The Pig That Nearly Sparked a War: The Bizarre 1859 Standoff

On June fifteenth, 1859, an American farmer named Lyman Cutlar shot a pig. That one pig's death would bring the United States and the British Empire—the two most powerful English-speaking nations on earth—to the absolute brink of war. Now, after we talked about that Austrian army that accidentally attacked itself back in 1788 on Episode 81, you start to realize that history is just a series of bizarre accidents and near misses. But this one... this one is different. This is the story of a war that, against all odds, did NOT happen. So here’s the setup. San Juan Island. It’s a beautiful piece of land sitting in the channel between Vancouver Island and the state of Washington.

The problem was, an 1846 treaty was just vague enough that both the U.S. and Britain claimed it. So you had American settlers moving in right alongside the very British Hudson’s Bay Company, which was running a massive sheep ranch. It was a classic case of drawing a line on a map without actually looking at the ground. And on that ground was Lyman Cutlar’s potato patch. And a large black pig, owned by a Hudson's Bay employee, that had a taste for his potatoes. On that June morning, Cutlar found the pig in his garden for what he claimed was the tenth time. So he shot it. Here’s the turn. Cutlar went to the British agent, Charles Griffin, and offered to pay for the pig.

He offered ten dollars. Griffin demanded one HUNDRED. Cutlar said for that price he could buy a better pig. Griffin said "It is up to you to keep your potatoes out of my pig." The authorities threatened to arrest Cutlar, and the American settlers, feeling threatened, called for U.S. military protection. And Washington sent it. They sent Captain George Pickett—yes, THAT George Pickett of Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg—with sixty-six soldiers to the island. Pickett landed, declared the entire island U.S. property, and set up camp. The British response? They sent three warships, carrying over two thousand men and seventy cannons, to face Pickett’s tiny company.

So in a matter of weeks, we go from one dead pig to a standoff with enough firepower to start a global conflict. Now, where have we seen this before? You see a small, localized incident—a spark—that threatens to ignite a powder keg of underlying tension. Think of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. A single event that cascaded into World War One because the alliances and tensions were already in place. The Pig War had the exact same shape. The pig wasn't the reason for the conflict, it was the EXCUSE. The real fight was over who controlled the crucial shipping lanes in the Pacific Northwest. But here’s where the analogy breaks, and where this story gets so important.

In 1914, the generals and politicians let the crisis escalate until it was unstoppable. In 1859, they pulled back. The local commanders, Pickett for the Americans and Captain Geoffrey Hornby for the British, were both aggressive men. Pickett was spoiling for a fight. Hornby was ordered by the hot-headed British governor to land his marines and drive the Americans off the island. But Hornby hesitated. He knew that firing the first shot would mean war. His superior, Rear Admiral Robert Baynes, arrived on the scene, took one look at the situation, and told the governor he would NOT "involve two great nations in a war over a squabble about a pig." That one sentence, that moment of sanity from one admiral, may have saved thousands of lives.

Word finally reached London and Washington D.C., where officials were horrified. President James Buchanan sent his top general, Winfield Scott, to negotiate. Scott and the British governor agreed to a temporary solution: a joint military occupation. For the next twelve years, the U.S. Army and the Royal Marines maintained two separate camps on San Juan Island, glaring at each other but never firing a shot. They even, supposedly, held parties and celebrated holidays together. The final border dispute wasn't settled until 1872. They submitted the case to international arbitration, and the arbitrator they chose was Kaiser Wilhelm the First of Germany. He studied the maps and the treaties and ruled decisively in favor of the United States.

The Royal Marines packed up and left peacefully. The Pig War was over, without a single human casualty. All that was left was a quiet island, and the memory of how close two nations came to disaster over a farmer, his potatoes, and one very, very unlucky pig.