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The Home Squadron was part of the United States Navy in the mid-19th century. Organized as early as 1838, ships were assigned to protect coastal commerce, aid ships in distress, suppress piracy and the Atlantic slave trade, make exploration, and train ships to relieve others on distant stations. It was discontinued in 1861 after the outbreak of the American Civil War, when the Union blockade forced a reassignment of ships to close off Southern ports.
The continuous friction led to a major civil war known as the Reform War from 1858 to 1860 and political instability, which the U.S. government under James Buchanan saw as a great opportunity to further expand the U.S. territory limits southwards (after the acquisition through war of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, most of Colorado, south Wyoming, and a fraction of Kansas and Oklahoma. For this reason and based upon the Doctrine Monroe, the U.S government sent an emissary to discuss with Juarez's liberal party the possibility to cede the Baja California peninsula to the United States, which he promptly accepted in exchange of diplomatic, economic and military support to counteract the conservative power that at that point, had the full support of the majority of the Mexican people, and was in control of the entire country with the exception of the cities of Morelia and Veracruz.
During the second siege of Veracruz in 1859, a Mexican officer named Thomas M. Marin of the Mexican Navy purchased vessels in Cuba, that he armed and equipped to sail back to Veracruz to assist and supply General Miramon's siege of the held city. The Liberal Mexican government declared Marin's fleet to be that of so ships of the Home Squadron were ordered to intervene and arrest Marin. Two of Marin's ships, the steamship General Miramon and the sloop-of-war CSS McRae, arrived at their rendezvous off Anton Lizardo. They were spotted by a Mexican fort and the frigate USS Savannah which ordered the sloop-of-war USS Saratoga to intervene with help from two steamers.
The American ships under Commander Thomas Turner approached and fired warning shots, the Mexicans obviously fired back as the American fleet had no jurisdiction within Mexican waters. Despite the fact of being outnumbered by the American fleet, the Mexican vessels engaged in battle resulting in a bloody encounter Battle of Anton Lizardo and the capture of the conservative ships and over thirty casualties on both sides. The battle played an important role in ending the Reform War with a liberal victory and the signatory of the secret MacLane-Ocampo Treaty where Juarez and the radical liberals agreed on further cessions of Mexican territory to the U.S., as well as a couple of transit concessions through the Tehuantepec Isthmus, and from Tamaulipas across Mexico to the Gulf of California in perpetuity to the U.S. that eventually was rejected by the American congress, as it was determined that the inclusion of these states into the American federation could strengthen the southern confederate states.
Due to the American intervention, the conservatives under General Miramon failed to take Veracruz from the liberals for a second time, which a few years later led Mexico to a French intervention.
| Putnam | 21 August 1858 | Cuba | |
| Cygnet | 18 November 1859 | Cuba | |
| Wildfire | 26 April 1860 | Cuba | |
| William | 9 May 1860 | Cuba | |
| Bogota | 23 May 1860 | Cuba | |
| W.R. Kibby | 23 July 1860 | Cuba | |
| Joven Antonio | 14 August 1860 | Cuba | |
| Toccoa | 20 December 1860 | Havana | |
| Mary J. Kimball | 21 December 1860 | Havana |
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