Sea of Glory

by Nathaniel Philbrick

  CHAPTER 14: RECKONING

  Wilkes describes his return to his house on Capitol Hill and Jane’s knowledge of the “onslaught” that was about to be launched against him in ACW, p. 519. For my account of the political situation in which Wilkes found himself upon his return to Washington, I have looked to John Wickman’s dissertation “Political Aspects of Charles Wilkes’s Work and Testimony, 1842-1849,” pp. 29-41. Secretary of the Navy Upshur’s approach to officer relations is described in Claude Hall’s Abel Parker Upshur, pp. 161-62. Wickman mentions the fact that Wilkes attended a meeting of the National Institute for the Promotion of Science on the same day of his arrival in Washington, p. 31. James Renwick’s advice about how Wilkes should gain political support is in a June 19, 1842, letter to Jane at DU. Renwick, along with two of his sons, was involved in the survey on which the eventual Maine-Canada border would be based and therefore had much personal experience with the workings of the Tyler administration. Wilkes tells of his meetings with Upshur and President Tyler in ACW, pp. 520- 22. In a June 21, 1842, letter to Wilkes, Upshur refers to Wilkes’s June 16, 1842, letter in which he requested a court of inquiry; in Wilkes’s Court-Martial records at NA. John Quincy Adams details his meeting with Wilkes in a June 15, 1842, diary entry, in Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, vol. 11, p. 177. In addition to Wilkes’s account of his speech before the National Institute in ACW, pp. 525-26, I have relied on a story in the June 25, 1842, National Intelligencer and Wickman, pp. 36-37.

  Upshur’s June 21, 1842, letter to Wilkes denying his request for a court of inquiry is in Wilkes’s Court-Martial records. Wickman discusses Wilkes’s report on Oregon and his “nationalistic remarks concerning the necessity of the 54-40 boundary line,” p. 38; he also describes Upshur’s “plan of suppression” when it came to the report, pp. 39-41. Upshur’s letter to Guillou ordering him to report to the Navy Department was produced during Wilkes’s court-martial; Guillou testified that he had made two trips to Washington—during the spring and at the end of June—to assemble materials for the case against Wilkes. Wilkes’s July 5, 1842, letter to Upshur complaining of the delay of his trial is in his court-martial records, as is Upshur’s July 8, 1842, letter to Wilkes informing him of the date of his trial and the July 15, 1842, letter to Wilkes ordering him to turn over documents relating to the Expedition. Wilkes tells of how he boxed the “most important papers & documents” of the Expedition before leaving the Vincennes in ACW, p. 515. Wilkes recounts his conversation with Senator Wright about Upshur’s order in ACW, p. 522. John Quincy Adams tells of his visit to Wilkes’s house in a July 9, 1842, entry in his Memoirs, vol. 11, p. 202.

  My account of the courts-martial of William May, Robert Johnson, Charles Guillou, Robert Pinkney, and Charles Wilkes is based primarily on the courts-martial records at NA; the reports in the New York Herald, beginning on July 26, 1842, and continuing on an almost daily basis until September 10, 1842; and letters written by Samuel Francis Du Pont on July 25, 27, 29, August 25, 31, September 22, October 6 and 14, 1842, at the Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware. For information on Du Pont’s problems with Commodore Hull, I have consulted James Merrill’s Du Pont: The Making of an Admiral, pp. 128-32, and Linda Maloney’s “Isaac Hull: Bulwark of the Sailing Navy” in Command Under Sail: Makers of the American Naval Tradition, 1775-1850, edited by James Bradford, pp. 268-69; Maloney also speaks in general terms of the problems that the issue of rank had brought to the U.S. Navy in the 1840s, and specifically refers to the Cyane, p. 269.

  An August 20, 1842, issue of the Niles Register refers to the uproar caused by the reading of Paulding’s letter at Johnson’s court-martial: “These instructions have been criticized by some with considerable severity.” Wilkes’s August 7, 1842, letter to Upshur, informing him that he cannot deliver the Ex. Ex. documents in his possession because of the “ominous and responsible situation in which I am placed,” is in Wilkes’s Court-Martial records. Reynolds praises Pinkney’s defence in an August 21, 1842, letter to his father. Herman Viola’s epilogue in Voyage to the Southern Ocean offers a chronology of the events leading up to Reynolds’s marriage to Rebecca Krug and quotes from his August 14, 1842, letter to his father, p. 288; the letter from Lydia referring to Rebecca Krug’s continued availability is cited on p. 285. Reynolds refers to the newly-weds’ reception in New York in his August 21, 1842, letter to his father, where he also mentions Wilkes’s mental state and his disappointment in Guillou’s charges. Reynolds’s description of Wilkes’s defence is in a September 10, 1842, letter to his father. James Gordon Bennett’s editorial concerning Wilkes’s court-martial is in the September 10, 1842, issue of the New York Herald. Guillou’s sheaf of letters of support is included as part of his court-martial records, as is President Tyler’s commuted sentence. According to Wickman, “The fact that Guillou was the principal witness for the prosecution in Wilkes’s trial possibly had something to do with this reversal,” p. 71.

  CHAPTER 15: THIS THING CALLED SCIENCE

  John Wickman in Political Aspects of Charles Wilkes’s Work and Testimony, 1842- 1849 discusses Upshur’s attempt to have Robert Greenhow write the narrative, as well as Wilkes’s relationship with Benjamin Tappan, pp. 51-62. Upshur became angry when Tappan referred to Wilkes as a captain, insisting that Wilkes was only a lieutenant. Tappan responded by reminding Upshur that his own president held a title he did not technically deserve since he had inherited the position after the death of Harrison and had not been formally elected by the American people.

  Wilkes refers to the dispute over his pay in ACW, p. 531. In a September 22, 1842, letter to a naval friend, Samuel Du Pont writes, “You will find as soon as Wilkes knows his Sentence, that the grand intrigue, public and private will be entered into, to raise him to a post Captaincy. We have had the Commercial already out telling what was done in like case for Parry RM, Vancouver, etc. I hope if he succeeds that he will be put at the head of the list.” The author of the “Commercial” for Wilkes’s promotion was apparently his brother-in-law James Renwick. In a June 19, 1842, letter to Jane Wilkes, Renwick refers to “Poinsett and Paulding’s promise to seek for an appointment as Post Captain,” and asks for information so that he can write up the case for Wilkes’s promotion: “As a beginning I want the date of d’Urville and Charles’s striking the icy barrier. The fact of d’Urville’s promotion to an admiral, and from what rank, the fact of Ross’ promotion and from what rank.”

  My description of the Ex. Ex.’s collection comes from Adrienne Kaeppler’s “Anthropology and the U.S. Exploring Expedition” in MV, pp. 120-42. Richard Eyde in “Expedition Botany: The Making of a New Profession” in MV talks about the size of the botany collection, p. 25. George Watson in “Vertebrate Collections: Lost Opportunities” in MV states the number of birds, mammals, and fish, pp. 48, 69. Stanton provides statistics on the number of fossil species as well as coral and crustacea species, p. 317. Douglas Evelyn in “The National Gallery at the Patent Office” in MV cites Charles Pickering’s account of the number of specimens in spirit jars and envelopes, p. 234. Kaeppler in MV describes Horatio Hale’s linguistic achievement, which included the first account of Chinook Jargon, “a simplified hybrid language that had emerged on the northwest coast during the eighteenth century in the contacts between European sailors and traders and the Indians of the area,” p. 142. Unfortunately, none of Hale’s original notebooks have survived; Charles Pickering’s are at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. William Goetzmann in New Lands, New Men describes the stunning scope and quality of the Expedition’s charts, p. 290; he also makes the point that the Ex. Ex. collections “outran the intellectual resources of the country,” p. 289. My account of the formation of the Smithsonian Institution is based largely on Nathan Reingold’s and Marc Rothenberg’s “The Exploring Expedition and the Smithsonian Institution” in MV, pp. 243-53. My thanks to Michael Hill for determining what Smithson’s original bequest would have been worth in today’s dollars. My account of the Expedition’s rela
tionship with the National Institute is based largely on Douglas Evelyn’s “The National Gallery at the Patent Office” in MV, pp. 227-42, as well as Stanton, pp. 297-303; Stanton cites Pickering’s statement that the Expedition’s legacy should not be measured “by producing specimens to which an unfortunate importance has been so often attached but by the communication of facts,” p. 297.

  Wilkes describes his moves to improve the Ex. Ex. exhibit at the Patent Office in ACW, pp. 528-29. Tyler describes the team Wilkes put together to produce the charts, p. 391. Stanton cites Ralph Waldo Emerson’s praise of the exhibit at the Patent Office, p. 301. Wilkes tells of the first lady’s unsuccessful attempt to secure plants from the Expedition’s greenhouse in ACW, pp. 529-30.

  William Reynolds describes his visit to Washington, D.C., in a January 22, 1843, letter to Henry Eld. Wilkes claims to have been amused rather than angered by the “many misstatements and malicious remarks” in his officer’s journal in ACW, p. 541, in which he also claims his own Narrative was “free from all vituperation,” p. 532. James Renwick refers to Jane Wilkes as Wilkes’s “amanuensis” in a January 8, 1843, letter to Jane, in which he also speaks of his progress in reading Wilkes’s manuscript. Eliza Henry (Wilkes’s sister) worries about Wilkes’s working too late at night on his book in an April 3, 1843, letter to Wilkes (at DU). Wilkes claims his manuscript reached three thousand pages in ACW, p. 532, where he also describes his book as “a monument to my exertions,” p. 533. His description of the explosion aboard the Princeton and the death of Upshur is in ACW, pp. 525, 584-87. I have also relied on Claude Hall’s description of the incident in Abel Upshur, pp. 210-12.

  Wilkes attributes “the style and beauty” of the published narrative to Joseph Drayton in ACW, p. 542; Daniel Haskell in The United States Exploring Expedition and Its Publications describes what the volumes looked like, pp. 33- 34. Wickman claims that the Expedition’s publications are “some of the most expensive books in the history of American printing,” p. 92; he also discusses Wilkes’s insistence on keeping the copyright to the Narrative, pp. 90-91. Wilkes tells of the challenge of seeing his big book through the press in ACW, pp. 535-37. Charles Davis’s reference to the “oppressive dimensions” of the Narrative is in the North American Review, vol. LXI, 1845, p. 100; he also refers to the “variety of styles” that are apparent throughout the book. Wickman provides a synopsis of the many, largely positive reviews of the Narrative, p. 97. For James Fenimore Cooper’s debt to Wilkes’s Narrative, see W. B. Gates’s “Cooper’s The Sea Lions and Wilkes’s Narrative” and “Cooper’s The Crater and Two Explorers.” David Jaffé in The Stormy Petrel and the Whale discusses Herman Melville’s use of the Narrative in Moby-Dick; he also points to Ko-Towatowa as the “prototype for Queequeg,” p. 43. Melville had a personal connection to the Expedition; before being detached from the squadron at Callao, his cousin Henry Gansevoort had been a passed midshipman on the Peacock. During the winter of 1858-59, Melville traveled around the Northeast delivering a lecture about the South Pacific that, as at least one newspaper reporter recognized, contained a veiled criticism of the Ex. Ex.’s attack on the Fijian village of Malolo. Melville termed it an “indiscriminate massacre upon some poor little village on the seaside—splattering the town’s bamboo huts with blood and brains of women and children, defenseless and innocent,” in “The South Sea” in The Piazza Tales and Other Prose Pieces, 1839-1860, pp. 415-16. David Roberts in A Newer World describes how Frémont’s wife ghostwrote his books and cites Bernard De Voto’s statement that Frémont’s reports “were far more important than his travels,” p. 127; he also tells of how the spring of 1845 marked the height of Frémont’s celebrity, p. 138. According to Goetzmann, Frémont was “the explorer as propagandist par excellence,” p. 172. See also Tom Chaffin’s The Pathfinder: John Charles Frémont and the Course of American Empire.

  The decision in the marines’ suit against Wilkes is reported in the May 31, 1845, Niles Register; the suit is first mentioned almost three years earlier in the September 17, 1842, Niles Register. “Memorial of Officers of the Exploring Expedition” dated January 11, 1847, is in 29th Congress, 2nd Session, Senate, No. 47; the memorialists are William Walker, Robert Johnson, James Alden, John Dale, Edwin DeHaven, A. S. Baldwin, George Sinclair, William Reynolds, Simon Blunt, William May, Joseph Sanford, George Colvocoresses, and James Blair. Wilkes’s rebuttal is dated March 3, 1847, and is in 29th Congress, 2nd Session, Senate, No. 217. Reynolds’s complaint to James Pearce about the publication of Wilkes’s rebuttal is from manuscript material in the archives at FMC, as is his seventy-eight-page critique of Wilkes’s Narrative. Wickman discusses Thomas Hart Benton’s claim that the Columbia River offered a safe port, pp. 105-10. Letters from Reynolds and others concerning this topic appear in “Communications” in 29th Congress, 1st Session, Senate, No. 474; Wilkes’s “Statement” is in 29th Congress, 1st Session, Senate, No. 475. Chaffin in The Pathfinder discusses yet another dustup between Wilkes and Benton/Frémont in the spring of 1848, this one concerning the accuracy of Wilkes’s chart of the California coast, pp. 388-89. Wickman has a chapter about the Wilkes-Frémont feud, pp. 131-50, and claims that Wilkes came out the winner.

  In a letter dated February 17, 1841, to Charles Wilkes (at DU), Henry Wilkes says that their sister Eliza and her daughter hope that the memorial to the slain officers will be at Greenwood Cemetery in Brooklyn: “I should think that there will not be any difficulty in having their wishes effected as it is understood that Lieut Underwood though officially of Maine . . . was a resident of this state and considered as belonging to it.” For an account of the memorial that was eventually built at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, see Blanche Linden-Ward’s Silent City on a Hill, pp. 240-41. Wilkes claims that securing the annual appropriation for publication of the Expedition’s reports was “more trouble” than the Expedition itself in ACW, p. 546. The senator’s frustrated reference to “this thing called science” is quoted by Haskell, p. 23. John J. Audubon, on the other hand, immediately recognized the importance of the Expedition’s scientific reports. In the summer of 1842, he wrote young Spencer Baird (destined to become the head of the Smithsonian Institution) that the reports “ought to come to the World of Science at least as brightly as the brightest rays of the Orb of Day during the Mid-summer Solstice. Oh, my dear young friend, that I did possess the wealth of the Emperor of Russia, or of the king of the French; then indeed I would address the Congress of our Country, ask of them to throw open these stores of Natural Curiosities, and Comply with mine every wish to publish, and to Give Away Copies of the invaluable Works thus produced to every Scientific Institution throughout our Country, and throughout the World,” quoted in Haskell, p. 8.

  After the publication of his report, Horatio Hale gave up the study of languages to become a lawyer in Canada. Late in life, he came out of retirement to dispute the findings of Lewis Henry Morgan, whose work with Native Americans and other native cultures had led him to declare that just as biological organisms evolved, so did societies, from the primitive to the more advanced. Hale’s work in the South Pacific and in Oregon had made him realize that Morgan was imposing his own value system on cultures that were neither more nor less advanced than Western societies; they were simply different. Not long after in 1887, Hale met Franz Boas, a German anthropologist who had been working in British Columbia and was destined to become a giant in his field. Hale’s insistence on the importance of fieldwork and language in the study of man resonated with the young scientist, and when Hale died nine years later, Boas wrote, “Ethnology has lost a man who contributed more to our knowledge of the human race than perhaps any other single student.” See Jacob Gruber’s “Horatio Hale and the Development of American Anthropology,” pp. 5-37, and Stanton, pp. 373-76.

  Frederick Bayer in “The Invertebrates of the U.S. Exploring Expedition” in MV quotes Darwin’s praise of Dana’s report, p. 81. Stanton cites Humboldt’s reference to Dana’s “splendid contribution to science,” p.
372. The unrelenting pace Dana sustained after the Expedition’s return finally proved too much for him, and he suffered a nervous breakdown in the late 1850s. Although he would be forced to drastically reduce his output in subsequent years, he still managed to write popular books about coral and volcanoes that drew on his experiences with the Ex. Ex. “If this work gives pleasure to any,” he wrote in the preface to Coral and Coral Islands, “it will but prolong in the world the enjoyments of the ‘Exploring Expedition,’” p. 6.

  Even if Oliver Wendell Holmes had no use for Pickering’s The Races of Man, the report contained, as Stanton demonstrates, insights of the highest order into how the human species had adapted to an extraordinary variety of environments. Pickering was influenced by his friend Samuel George Morton, the chief exponent of what became known as the American School of Anthropology. Morton claimed that each race (of which Pickering counted eleven) was a distinct species and had separate origins. See Stanton, pp. 338-48. Stanton also discusses the difficulties Titian Peale had with Wilkes and the publication of his report and judges John Cassin’s revamped version of the report to be “a triumph of new science,” pp. 327-29. On William Rich and Asa Gray and the botany reports, see Richard Eyde’s “Expedition Botany: The Making of a New Profession” in MV, pp. 25-41, as well as Stanton, pp. 331-37. The botanist John Torrey’s reference to Wilkes’s “quarter deck insolence” is quoted by Haskell, p. 22.