Monterey, the strategic Mexican outpost on the Pacific, is seen in this early lithograph based upon an eyewitness sketch by U.S. Navy Lieutenant Joseph Warren Revere of the U.S. sloop-of-war Portsmouth. A U.S. flag flies over the government building in the right foreground, the Monterey customs house stands on the wharf near the center of the picture, some ships of the U.S. Pacific Squadron and an old shipwreck may be distinguished in the harbor, and the old Spanish fort stands atop a hill in the distance. Revere, a Boston-born grandson of Paul Revere of Revolutionary War fame, could have made his sketches of the Monterey area as early as April or May 1846, when the Portsmouth was there awaiting Commodore Sloat's arrival. U.S. occupation of the capitol began on July 7. See Sandweiss, Stewart, and Huseman, Eyewitness to War, pp.135-136, cat. no. 21.
