San Juan Island
National Historic Park
Washington
American Camp

American Camp really began on a grassy slope about 200 yards from the shoreline of Griffin Bay. That’s where Captain George E. Pickett and Company D, 9th Infantry landed on July 27, 1859. With the first tent stake, Pickett established an American military presence on San Juan Island that lasted 14 years.

The Virginian changed locations after only three days, perhaps in a quest for level ground but more likely because of the British naval guns looking down his throat. It wasn’t until the August 10 arrival of reinforcements under command of Lieutenant Colonel Silas Casey that the post found its permanent home. Casey decided to move after two stormy nights at Pickett’s second camp.

Casey was not impressed with the new site. "We are encamped in rather exposed situation with regard to the wind, being at the entrance of the Straits of Fuca. The weather at times is already quite inclement."

On August 22, Casey ordered his growing force (now 450 men) to pull up stakes and relocate to the north slope of the ridge just north of the Hudson’s Bay Company barns — once home to the pig that strayed and started the whole mess two months before. Casey ordered large, conical Sibley tents shipped from Fort Steilacoom to the new site which Casey deemed, "a very good position for an entrenched camp."

The tents would supplement the clapboard buildings Pickett had already shipped over from
Fort Bellingham, among these the hospital, barracks, laundress and officers quarters. The veteran colonel also ordered Corps of Engineers Second Lieutenant Henry Martyn Robert — late
r to achieve fame for his Rules of Order — to start work on a earthen fortification on the ridgetop east of the new camp with a commanding view of both strait and bay. Meanwhile, the British riding
at anchor in Griffin Bay were nothing short of impressed with the colonel’s enterprise. (continued below)

As a deterrent, the post served its purpose until November when Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott and British Columbia Gov. James Douglas finally agreed to a peaceful joint occupation by a company from each nation until the boundary dispute could be resolved. Casey and the bulk of the troops departed, along with the artillery from the redoubt. One company remained.

American Camp Monument

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