The "Pig War"
one company under Captain Lewis C. Hunt. Douglas accepted the arrangement on the condition that Pickett not be left in charge of that post. Before he left, Scott tried to persuade Harney to transfer to the Department of the West headquartered in St. Louis. Harney refused. When he returned to Washington D.C., Scott reported to Secretary of War John B. Floyd. He told him he had doubts about leaving Harney in command.
Governor Douglas told Admiral Baynes that he finally had received word from the British government directing him to occupy the island and to land the marines on shore immediately. Eighty-four men under Captain George Bazalgette landed and set up camp on the opposite end of the island. On April 10, 1860, Harney, furious that he had not been told about the joint occupation and that Pickett had been replaced, committed his final act of insubordination. In violation of Scott's direct orders he sent Company D under Pickett back to the island. When this news and the British protest reached Washington D.C., secretaries of war and state jointly agreed that Harney should be removed as soon as possible and that his command turned over to the next officer in rank. He was given command of the Department of the West in St Louis. But he was also recalled from that post in May 1861 after difficulties with his officers. He held no other command and retired in 1863.
Once Harney was gone from the Northwest, the British were pacified. The island was jointly occupied for ten years. Finally the U.S. and Great Britain asked Kaiser Wilhelm I of Germany to arbitrate. On October 21, 1872, he ruled that the boundary be drawn through the Haro Straight, making the San Juans permanently part of the U.S. Britian removed its marines a month later.
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