Sea of Glory

For information on the unusual clarity of the Antarctic atmosphere and the difficulties it creates in judging distances, see the Antarctic Pilot, p. 80. Charles Erskine tells of his experiences on the iceberg in Twenty Years Before the Mast, pp. 113-15; he also tells how he learned to read and write, pp. 39, 129. In New Lands, New Men, William Goetzmann refers to Wilkes’s picture of himself sliding down the ice as “the only recorded instance where Wilkes seemed to have had a sense of humor,” p. 206. Kenneth Bertrand in Americans in Antarctica mentions Ringgold’s misguided decision to head the Porpoise north, p. 178. D’Urville’s description of his encounter with the Porpoise is from his Two Voyages to the South Seas, p. 486.
    Alden recounts the construction of the chart of Antarctica in his testimony at Wilkes’s court-martial, p. 154. Wilkes tells of his “wisdom and perseverance” in a March 7-11, 1840, letter to Jane. Alden recounts Wilkes’s speech about the secrecy of their discovery in Wilkes’s court-martial, p. 159. D’Urville speaks of the “tough work” of sailing along the ice barrier in Two Voyages to the South Seas, pp. 489-90. Alden’s testimony concerning his conversation with Wilkes about seeing land on January 19 is from Wilkes’s court-martial, pp. 153-54. I am following William Stanton’s lead in suspecting that Wilkes altered his journal entry for January 19; see Stanton, p. 173. Hudson unsuccessfully fended off charges that he altered his report to the secretary of the navy at Wilkes’s court-martial, p. 185. Wilkes tells of his emotional meeting with Hudson in a March 27- April 5, 1840, letter to Jane. Ringgold speaks of asking Wilkes why he hadn’t mentioned discovering land on January 26 in his testimony at Wilkes’s court-martial, p. 162. Sinclair’s skeptical words about Ringgold’s newfound memory of seeing land are from an April 12, 1840, journal entry. Wilkes confesses to Jane that no one on the Porpoise and Flying Fish was originally aware of land to the south in a March 31, 1840, letter. Wilkes’s April 5, 1840, letter to James Ross is included in Appendix XXIV of Wilkes’s Narrative, vol. 2, pp. 453-56.

CHAPTER 9: THE CANNIBAL ISLES
    In a March 18, 1840, letter to Jane, Wilkes speaks of his not having received a letter from her in sixteen months, as well as of Hudson having received a letter in Sydney dated the middle of August. His reference to not blaming Jane for the delay is in an August 13, 1840, letter. He speaks of being a “worn out old voyager” in a letter written between March 27 and April 5, 1840. Wilkes mentions the self-imposed distance between himself and Wilkes Henry in an August 18, 1840, letter to Jane.
    R. A. Derrick’s History of Fiji provides a good summary of exploration, shipping, and trade in the group, pp. 64-74. I have depended on Derrick’s The Fiji Islands: A Geographical Handbook for geographical and cartographic information about the islands. Reynolds speaks of the motivations behind the Ex. Ex.’s survey of Fiji in his private journal, in which he also refers to Wilkes’s actions against various officers; he writes of the destruction of his and May’s “little palace” in an October 19, 1840, letter to his family. For information about Congreve war rockets I have depended on Richard Hobbs’s “The Congreve War Rockets, 1800-1825,” in U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, pp. 80-88.
    James Cook’s reference to the Fijians’ “addiction” to cannibalism is cited in Fergus Clunie’s Fijian Weapons and Warfare, p. 1. Derrick writes about Tasman, Cook, and Bligh in A History of Fiji, pp. 37-47. Reynolds, who speaks of Wilkes’s preliminary chart of Fiji in his journal, tells of the pilot’s interchange with the Expedition’s commander in his Manuscript, p. 47. Wilkes writes of the squadron’s arrival in Fiji in his Narrative, vol. 3, pp. 45-47. Reynolds’s enthusiastic description of Ovalau is in a September 21, 1840, letter to his family. His description of a Fijian warrior is from his journal. Wilkes describes how a Fijian son strangles his mother and father in his Narrative, vol. 3, p. 94; he also speaks of the sacrifices that accompanied the launching of Tanoa’s canoe, p. 97. Derrick chronicles instances of human sacrifice in A History of Fiji, p. 21, as does Clunie, p. 7. The reference to man being the most popular animal food source in Fiji is from Patrick Kirch’s On the Road of the Winds, p. 160;