Sea of Glory

the specification,” he maintained, “but deny that I am therefore guilty of ‘scandalous conduct unbecoming an officer.’” The navy regulations read: “No officer shall wear a broad pendant of any kind, unless he shall have been appointed to command a squadron, or vessels on separate service.” “Mine was the command of a squadron,” he insisted, “and that regulation, if law, is my authority for using the pendant.” His argument was somewhat slipperier when it came to the matter of wearing a captain’s uniform. There was nothing on the current books that gave him the authority, he admitted, but there were some new regulations under consideration that read, “When an officer shall receive an acting appointment to fill a vacancy from the Secretary of the Navy, in conformity with these regulations, he may assume the uniform, and annex his acting rank to his signature.” What Wilkes neglected to mention, however, was that Poinsett and Paulding had specifically refused to give him an acting appointment. Still, given the trouble that the issue of rank was currently creating in the service, it was not difficult to appreciate Wilkes’s need to find a way to assert his authority over the rest of the squadron’s officers. For Reynolds and his friends, it was distressing in the extreme to think that what had been regarded as such an outrageous abuse of privilege during the Expedition might now be viewed as a mere bending of the rules.
    As he approached the end of his defence, Wilkes could not help but make a few personal references. He slammed Upshur for making a court-martial out of what so clearly should have been a court of inquiry and for giving Guillou “unprecedented” access to the files of the Navy Department. He blasted Pinkney for daring to impugn the competence of the officers of the Sea Gull in his defence. “I might contrast the intelligence, attention to duty, and untiring activity of the lamented Reid and Bacon with all that is opposite in the character of Lieutenant Pinkney.” He claimed that the judge advocate’s conduct during the trial had revealed a level of “ignorance and prejudice [that] had it not been publicly exhibited could not have been believed to exist.”
    Finally, he appealed to the judges as a “brother officer,” even as he wrapped himself in the American flag. “[A] bare verdict of not guilty is far less than the nation has a right to require at your hands,” he insisted. “Its honor, its glory, the untarnished luster of its unconquered flag, have all been assailed through me. With you rests the power of vindicating that honor, exalting that glory, and wiping off any stain which these proceedings have cast upon that banner.”
     
    A few days after the conclusion of the trial, the editor of the New York Herald, James Gordon Bennett, delivered his judgment in an editorial. “Lieutenant Wilkes and his associates have exhibited some weaknesses,” he wrote, “but it may be justly doubted whether any circum-navigator, after a four years’ cruise round the world, ever returned home with fewer really tangible causes of complaint.” If there was a villain in this trial, it was Upshur, who should have investigated the loss of the Peacock and the Sea Gull rather than wasting the court’s time with so many trivial charges. “Mr. Wilkes is sensitive and quick-tempered; but did Columbus, or Cook, or Vancouver, Ross, or any other, come out as easily? This temper should be somewhat overlooked in his arduous and responsible duties. . . . No doubt Wilkes has made mistakes in some small matters, but has he not overshadowed these by his other manly qualities, energies, and conduct as commander of the expedition? Is not the whole exposition a disgrace to the navy?”
    Reynolds was deeply worried about the fate of Guillou and Pinkney. Although Johnson had been acquitted, word had leaked out that Guillou had been found guilty and sentenced to dismissal from the navy. But since he had performed such faithful service for the secretary of the navy, Upshur had made it known that if Guillou assembled as many letters of support as possible, there was a good chance President Tyler would commute the sentence. Guillou did just that, procuring letters from just about every officer in the squadron, along with letters from many influential politicians. On September 28, Tyler issued his verdict: “the sentence is mitigated by conviction to suspension without pay or emoluments for twelve