Chapter XIX: The Woeful Return

Without stopping to discuss the action of Congress or the Government officials in regard to sending relief to the Greely Expedition, the writer desires to mention that the names of Senator Joseph R. Hawley and Representative E. John Ellis, because of their manly action in Congress in behalf of the suffering explorers, are far more deserving of places on the charts of the North than those of many others which have thus been honored. In 1882 a vessel called the Neptune, Captain William Sopp, was chartered at St. John’s, Newfoundland, and with a full supply of provisions was dispatched for Lady Franklin Bay, but failing in her mission returned to Newfoundland _without leaving_ any of her supplies in the North, but bringing them all back to St. John’s! In 1883 the steamer Proteus, Captain Richard Pike, was rechartered at St. John’s, and with a full supply of provisions sailed for Discovery Harbor, but was crushed in the ice near Cape Sabine, her crew succeeding in landing in a safe place a small part of her cargo, some of which was subsequently utilized by the Greely party.

In 1884 a third rescuing expedition was organized and dispatched for the relief of the Greely exploring party. That expedition was composed of a squadron of three ships, the Thetis, the Bear, and the Alert, under the command of Commander Winfield S. Schley, of the United States Navy. They left St. John’s on the 12th of May, and, after the usual tribulations along the western coast of Greenland, reached the vicinity of Cape Sabine, and discovered the Greely party at Camp Clay, on Sunday, the 22d of June, seventy-three days after the death of Lieutenant Lockwood. The discovery was then made that, out of the twenty-five men connected with the Greely Expedition only seven were alive, viz., Lieutenant Greely, Brainard, Biederbick, Fredericks, Long, Connell, and Ellison. As soon as the survivors could be relieved and transferred to the ships, the remains of the dead were exhumed with care and taken to the ships for transportation to the United States, excepting the remains of Esquimaux Frederick, which were left at Disco.

As the pictures presented by the survivors lying in their camp, dazed with suffering and surprise and a joy they could not manifest, and the incidents they subsequently narrated of intense suffering, can only prove heart-rending to the reader, they will not now be dwelt upon. The departure of the ships, with their strange list of dead and living passengers, seemed to enhance the gloom which filled the sky and rested upon the sea. Their condition was so deplorable, that a delay of a very few days would have left none to tell the tale of woe and suffering. At least two could not have lived twenty-four hours. That this time was gained, under the stimulus of the twenty-five thousand dollars reward, appears from an article written by an officer of the Relief Expedition and published in the “Century” of May, 1885, as follows:

“The reward of twenty-five thousand dollars that Congress had offered for the first information of Greely had incited the whalers to take risks that they otherwise would have shunned. They had expressed a determination to strive for it, and were ever on the alert for a chance to creep northward. The Relief Squadron was determined, on its part, that the whalers should not secure the first information, and were equally zealous in pushing northward. It was this rivalry (a friendly one, for our relations with the whaling-captains were of the pleasantest nature) that hurried us across Melville Bay and brought us together within sight of Cape York. It had been thought possible that Greely or an advance party might be there.”

Mr. Ellis proposed in the last session of Congress that, as the reward had not been spent, yet had contributed to the rescue, it should be appropriated to building, at Washington, a monument to the dead.

The temporary halt at Disco Harbor was saddened by the death of Ellison, after prolonged sufferings, as if his noble spirit was determined to join its departed comrades in their passage to the skies from that Northern Land of Desolation.

In the official record of the Relief Expedition, Commander Schley makes an allusion to the important part taken by Lieutenant Lockwood in the Greely Expedition which should be repeated in this place. After submitting certain papers which had been found in a cairn at Breevort Island, he says: “It was a wonderful story. It told how the expedition, during its two years at Lady Franklin Bay, had marked out the interior of Grinnell Land, and how Lockwood had followed the northern shore of Greenland, and had reclaimed for America the honor of ‘the farthest north.’”

On Thursday, the 17th of July, the Relief Expedition arrived at St. John’s, Newfoundland, where they were kindly welcomed, and the tidings of their arrival promptly telegraphed to the anxious multitudes in the United States. Complete arrangements were made for the continuous voyage of the living and the dead to their several homes.

In a dispatch which the Secretary of the Navy sent to Commander Schley, on the day of his return, he said, “Preserve tenderly the remains of the heroic dead,” and that order was duly obeyed. They were placed in metallic caskets, and the squadron sailed from St. John’s on the 26th of July, arriving at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on the 2d of August. As the first duty after a battle is to bury the dead, it is to be regretted that this was not done before the display was made at Portsmouth. It was not thus that England received her victorious fleet from Trafalgar, bearing home the remains of the dead hero Nelson. The mutilated remains of the dead should first have been delivered over to the bleeding hearts that awaited them. While so many unurned corpses remained in the ships, the celebration was but a ghastly jubilee. Requiems should have been chanted before pæans were sung. The only casket removed from the ships at Portsmouth was that containing the remains of Sergeant Jewell, who was a native of New Hampshire. The squadron now sailed for New York, and on its arrival, the 8th of August, was received with great enthusiasm. Here the remains of the dead were delivered to the custody of the army commander at Governor’s Island, by whom the final dispositions were made. The remains of Lieutenant Lockwood were forwarded to Annapolis and placed under a military guard, in the church of St. Anne, where the young hero had been baptized, confirmed, and received his first communion. The funeral was of a military character, and the attendance was very large, comprehending all the naval, military, and civil organizations of the city. Recalling the words of the poet Whittier, many of the mourners present must have felt their special force, when he says:

“I know not what the future hath
Of marvel or surprise,
Assured alone that life and death
_His_ mercy underlies.”

The remains of the hero lie in the beautiful cemetery of the Naval Academy, overlooking the place of his birth and the scenes of his childhood. An appropriate tomb was erected over them, bearing this inscription:

JAMES BOOTH LOCKWOOD,
LIEUTENANT UNITED STATES ARMY,
Born at Annapolis, Maryland,
October 9, 1852,
Died at Cape Sabine,
April 9, 1884.

“The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.”

On the day that the rector of St. Anne’s church, Rev. William S. Southgate, gave notice of the time of the burial, he made the following remarks:

“One of the truths of the Bible, taught us by the Church, the most difficult to receive and to hold practically, is that expressed in the words of the Collect for the last week: ‘O God, whose never-failing providence ordereth all things both in heaven and on earth.’

“The difficulty arises from the fact that in so many cases we can not discover either the justice or the mercy or even the expediency of that ordering.

“And yet at times we get a glimpse of light that reveals much of the fitness and beauty of this divine ordering of events. Here is an example before us. There is a peculiar appropriateness in the ordering of events that brings James Booth Lockwood here to be buried. Born in this parish, baptized here, confirmed in St. Anne by Bishop Whittingham, April 19, 1868, he received his first communion at this altar on Christmas-day of the same year. The rector of the parish, who presented him for confirmation and administered to him the holy communion, has just been called suddenly to his rest. In the midst of untiring labors the call found them both at the post of duty, and both were taken away while in the performance of that duty. But there was something peculiarly sad in the circumstances and mode of young Lockwood’s death—circumstances due partly to the nature of the work in which he was engaged, partly to the fault of others. But what matters it how or when he died, if found at Death’s call doing the duty assigned to him?

“One of the earliest of the adventurers along this coast, then as little known to the world as the Arctic regions are now to us, when his little ship was overwhelmed by the stormy sea, comforted the frightened and trembling helmsman with the assuring words, ‘My child, heaven is as near to us by sea as by land.’ And so what matters it where we die and how we die, so long as we are reconciled to God, and are faithfully fulfilling our calling? May God give us grace so to live that we may never be afraid to die in any place or in any manner!”

That the story and the fate of James B. Lockwood excited a profound sentiment of sorrow and admiration throughout the entire country was manifested in many ways, and a notice of some of them will form an appropriate conclusion to this _in-memoriam_ volume. Among the first tributes of honor and affection was the following official order published by the colonel of his regiment, announcing his death to the military associates of the young soldier:

[Order, No. 46.]
Headquarters Twenty-third Infantry,
Fort Wayne, Mich., _July 25, 1884_.

Another name is added to the list of our honored dead. The
official announcement is received from the War Department of the
death of First-Lieutenant James B. Lockwood, at Camp Clay, near
Cape Sabine, Smith’s Sound, Arctic regions, April 9, 1884. He was
assigned to this regiment as second lieutenant, October 1, 1873,
and promoted first lieutenant March 15, 1883. He served with
distinction throughout Arizona, Nebraska, Kansas, the Indian
Territory, and Colorado, always performing with zeal and
thoroughness the various and complex duties that usually fall to
the lot of the young officer. In 1881 he turned from the arduous
duties and savage warfare of frontier life to face still greater
hardship and danger, and finally to lay down his life in those
frozen and inhospitable regions which have proved the sepulchre of
so many heroes before him.

Lieutenant Lockwood was a young officer of great promise in his
profession; of a noble and exalted character, his fine mind tended
constantly to the investigation of scientific truths. When the
privations, the suffering, and the achievements of the “Lady
Franklin Bay Expedition” are fully related, higher authority will
doubtless pay a more fitting tribute to the worth, the fortitude,
and the matchless courage of an officer who, in Arctic
exploration, has carried the American flag to a point in advance
of that of any other nation.

His reward is an imperishable fame, which he sought with even
greater resolution than leads the soldier to the cannon’s mouth.
The pleasant smile and manly form of our comrade are lost to us
forever, but his name and memory will be always green in our
hearts.

Officers of the regiment will wear the usual badge of mourning for
thirty days.

By order of Colonel Black:
T. G. M. Smith,
_First Lieutenant and Adjutant Twenty-third Infantry._

When the news of Lockwood’s fate was known at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, arrangements were at once made, by those who had known and loved him there, to erect a tablet to his memory in the handsome post chapel at that place. When completed it was placed in a conspicuous position, and bore the following inscription:

In Memoriam
JAMES B. LOCKWOOD,
FIRST LIEUTENANT TWENTY-THIRD INFANTRY,
A MEMBER OF THE
Greely Polar Expedition,
Died at Cape Sabine, Grinnell Land,
April 9, 1884.

This tablet was erected chiefly at the expense of Lockwood’s old regiment. To one of the officers General Lockwood presented a sword that had belonged to his son, and, in his acknowledgment, that officer made this remark: “As a friend of your son, I shall take pride and comfort from having in my possession the sword of a friend, who lived so nobly and died so honorably. Should you desire it to come back to your family when I have joined your son, I hope you will tell me so, and I will provide accordingly.” Among those who earnestly co-operated with this gentleman in erecting the tablet was one who wrote to his fellow-officer as follows: “No two people, outside of Lockwood’s own blood relations, loved him more than you and I. And yet I do not know that I am right in calling his end untimely. He died, as he had ever lived, in the discharge of his duty, and I imagine, when the records of the expedition become more known, it will be seen that his duty was well done to the end. He was a man, and has died like one. God grant that when our time comes it may find us, too, in the discharge of our duty!”

During Lieutenant Greely’s sojourn in Portsmouth, when on his way home, and while yet too feeble to use the pen, he dictated the following letter to General Lockwood:

Portsmouth, N. H., _August 9, 1884_.

My dear General Lockwood: Had I not seen Commander Sigsbee, and
given to him such information as he wished, and as I knew would be
most important to you in regard to your son, I should have
attempted an earlier letter to you. I am still unable to write to
you by my own hand. As I told Commander Sigsbee, James died from
water around the heart, induced by insufficient nutrition. His
last days were quiet and painless. He did his whole duty as a
soldier and an officer. His loyalty to truth, fidelity, and zeal
could always be relied upon by me. His unvarying kindness, his
gentleness, his deep interest in and toward the men of the
expedition indicated a nature thoroughly imbued with the essential
and fundamental principles of Christianity, and won for him their
good-will, confidence, and affection. I feel that you and Mrs.
Lockwood may well be proud of such a son. His daily conversation
during the past winter told us how much he loved his parents, and
how deep and close were the bonds of affection which united him to
his sisters and brother. He seemed to feel that he had not done
full justice to the many and great advantages that you had given
him, and hoped to make amends in the future. His innate modesty in
this, as in other matters, I think did scant justice to his true
merits. I write by Mrs. Greely’s hand—she joins me in sympathy and
condolence. I feel that this letter insufficiently informs you
regarding James. From day to day he intended to write you, but
delayed too long. His diary, in short-hand, was kept up, I
believe, to the day preceding his death.
Sincerely yours,
A. W. Greely.

Another letter from Portsmouth, written by Sergeant D. L. Brainard in answer to some inquiries made by General Lockwood, was as follows:

Portsmouth, N. H., _September 4, 1884_.

_General_ H. H. Lockwood.

Dear Sir: Your letter of the 22d ult., requesting information of
the missing effects of your dear son, which had been committed to
my care, is just received. . . . The effects in question,
excepting the ring and coins, I turned over to Major Greely before
leaving this city in August. The two latter articles I afterward
found and gave to Mrs. Peck, who, with her husband, called on me
at the Parker House, in Boston. The setting of the ring, I am
sorry to say, was not found after his death, although diligent
search was made. He had spoken of it but a few days before his
death, and expressed great concern for its safety. It was supposed
to be suspended from his neck in a small parcel, but search
revealed nothing. The compass was among the effects I transferred
to Lieutenant Greely, as were also two pencils, his pipe, spoon,
knife, etc. With reference to the inner life of your son, do not
feel any concern. Although not an open professor of any particular
creed, he followed closely the golden rule during my acquaintance
with him. When I reach Washington I shall be glad to call on you.
In the mean time I shall willingly answer any question with regard
to his life in the frigid zone that you may desire to ask. Place
no reliance on any of the adverse newspaper reports that are
occasionally seen reflecting on his conduct; they are not worthy
of a moment’s thought. Hoping that the articles have reached you
in safety ere this, I am, very sincerely yours,