1866, a U.S. Merchant Marine ship, the General Sherman, a heavily armed ship with a mixed crew of U.S., British, and Chinese/Malay, including a Welsh/U.S. Protestant missionary, Robert Thomas, attempted to penetrate Korean waterways in pursuit of trade discussions and Christian evangelization. Denied permission to sail up the Taedong River leading to Pyongyang, the ship defied Korean authorities. Consequently, after four days of fighting, the ship was burned, and the 20 persons aboard killed.

The U.S. forces engaged Felice Beato as official photographer for the intervention. Beato was living in Yokohama, Japan at the time, and already was one of the most famous photographers in the world. Together with his assistant, Mr. H. Woollett, he took graphic pictures of the fighting at the Kanghwa beach area. Some of his photos are currently illustrated in KOREA: Caught in Time by Terry Bennett (Reading, UK: Garnet Publishing, 1997)