Two gunshot blasts shattered the arctic stillness. In the tent the commanding officer winced, then, half raised in his sleeping bag, read to his emaciated companions the order for the execution of Private Charles Henry, dated June 6, 1884. Pirating food had been Henry’s crime. Without supplies, hope of rescue gone, 19 men dead and one insane from starvation, these six bedraggled men and their leader, the residue of the Greely Polar Expedition, encamped at Cape Sabine, Grinnell Land, showed the effects of having undergone their third winter within the Arctic Circle. Describing the situation that they faced, a sergeant scribbled in his journal:
The sleeping bags . . . were stripped of their seal skin covering and the pieces divided to be eaten. This is the last material in camp that we can use for food. We are badly broken down and all will go together. Who will be left to bury us with our departed comrades?
Sent out by the United States War Department in 1881, under the direct supervision of the Signal Service, the Greely Expedition, commanded by Lieutenant Adolphus W. Greely, consisted of two army lieutenants and 24 men. Prior to this expedition, there had been intermittent arctic exploration which, since the 17th century, had penetrated about 300 miles northward from Baffin Bay. Early explorers had shoved into the far north in search of a passage to the Pacific Ocean. It was not until the 1850’s, however, when attempts to discover such a route were abandoned, that the North Pole fever infected adventurers. These pioneers, remarked a London Times editorial in 1884, finally .
came to a point at which further progress became impossible. . . . More recently the purpose of Arctic exploration has again changed. Less is thought of getting to a high latitude on its own account, and more is thought of making a thorough investigation of whatever the polar regions may prove to contain available for scientific use.
Part of a series of international arctic expeditions to establish a circumpolar chain of observation stations, the Greely party was to erect a base in the vicinity of the Pole. Ordered to stay in the north two years and to abandon his station not later than September 1, 1883, Greely and his men sailed on board the steam sealer Proteus from St. John’s, Newfoundland, in July, 1881. In the late afternoon, a month later, at Lady Franklin Bay, 600 miles from Tasiusak, Greenland, where civilization faded out, members of the expedition stood on the banks and watched Proteus disappear over the horizon. They stared at the ice on one side; the cold sea on the other. A thousand miles away in Boston, Commander Winfield S. Schley, U. S. Navy, comfortably breakfasted, read the news accounts of the expedition, then walked briskly to the Navy Yard where he chuckled with cronies that “some naval officer will have to go up there and bring them back.”
Quarters constructed, Greely and his crew undertook to explore the complicated tangle of fiords, bays, and islands, and to gather scientific data. They thoroughly scoured Grinnell Land, plastering the names of politicians on lakes, mountain ranges, and glaciers, tracing out coastlines, rummaging through abandoned Eskimo villages, taking weather observations, examining the flora and fauna. In May, 1882, two members of the expedition, Lieutenant James B. Lock- wood and Sergeant David L. Brainard, buffeted and shivering, trudged to a point four miles nearer the Pole than any previous explorer had reached. “For the first time in three centuries,” scrawled Greely later, “England yields the honor of the furthest north.”
To supply the Greely Expedition after their first winter in the north, the steam sealer Neptune, employed by the War Department, chugged out from St. John’s Harbor in July, 1882. Twenty-eight days later, the steamer chugged back—-her mission repulsed by the ice, her holds still cargoed with supplies. There was a flutter in Washington when the news came, but the Neptune failure was not regarded as a serious mishap. Greely had been stocked with food enough for two years.
To reach Greely the following year, July, 1883, a second relief crew was dispatched, again under the supervision of the War Department. Commanded by Cavalry Lieutenant A. W. Garlington, the party on board Proteus and the naval tender Yantic took departure from Cape Spear Light, St. John’s. Two months later, on a September afternoon in St. John’s Yantic dropped anchor; officers clanked down the gangway and into a waiting launch. Ashore, a telegraph operator drummed out the message from Garlington: “It is my painful duty to report total failure . . . Proteus was crushed in the pack . . . and sunk. My party and crew of ship all saved.”
News came as Washington sweltered in the summer heat. Reporters stormed offices, and newsboys on Pennsylvania Avenue hawked “disaster.” There was confusion in the War and Navy Departments as perspiring officials sputtered and stalled. The dissatisfied press thundered. The New York Tribune’s admonition concluded that cavalry officers should be able to “find work enough on the Western frontiers,” while the editors of the New York Times peppered their invectives with synonyms from boggled to lubberly.
As these tirades abated, the world’s attention was focused upon Greely’s plight. Arctic specialists differed. A Danish professor believed the party had perished; a British explorer declared: “there is not yet cause of despair”; and the Royal Geographical Society expressed “great anxiety.” In Dundee, Scotland, returning whaling captains reported their failure to uncover information from Greenland natives; in Washington, two American adventurers volunteered to start immediate rescue operations; in Newfoundland, Garlington pleaded for a second chance. As Secretary of the Navy William E. Chandler told a newsman that nothing could be done that winter, Greely and his men labored for survival.
The Greely party, which had abandoned its permanent quarters at Lady Franklin Bay in August, 1883, was trapped adrift an ice pack for 30 days, and finally escaped to its destination, Cape Sabine. Work was started to build their “winter house” from an old whaleboat, blocks of ice, and canvas. Scouts were sent into the neighboring environs, but two days later, noted the commanding officer, their reports “sent a thrill of horror to every heart.” Garlington had bungled, and only a few rations were found.
Stuffed in their windowless quarters, the winter months passed drearily. There was nothing to do and life ran thin. Hunger caused a good deal of open grumbling. Game became scarce; supplies dwindled; the food ration was slashed until each soldier’s allowance would barely cover the hollow of his hand. On May 12, 1884 the last provisions were issued. After the execution of Private Henry in June, seven men remained. A soldier grieved: “We are calmly awaiting relief or death. One or the other must visit us soon.”
But 1,300 miles away events had occurred which were to affect the fate of the survivors at Cape Sabine. Secretary of War Robert Todd Lincoln in December, 1883, requested the Navy Department’s aid in sketching a relief program, and President Arthur convened a board to sift through suggestions and to recommend the steps “to be taken for the equipment and transportation of the relief expedition . . . .” After digesting all available materials, the board published its report in early January, 1884. What were its recommendations? The Navy was to be handed sole responsibility for rescue operations, and Congress was advised to vote unlimited funds. The press applauded these proposals. “The propriety of leaving the army officers at home and sending naval officers on a seaman’s errand of mercy does not require argument,” asserted the New York Tribune.
Was the Navy adequate? In the early 1880’s the Navy was decadent. To revitalize the fleet, Secretary Chandler was instrumental in pushing through Congress in 1883 a bill which called for the construction of four steel cruisers. But the Navy’s shortcomings could not be solved merely by building new ships. Included on the naval rolls were men of inaction, bound to sailing day traditions. Laxness, cliquishness, and drunkenness had led to naval mishaps.
While the nation’s press campaigned for the passage of the Greely Relief Bill, Congress stalled. President Arthur pleaded for the necessary funds; the House passed an unlimited appropriation; the Senate dawdled. After three weeks of bickering, the upper house finally passed the Greely Relief Bill in its original form.
Preparations for the expedition, however, were well started even before the appropriation was voted. Foreseeing a senatorial stalemate, Secretary Chandler, without waiting for the authorization, had dickered with foreign companies for suitable ships. As no dependence could be placed upon the naval fleet for its service, it was imperative that ships should be procured which had been built especially for arctic navigation. The only steamers afloat at the time which answered the requirements were the sealers and whalers of Dundee, Scotland, and St. John’s, Newfoundland. Distinctively ice vessels, the wood-hulled, iron-plated Dundees were constructed for efficiency in steaming under the exceptional conditions of Baffin Bay. From Newfoundland, Chandler learned that Bear, sister ship of the ill-fated Proteus, was for sale. Negotiations were quickly opened, and, five days after the relief board had made its recommendations, January 22, Bear was purchased. To news reporters, who asked the Secretary of the Navy what he would do if the appropriation failed to pass the Senate, Chandler retorted that he “would become part owner of a ship.” A second steam whaler, Thetis, was obtained at Dundee several weeks later, and the British steamer, Alert, was presented to the United States by the English government in late February. To complete preparations, the Navy Department hired the collier Loch Garry to transport coal to Littleton Island, Greenland, to supply the three relief steamers. To supplement this governmental action, Congress passed legislation, offering a $25,000 reward to private expeditions uncovering information about Greely.
Who was to command the relief party? Jettisoning the suggestions which inundated the Department, Secretary Chandler asked Commander Winfield S. Schley to lead the expedition. Although lacking in polar experience, Schley had served with the blockading fleet during the Civil War and, later, with the Asiatic, Pacific, and South Atlantic squadrons. Schley accepted the appointment, although he confided to Chandler that the duty was in the “nature of a forlorn hope.”
After his appointment, the roster of naval officers was quickly completed: eight men with arctic experience; sixteen without. The commander shuffled his men so that each of the three steamers had at least one officer with polar duty.
The whalers Thetis and Bear, as they docked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard to undergo repairs, were uninspiring sights. A reporter remarked on the “oily, fishy odors, greasy wood-work, foul holds, and unpainted and begrimed appearance” of the steamers. The curious mingled with the laborers, hindering the reconditioning process of the vessels. Berthing compartments, officers’ staterooms, and the wardrooms were torn out; engines were overhauled.
In Washington the President took a lively interest; Secretary of War Lincoln co-operated with Chandler in unraveling administrative snarls. On March 17, 1884 Schley wired his operational plan to the naval secretary. Bear, the vessel most advanced in preparation, was to sail from New York on April 25, 1884; Thetis, not later than May 1; Alert, May 10.
At dawn on April 24, Bear, commanded by Lieutenant William H. Emory, bustled with activity, and by early afternoon she was underway for St. John’s, Newfoundland. In a suburb of New York a dignified Civil War general prayed for his son, who commanded Bear. As a sergeant in the arctic wilderness of Cape Sabine refused to play with the thought of rescue, a fireman in Bear’s engine room opened the throttle to full speed. Below in the wardroom, officers resigned themselves to wintering at Littleton Island and, while there was no apprehension about another Garlington catastrophe, there was fear of a sterile success.
Within the week, May 1, Schley ordered the lines cast off Thetis. The commander remembered to the end of his life the din of whistles, the guns, the hurrahs, which, he exclaimed, “showed how deep the interest was that followed us outward.” Alert commanded by Lieutenant George W. Coffin, unnoticed, slid down the East River on May 10. Schley’s schedule had been met. At his desk in Washington, Chandler felt confident.
Steaming into St. John’s Harbor on May 9, eight days out of New York, Thetis anchored after an uneventful passage. Schley learned that Bear had arrived the week before, coaled, taken on Labrador dogs, and had sailed for Greenland. Arrangements made with the collier Loch Garry, Thetis and the collier took departure two days later and laid a course for Godhaven and the ice. Sailing most of the way in ice free waters, Thetis and Loch Garry entered Godhaven, Greenland, on May 22, ten days out of St. John’s. Taking on board an Eskimo interpreter, the ships puffed out of the Danish settlement 24 hours later.
Several miles outside, the steamers faced a solid ice barrier. Crews readied themselves. Thetis, followed closely by Loch Garry, banged her way into the pack. Progress was slow. When checked by the ice pack, Thetis backed a little, put on full speed, and rammed head on into the ice. The steamers creaked and shook with each impact. Sailors were called day and night to get underway, to secure, to man lifeboat stations. Lookouts constantly scanned the ice for possible openings. Conning his ship from the crow’s nest, Schley clambered down for a few hours nap and an alcohol rub at night. In the pilot-house the ship’s navigator fidgeted as Thetis plowed over areas marked as land on British Admiralty charts.
Upernivik was sighted on May 29, five days out of Godhaven, and several hours later Thetis was anchored alongside Bear. The following morning a native pilot was hired and, disregarding the advice of the local governor, Bear and Thetis sailed northward for Cape York. Loch Garry remained at anchor, awaiting the arrival of Alert.
Progress in the dense ice was slow. On some days considerable headway was made; on others, the distance could be measured in feet. These enforced waitings, grumbled Schley, “were all the more hard to bear as we knew how seriously delay must tell upon the party to whose relief we were anxiously hurrying.” Meanwhile, the ships had fallen in with the whalers from Dundee, whose captains were determined to pocket the $25,000 reward money. From these “veritable old sea vikings,” as Schley called them, officers on board Thetis and Bear gained valuable polar information.
Through mid-June the whalers and Thetis and Bear battled through ice, winds, and tides. Dodging the bergs, steaming at full speed through broader channels, the ships plodded northward. In the morning haze, June 18, 250 miles and three weeks out of Upernivik, Cape York was sighted. At this point the ships parted. The whaling captains, deciding that it was futile to push farther north, headed their vessels westward toward the fishing areas of Lancaster Sound. Schley dispatched Bear westward to Cary Island with orders to look for Greely, and to wait for Thetis at Littleton Island.
After search parties had found no trace of Greely at Cape York, Thetis got underway and pushed northward—past Petowik Glacier, Cape Atholl, and Saunders, Northumberland, and Hakluyt islands. On June 21 Thetis anchored to a berg off the north side of Littleton Island, and sailors scoured the area in a snowstorm for Greely records. Seven miles to the westward, across Smith Sound at Cape Sabine, seven men prayed.
On Littleton Island search parties from Thetis discovered a broken bottle and a note from the Garlington expedition. On the following day, Sunday, June 22, 1884, while Schley lunched, Bear was sighted, and later its captain, Emory, reported his failure to find Greely at Cary Island. Acting on a reconstruction of the army lieutenant’s possible moves, it was decided to make a hurried run to Cape Sabine before banging into Kane Sea to the northward. At 1500 the relievers were underway.
By evening, at Prayer Harbor, an inlet on Cape Sabine, three search crews from Thetis and Bear had been sent into the arctic storm. Later in Thetis’ pilot-house, Schley and a watch officer saw Seaman G. B. Yewell sprinting toward their ship, madly waving a package. “The excitement of the moment,” Schley declared, “was intense, and it spread with the rapidity of lightning” through the whole ship. Officers stumbled into Thetis’ wardroom, where Yewell, panting, handed over a batch of letters which indicated that Greely was three miles to the north.
It was a confused scene. Schley, spurring his men, burst out with commands, ordered whistles blown, darted topside and dropped into a steam launch, which was headed for Bear. Thetis was to pick up the search parties; Bear was to round the Cape to the north side. To expedite operations, Lieutenant John C. Colwell and several men dumped provisions into a launch, piled themselves in, and headed toward shore.
Colwell and his men were bounced by choppy seas, before they scrambled out on the beach to trudge into the winds toward Greely’s position. A shriek stopped them short. Half running, half crawling, Private Francis Long of the Greely Expedition stumbled down a hill to the rescuers and collapsed. “He was a ghastly sight,” exclaimed Colwell later, his “cheeks were hollow, his eyes wild. ...” Leaving a man to revive Long, Colwell struggled up a little embankment and finally reached the camp. Knifing through canvas, a scene of horror met his eyes. As Colwell crawled in, he noticed a wretch with staring eyes, dressed in a tattered dressing gown and red skull cap. It was Greely. “Seven of us left,” muttered the army lieutenant, “here we are—dying like men. ...” The survivor then fell back, exhausted.
A few feet away a private moaned in delirium: “Let me alone, let me alone. For God’s sake, let me die in peace.”
Arriving on the scene later, described Schley:
a horrible sight met our eyes . . . [the survivors] were crying like children ... I thanked God in heart that strength had been vouchsafed us to overcome all the dangers . . . and to reach those whom we found in such distress and want. The whole picture was one that few men are permitted to see, and, once seen, could never be forgotten. . . .
After rapid examination of the seven survivors, the doctor confided that had the ships been delayed 48 hours, no “living soul” would have been found. On the small ridge outside the hut was a row of graves. To care for the dead, Emory was detailed to exhume the bodies, wrap them in blankets, and return them to the ships. By 0300, June 23, all hands were on board and, after a six hour rest, Thetis and Bear got underway for Littleton Island.
From Littleton the steamers retraced their course through Smith Sound, bludgeoning their way past Foulke Fiord and the arctic islands. On June 27, Cape York was cleared close aboard, and several days later, off Sugar Loaf Mountain, the steamers fell in with Alert and Loch Garry, which were slowly pounding their way northward. In the crews’ and officers’ quarters on board Thetis, the survivors were fast recuperating, except Sergeant Joseph Elison. Below in sick bay, after the doctor had amputated his gangrenous legs, he passed away. The remainder of the voyage down the coast of Greenland to Upernivik and Godhaven, then westward to St. John’s, was without incident.
As fog signals moaned and engines were slowed, the squadron on July 17 heard the town clock in St. John’s strike 0900, and navigators quickly adjusted their positions. The ships steamed to their anchorages. A launch was lowered, and an officer headed toward shore.
In the July sunshine at West Point, New York, after a late breakfast, the vacationing Chandler was handed an urgent dispatch from Washington. The news soon flashed throughout the country and the world. Before nightfall telegrams from every section of the nation, from chambers of commerce, from national and state dignitaries, flooded into St. John’s. In New York, where gambiers were giving ten to eight odds on Grover Cleveland over James G. Blaine in November’s election, the news of the cholera epidemic in France was delegated to back pages and full spreads were devoted to the rescue. Across lower New York Bay, a Mr. Paine hastily changed his evening fireworks display to include a “fiery portrait” of Greely. In Washington the War and Navy Departments were inundated with reporters, telegraph office windows carried news placards and, before leaving for his Catskills’ vacation, the President expressed “the greatest concern” over the Greely dead. In New- buryport, Massachusetts, the council voted SI,000 to celebrate Greely’s homecoming, and in Schenectady, New York, a minister rewrote part of his sermon to allude to the rescue. From England, Queen Victoria sent congratulations, and, in London’s Burlington Gardens, crowds thronged the rooms of the Royal Geographical Society to learn of Schley’s actions. In Paris a member of the French Geographical Society termed the expedition the greatest polar exploit of the year.
At 1000, July 26, after resting at St. John’s for a week, the squadron, without Loch Garry, took departure for Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Five days out of St. John’s August 1, Thetis, Bear, and Alert maneuvered to their anchorages in Portsmouth Harbor. The formal welcome was held two days later, on Monday. By this time visitors had streamed into the New Hampshire town; room space in hotels was sold out; buildings were decorated with bunting. Led by the Portsmouth Coronet Band, a procession, carrying banners stamped with “Welcome to Our Arctic Heroes,” moved down the main street toward Market Square. That evening ten officials stepped to the rostrum in Portsmouth Music Hall to backslap and to heap honors upon the party. Secretary Chandler proudly commented: “a new chapter must be written in the long and noble record of naval achievement.”
Three days later, August 8, the relief ships steamed into New York Harbor. The caskets were transferred to Governors Island, where caissons rumbled and the Greely dead received full military honors. Somewhere beyond in the noisy city, a man penned:
Three ships are rounding to the dock,
Wet still with Northern spray;
Their hulls are bruised by iceberg shock,
And scarred in deadly fray.
His assignment completed, Schley left his ship at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, hurried to Manhattan, up Broadway to 23rd Street and the Grand Hotel for rest and sleep. In early September President Arthur received three officers in his suite at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. During the hour long chat, the President informed Schley that he had been promoted to Chief of the Bureau of Equipment and Recruiting, and promised Emory and Coffin shore duty.
While Greely rested and received visitors at his cottage on Cape Cod, the records of his explorations were being catalogued at Washington. The information contained in them caused the president of the Royal Geographical Society to state later that, in addition to the valuable meteorological data, the expedition had “added largely to our knowledge of the configuration of the northern coasts of Greenland. ...”
Greely’s fame did not detract from the heroism of the rescuers. The biggest service the venture performed was in demonstrating the value which the American public and the United States government attached to the individual citizen. The expedition, born in naval deterioration, trumpeted a call which echoed throughout the nation, that the best traditions of the American Navy had been preserved. The Department had demonstrated that it could be trusted to carry out successful operations. In August, 1884, Senator Eugene Hale of Maine climbed to a platform and spoke out:
Years of uneventful duty; a fleet gradually dwindling; public sentiment until lately apathetic as to the need of a navy—none of these nor all of these had stamped out of the breasts of the officers and men of our Navy that fire which had burned in the hearts of [John] Paul Jones and Decatur . . . skill, courage, daring, were all amply found.
Schley and his men, said a former Secretary of the Navy, “have illustrated ... to their country . . . that the highest qualities of the naval service are not always exhibited . . . amid the turmoils and excitement of desperate battle.” The Greely Relief Expedition had impressed on the nation that the Navy was an instrument of peace as well as of war, and an effective unit of action. Naval pride was quickened and the country looked with renewed respect upon this branch of the service.