A rare and imposing image of the Castle of San Juan d’Ulloa, a Mexican military fort which was occupied by American forces on 29 March, 1847, at the conclusion of the Battle of Veracruz. This print has the fort set against a backdrop of barren hills, surrounded by choppy seas and a handful of sailing ships. The capture of the fort was largely a diversionary tactic to occupy Mexican troops and allow american forces already ashore to march on to Veracruz.
“The keen interest evoked by dramatically unfolding events in the Mexican-American war led to an outpouring of images and imprints, attempting to sate the public’s deep need to know. … News of the conflict created great excitement, and publishers, printers, and mapmakers were quick to supply images and imprints to document a truly international event with resounding consequences“ (Sloan).
Nancy Finlay writes of the brief partnership between the publishers Kelloggs and Dwight Thayer: “this was an extremely productive period for the firm; more Kellogg prints survive from 1846-1847 than from any other comparable period of the firm?s existence. The Mexican War may have been a factor in increased competition between lithographers during the mid-1840s, in the Kelloggs’ decision to open an office in New York, and in their remarkable productivity during this period. A series of highly original and extremely interesting prints of the Mexican War bear the imprints both of Kelloggs & Thayer and E.B. & E.C. Kellogg, and, in some cases of Dwight Needham, who served as the Kelloggs? distributor in Buffalo, perhaps beginning as early 1845. Thayer continued to be involved in the distribution of Kellogg prints at least through the mid-1850s.”
OCLC locates a single copy at Yale. We find another at The Connecticut Historial Society.
Finlay, N., Picturing Victorian America: Prints by the Kellogg Brothers of Hartford, Connecticut, 1830-1880, 90; Finlay, N., “Some Evidence for the Sale and Distribution of Kellogg Prints” presented at The Ninth Annual Conference of the Program in Early American Economy and Society at the Library Company of Philadelphia, 15 October, 2010, p.5; Not in Garrett & Goodwin, Mexican-American War; Dorothy Sloan, Catalogue 23.
