Sea of Glory

Paulding’s encouraging letter of December 14, 1839, as evidence in his court-martial; it was reprinted in the New York Herald, August 3, 1842. Wilkes writes of the dismissal of Pinkney, Guillou, and Couthouy in letters to Jane dated November 8-22, November 30, and in an undated letter probably written in November 1840, claiming, “I take great pleasure in driving them up to the mark by whip and spur.” The reference to Wilkes “getting delirious” appeared in Niles Weekly Register, LVII (December 21, 1839), p. 258. Wilkes claims in a November 8-22, 1840, letter to Jane that Couthouy “has been writing all the lies home to his friend [ Jeremiah] Reynolds that have been published.” The quotations about senior officers being “immune to any serious punishment” come from Harold Langley’s Social Reform in the United States Navy, 1798-1862, p. 24.
    Wilkes refers to the “all protecting care over me” in a May 22, 1839, letter to Jane. His angry words about Gilliss addressing him “with familiarity” are in an undated letter to Jane probably written in November 1840. In an undated letter probably written in the fall of 1840, he encloses a miniature of himself painted by the artist Alfred Agate that shows him with a captain’s two epaulets and asks Jane if she thinks “I am improved in appearance by the addition to my shoulders.” Reynolds’s words about Wilkes being “either crazy, beyond redemption, or . . . a rascally tyrant” are from his journal. Wilkes writes to Jane of making the Expedition “a brilliant one” in an undated letter probably written in November 1840, in which he also refers to “our promotions.” William Reynolds speaks of the news about Antarctica being received “with great Enthusiasm” in a November 16, 1840, letter.
    Herman Melville writes of the “judicial severity” practiced by a navy captain in White-Jacket, p. 301. A list of the twenty-five instances in which Wilkes inflicted more than twelve lashes on his men is included in the Wilkes Court-Martial file, pp. 19-21. Harold Langley covers the history of flogging in Social Reform in the United States Navy, pp. 137-38; he also provides an excellent description of how it was performed, pp. 139-141. Wilkes’s treatment of the marines who initially refused to reenlist is documented in his Court-Martial file, pp. 19-21; George Colvocoresses testified concerning Wilkes’s actions against the marines, pp. 123-24. Langley writes of the marines’ “strange dual situation in regard to flogging,” p. 142. George Emmons, who brought charges against the marines Ward and Riley, writes of their and Sweeney’s punishments in an October 31, 1840, journal entry. Wilkes speaks of the consul’s complaints concerning the behavior of American whalemen and his decision to whip Sweeney and the marines “round the fleet” in his Narrative, vol. 4, p. 57. Langley describes flogging round the fleet as a “death sentence” and also speaks of its rarity in the U.S. Navy, p. 142. Admiral W. H. Smyth in the Sailor’s Word-Book defines flogging round the fleet as “a diabolical punishment,” p. 582. My account of the flogging is also based on descriptions provided by Charles Erskine in Twenty Years, pp. 208-9; the October 31, 1840, journal entry of John Dyes; and testimony during Wilkes’s court-martial from Robert Johnson, p. 145, and Overton Carr, p. 203.
    Wilkes writes of the great potential of Pearl Harbor in his Narrative, vol. 4, p. 79. Reynolds recounts his last-minute transfer from the Peacock to the Flying Fish in his journal. For information on Mauna Loa I have relied on the monograph Mauna Loa Revealed, edited by J. M. Rhodes and John Lockwood, especially the Preface, xi-xii; and the chapter by Walther Barnard, “Mauna Loa Volcano: Historical Eruptions, Exploration, and Observations (1799-1910),” pp. 1- 19. See also Volcanoes in the Sea: The Geology of Hawaii by Gordon Macdonald, et al., and Andrew Doughty and Harriett Friedman’s Hawaii: The Big Island Revealed, pp. 28-29. Victor Lenzen and Robert Multhauf in “Development of Gravity Pendulums in the 19th Century” discuss Bouguer’s pioneering use of the pendulum in the Andes in The Museum of History and Technology, pp. 307-9. See also John Noble Wilford’s account of Bouguer’s activities in The Mapmakers, pp. 128-30.
    James Dana describes his hastily formed impressions of Mauna Loa and Kilauea in a November 30, 1840, letter to Edward Herrick, in Daniel