Sea of Glory

by Nathaniel Philbrick

  Reynolds’s account of his open-boat survey of Tierra del Fuego is in his journal. Joseph Couthouy’s remarks about the sailing characteristics of the launch appear in a March 7, 1839, journal entry. Darwin’s remarks about the primitive state of the Yahgans appear in The Voyage of the Beagle, p. 213. Bruce Chatwin in In Patagonia claims that Darwin “lapsed into that common failing of naturalists: to marvel at the intricate perfection of other creatures and recoil from the squalor of man. . . . For the mere sight of the Fuegians helped trigger off the theory that Man had evolved from an ape-like species and that some men had evolved further than others,” p. 128. Johnson tells of walking over the warm crust of Deception Island in a March 12, 1839, journal entry.

  Wilkes recounts how Long did not hug the coast (as Wilkes had suggested) during his passage to the Strait of Magellan in ACW, p. 409. James Dana’s account of the Relief’s near-disaster at the Strait of Magellan is from a March 24, 1839, letter to Robert Bakewell reprinted in Daniel Gilman’s The Life of James Dwight Dana, pp. 99-103. King’s description of the navigational horrors of the Milky Way are contained in Lieutenant Long’s March 19, 1839, journal entry; other quotations from Long are from his March 18-20 entries. Pickering’s comment about a man’s hair turning gray is from his March 18, 1839, journal entry; the other quotes from Pickering are taken from his March 19 and 20 entries. Wilkes recounts Pickering’s “philosophic act” in ACW, p. 410. The reference to the Relief’s “remarkable escape” is from Gershom Bradford’s “On a Lee Shore” in The American Neptune, p. 282.

  The proceedings of John Dale’s Court of Inquiry are contained in the Court-Martial Records, No. 884. In his “General Orders” concerning Dale’s Court of Inquiry (reprinted in the appendix to volume 1 of the Narrative, p. 421), Wilkes insisted that the mishap was due to Dale’s “inexperience” and “want of determined perseverance.” Daniel Goleman’s comments concerning the “emotional mind” come from his Emotional Intelligence, p. 291.

  In a March 13, 1839, letter to Jane, Wilkes says that he “suffered much anxiety” as a result of the incident involving Dale at the Strait of Le Maire, adding, “I scarcely ever suffered so much in the same time—when they came on board I immediately suspended Lt. Dale.” Reynolds refers to the “turning point” in his Manuscript, p. 16. In a letter to Jane written over the course of June 12-16, 1839, Wilkes refers to the “astonishing” coincidence that all of Jones’s officers proved incompetent.

  In a June 3, 1839, letter to Jane, Wilkes refers to the officers he will consign to the Relief as “useless trash.” Reynolds’s words about the difficulty of “quieting Captain Long” are from his journal. Wilkes mentions the floggings in his Narrative, vol. 1, pp. 232-33; he talks about the loss of the Sea Gull on pp. 206-7; he theorizes about how the schooner went down in ACW, p. 411. Reynolds speaks of the “poor fellows” of the Sea Gull in a June 30, 1839, letter to Lydia.

  Wilkes’s reference to giving his officers “the necessary rebuke” is in a May 14, 1839, letter to Jane. He speaks of Carr hanging on to his coattails in a June 12-16 letter to Jane. The statistics about dueling come from Charles Paullin’s “Dueling in the Old Navy” in U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, p. 1157. Christopher McKee in A Gentlemanly and Honorable Profession writes eloquently about the “psycho-dynamics” of dueling in the navy; he also claims that Paullin’s assertions about dueling are exaggerated, pointing out that the number of deaths attributed to duels accounts for just “one percent of the total number of officers who left the navy before the date,” p. 404. Wilkes refers to Wilkes Henry’s duel with George Harrison in a June 12-16, 1839, letter to Jane. George Harrison had a reputation in the squadron for hotheadedness; several months later he would be suspended for disrespectful conduct toward Lieutenant Sinclair, who commented on Harrison’s apparent hatred for “the whole human race, himself included.” Wilkes tells of his conversation with Hudson about Henry and of the officers’ letter of support in a July 3, 1838, letter to Jane. The officers’ letter is reprinted in the appendix to Wilkes’s Narrative, vol. 1, p. 422.

  Wilkes speaks in praise of Captain McKeever in ACW, p. 412; in a May 22, 1838, letter to Jane, Wilkes mentions that McKeever, unlike Nicholson, refers to him as “Captain Wilkes.” Johnson’s worries about McKeever’s “sinister views” are recorded in a June 29, 1839, journal entry. Reynolds speaks of his despair and anger over Wilkes’s decision to take on McKeever’s nephew in a June 30, 1839, letter to Lydia.

  CHAPTER 6: COMMODORE OF THE PACIFIC

  In a July 3, 1839, letter to Jane, Wilkes writes, “I have bought or rather had made a pair of beautiful epaulettes & that I intend to wear them—keep this to yourself as I think it now high time to appear in my proper uniform.” In a September 12-21 letter to Jane written from Tahiti, Wilkes recounts how he “hoisted the Broad Pendant and . . . my two straps as did Hudson by an order of mine so you see I have had the impertinence to give myself sufficient Dignity at least in appearance.” Wilkes refers to this action as “a bold and unwarranted stroke of policy on my part” in ACW, p. 377, but insists that “it was justified under the necessities of the case.” Reynolds speaks of Wilkes’s “immense” epaulets in his Manuscript, adding, “It is not a little remarkable that the assumption of all this Naval Splendour was deferred until Mr. Wilkes felt himself out of the regions usually infested by American men of war. Perhaps he thought he could carry it more bravely among the breechless savages than amidst the pomp and circumstance of real, full blooded Captains and Commodores, in whose presence he might have been disagreeably reminded of the old fable of the ‘Daw in borrowed plumes!’” p. 17. Wilkes’s decision to make himself a commodore also fits with what psychologists have termed the “glass bubble syndrome”: “People with a narcissistic personality sometimes fantasize consciously and often unconsciously that they are living by themselves in glory, protected from the rest of the world and the common herd by a shield made of something impervious, like a glass bubble. From this vantage point, they can look out at the world with disdain and without fear of challenge”; from Richard Nixon: A Psychobiography, by Vamik Volkan et al., p. 98. Wilkes refers to his hoped-for acting appointment to captain as a “shield of protection” in ACW, pp. 370-71.

  Reynolds speaks of the mystery of a coral island in a September 12, 1839, letter to Lydia. Titian Peale’s comments about the “sorry business” of leaving the scientific corps idle are in an August 14, 1839, journal entry. In contrast to their experiences in the Tuamotus, the scientists had spent a profitable two months in South America, much of it spent hiking into the Andes, where they collected numerous specimens and artifacts. At one point a condor decided that Charles Pickering was the one who should be collected. When the giant bird swooped down with its talons outstretched, the naturalist was forced to fight it off with his Bowie knife pistol.

  My description of how Wilkes conducted a survey is based largely on his own “Mode of Surveying the Coral Islands” in the appendix of volume 1 of his Narrative, pp. 429-32, as well as “Surveying and Charting the Pacific Basin” by Ralph Ehrenberg, John Wolter, and Charles Burroughs in MV, pp. 165-70. William Goetzmann talks about the speed of Wilkes’s survey method in New Lands, New Men, p. 276.

  Wilkes’s order about being kind to natives is reprinted in his Narrative, vol. 1, pp. 308-9. Johnson speaks of Sac’s enthusiasm for killing penguins in a March 10, 1839, journal entry. Wilkes’s words about the encounter with the natives of Reao Atoll (referred to as Clermont de Tonnere) are from his Narrative, vol. 1, pp. 312-14. Reynolds’s comments on the dignity of the natives are in his journal. Wilkes’s pronouncements about the effects of the Expedition’s first encounter with Polynesians is in ACW, p. 423; Whittle’s outrage is recorded in his journal (at the University of Virginia), p. 48. Couthouy’s angry encounter with Wilkes is recorded in an August 31, 1839, entry. Peale’s frustrations appear in an August 29, 1839, entry. For an interesting analysis of the tensions between the Expedition’s officers and scientists, see Elizabeth Musselman’s “S
cience as a Landed Activity: Scientifics and Seamen Aboard the U.S. Exploring Expedition” in Surveying the Record, edited by Edward C. Carter II, pp. 77-101. Reynolds tells of the disintegration of relations between Wilkes and his officers in a December 22, 1839, letter to Lydia. Reynolds includes a copy of Wilkes’s order concerning “familiarity among officers of the different grades” in his August 28, 1839, response to Wilkes, in Box 1, Area File 9, RG 45, NA. Reynolds talks about the motivations behind the order in his Manuscript, pp. 26-27. Wilkes writes to Jane of his having “given up inviting the officers to my table” in a September 12-21, 1839, letter.

  Reynolds describes Wilkes’s behavior at Napuka Atoll (referred to as Wytoohee) in his Manuscript, pp. 24-25. The near-collision of the Flying Fish and the Vincennes would be seemingly endlessly revisited in both Pinkney’s and Wilkes’s courts-martial (No. 826 and 827, NA); Wilkes gives his side of what happened in his Narrative, p. 332, and ACW, p. 429-30, while Reynolds gives a quite different version in his Manuscript, pp. 22-23; Reynolds also details several incidents that illustrate Wilkes’s lack of seamanship, pp. 27-28.

  Reynolds questions Wilkes’s sanity in a December 22, 1839, letter to Lydia. Wilkes speaks of Jane being his “moderation” in an August 18, 1838, letter. Wilkes brags to Jane about his management of his officers, whom he refers to as “drones,” in letters written on June 12-16 and July 3, 1839. In the introduction to ACW, John Kane, Jr., refers to Wilkes as the “Stormy Petrel,” p. v. Reynolds talks about Wilkes’s tendency to order all hands on deck in his Manuscript, p. 27. The surgeon John Fox testifies to Wilkes’s sleeping habits in testimony recorded during Wilkes’s court-martial, No. 287, p. 240. Wilkes’s writes of his “constant anxiety” in ACW, p. 429.

  Jacques Brosse in Great Voyages of Discovery recounts how De Brosses coined the term “Polynesia,” p. 16. Ernest Dodge tells of Magellan’s voyage across the Pacific in Islands and Empires, pp. 3-7. For information on Wallis, Cook, Bougainville, and Tahiti, I have relied, in large part on Brosse’s Great Voyages, pp. 19-42. Dodge discusses the missionaries in Tahiti in Islands and Empires, pp. 87-92. Wilkes’s memories of the squadron’s arrival at Tahiti appear in ACW, p. 424. Wilkes tells Jane about the measures he has taken to eliminate improper relations between his men and the Tahitian women in a September 12-21 letter. Wilkes writes of the scientists’ forays into the interior of the island in his Narrative, vol. 2, pp. 28-29, 44-47. Charles Pickering writes about the fallacy of applying Western rules to the Tahitians in a September 21, 1839, entry; he speaks about the Tahitians’ ability to take advantage of their environment on September 23, 1839; Pickering’s journal is at the Academy of Natural Sciences, Ewell Sale Stewart Library. In New Lands, New Men, William Goetzmann attributes “the first glimmerings of what came to be known by the end of the nineteenth century as ‘cultural relativism’” to Herman Melville, p. 234. But here we see the concept in the writings of both Pickering and Reynolds, well before the publication of Melville’s first novel Typee in 1846. James Dana testifies to the positive shift the scientists experienced once the squadron reached Tahiti in a February 12, 1846, letter to Asa Gray (at the Gray Herbarium Archives, Harvard): “The Scientifics had all they desired, after this first year’s doings of which Couthouy so complains.” Reynolds records Wilkes’s arrogant words about the impossibility of action being taken against him until the return of the squadron in his Manuscript, p. 31.

  Wilkes describes Pago Pago Harbor in his Narrative, vol. 2, p. 70. Reynolds recounts his and Underwood’s circumnavigation of Tutuila in his journal. Wilkes speaks of the Peacock’s difficult leave-taking from Pago Pago in his Narrative, p. 81; of his own troubles leaving Pago Pago, he simply says, “The moment was a trying one, and the event doubtful; all were at their stations, and not a word was spoken. Of my own feelings on the occasion I have no very precise recollection; merely remembering that I felt as if I breathed more freely after the crisis had passed and we were in safety,” p. 87. Reynolds provides two detailed accounts of the near-disaster at Pago Pago—in his journal and in his Manuscript, p. 30. In Seamanship in the Age of Sail, John Harland speaks of the methods of coaxing a ship through a tack in light air, p. 186. Whittle’s assessment of Wilkes’s “symptoms of confusion and alarm” are in his journal, p. 80. Reynolds’s account of the events that led to his suspension is from his journal.

  My account of the “almost mutiny” aboard the Vincennes has been pieced together from ACW, pp. 430-31, and Hudson’s November 4, 1839, journal entry, pp. 328-30, describing a meeting aboard the Vincennes in which Wilkes accused Couthouy of insubordination. According to Hudson, Couthouy urgently denied “any insubordinate intention” and countered with the claim that many of Wilkes’s officers were refusing to assist the scientists in collecting specimens. Wilkes was scheduled to meet with the chiefs of Upolu in a few hours and didn’t want to hear any more from Couthouy and told him the meeting was over. But just as Wilkes prepared to leave his cabin, Couthouy returned, breathlessly insisting that Wilkes should speak to Passed Midshipman William May, who had refused “to make collections.” May soon appeared “in a state of some excitement,” denying Couthouy’s accusation. After assuring May that he believed him, Wilkes left for the meeting. Hudson’s account clearly indicates that Wilkes succeeded in putting Couthouy on the defensive. Tyler, p. 115, also draws on Wilkes’s and Hudson’s accounts of this encounter but places greater faith in Wilkes’s memory than I have. For more information about Joseph Couthouy, see Michael Wentworth’s “The Naked Couthouy.”

  Reynolds’s account of his conversation with Wilkes about his “improper & disrespectful manner” is from his journal, as is his description of his adventures on Upolu. For information on Horatio Hale, I have depended on Jacob Gruber’s “Horatio Hale and the Development of American Anthropology,” The American Philosophical Society, pp. 9-11, as well as Stanton, pp. 65-66. Ben Finney’s Voyage of Rediscovery provides a useful analysis of James Cook’s emerging awareness that the peoples of Polynesia came from a single source, pp. 6- 13. For my account of the birth of Polynesian culture and how that culture was transported to the islands of the Pacific, I have relied on Patrick Kirch’s On the Road of the Winds, pp. 211-41; the estimate of pre-contact population density on Upolu is from Kirch, p. 312; Kirch also speaks of methods of population control, p. 309; how each Polynesian canoe was “an arkful of biotic resources,” p. 303; and the fact that a South Pacific island is not naturally suited to human habitation, pp. 315-16. Finney in Voyage of Rediscovery cites Hale’s use of Ex. Ex. meteorological data in developing his theory of how the Polynesians pushed east, p. 17. Kirch discusses the predicted sequence of island discoveries, p. 241; he has revised his estimated dates of settlement in Hawaiki, Ancestral Polynesia: An Essay in Historical Anthropology, p. 79; my thanks to Paul Geraghty for bringing this source to my attention. Reynolds’s concerns about the westernization of Upolu, as well as his reveries about Emma, are in his journal.

  Reynolds’s account of his run-in with Carr is from his journal. Whittle’s grief-stricken words about Reynolds’s departure are in a November 11, 1839, entry in his journal, p. 84. Reynolds recounts his excitement about the squadron’s arrival at Sydney in his journal; he speaks of Wilkes having received help from his quartermaster in his Manuscript, p. 31.

  CHAPTER 7: ANTARCTICA

  My description of Antarctica is derived from several sources; many of the statistics come from the modern-day compilation of sailing directions published by the National Imagery and Mapping Agency known as the Antarctic Pilot, pp. 18-22, 82, and the Polar Regions Atlas published by the Central Intelligence Agency, pp. 35-37, as well as The Book of the World, New York: Macmillan Library, 1998, pp. 29, 112-13, and The National Geographic Atlas of the World, Seventh Edition, Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 1999, pp. 122-23; and conversations with retired navy commander Maurice Gibbs, who served as a meteorologist in Antarctica. For information on James Ross, his discovery of the magnetic North Pole, and his preparations for go
ing south, see Fergus Fleming’s Barrow’s Boys, pp. 291-92; 334-35. On the “Magnetic Crusade,” see John Cawood’s “Terrestrial Magnetism and the Development of International Collaboration in the Early Nineteenth Century,” pp. 585-86.

  Wilkes tells what the people of Sydney thought of the U.S. Ex. Ex., especially relative to the Ross Expedition, as well as his own expedition’s preparation for the cruise south, in his Narrative, vol. 2, pp. 275-77. W. H. Smyth’s definition of “martinet” is in his Sailor’s Word Book, p. 471. The phrase “mask of command” comes from the book of that title by John Keegan. Wilkes tells of the effects of being a martinet in ACW, p. 391. He speaks of being “a great man” in a December 10, 1839, letter to Jane. Wilkes describes the difference in leadership styles between himself and Hudson in ACW, p. 403. Reynolds’s reference to “Antarctic Stock” is from a March 4, 1840, letter to his mother. Wilkes speaks of the travails of Lieutenant Ringgold in ACW, p. 439, 443-44. Sinclair’s mention of the Flying Fish’s miserable crew is in a December 25, 1839, journal entry.

  Wilkes describes squadron logistics at the beginning of the southern cruise in his Narrative, vol. 2, p. 283. Reynolds speaks of Wilkes’s nefarious strategizing in his Manuscript, pp. 33-34. Sinclair tells of the Flying Fish’s problems on January 1 in his journal; Reynolds provides the description of Wilkes’s interchange with his officers in his Manuscript, p. 35; he also talks of Wilkes’s “miserable double dealing,” p. 36. Unless otherwise cited, all of Reynolds’s descriptions of the Antarctic cruise are from his private journal. Joseph Underwood speaks of the sluggishness of the compass in a January 11, 1840, journal entry. Eld describes Hudson’s curiously lackadaisical response to their discovery of land in testimony from Wilkes’s court-martial, #827, pp. 199-200.