Sea of Glory

Gilman’s Life of James Dwight Dana, pp. 124-26. Wilkes writes of his climb up Mauna Loa “being one of the great works of my cruise” in a December 11, 1840, letter to Jane. He writes of his sedan chair and the absurdity of the scene as they set out up the volcano in a January 24, 1841, letter to Jane. Unless otherwise indicated, Wilkes’s description of his climb up Mauna Loa, as well as his visit to Kilauea, are from his Narrative, vol. 4, pp. 112-75. Wilkes would visit Kilauea a second time after climbing up Mauna Loa; it was during this second visit that Dr. Judd’s hairbreadth escape occurred. Roberta Sprague’s “Measuring the Mountain: The United States Exploring Expedition on Mauna Loa, 1840-41” in The Hawaiian Journal of History, pp. 71-91, is based almost exclusively on Wilkes’s Narrative. Charles Erskine recounts the yarn about dropping an iceberg in the caldera of Kilauea in Twenty Years, pp. 214-15. Wilkes speaks of regretting the loss of his chair soon after departing from Kilauea in a January 24, 1841, letter to Jane.
    For information on altitude sickness, I have depended on Medicine for Mountaineering, edited by James Wilkerson, pp. 220-26. Erskine describes his and his fellow sailors’ “mirth and gayety” in the cave at Recruitment Station in Twenty Years, p. 219. Wilkes tells of his reaction to Judd’s news of the natives’ desertion in a January 24, 1841, letter to Jane. Erskine’s description of the hurricane atop Mauna Loa is in Twenty Years, pp. 221-22. Wilkes tells of his final examination of the snow-covered caldera of Mauna Loa in his Narrative, vol. 4, pp. 159-60. Snow blindness is described in Medicine for Mountaineering, p. 285. Wilkes speaks of the “loomi-loomi” in his Narrative, vol. 4, p. 166.
    John Dyes’s account of “yellow Hores” aboard the Vincennes is in a March 2, 1841, journal entry, in which he adds, “This has took place several times while her in the Captains Absence.” William May writes of his sexual relationship with a native girl in a May 9, 1841, letter to William Reynolds, Box 1, Area File 9, RG 45, NA. Wilkes complains of Chaplain Elliott’s behavior in an undated letter to Jane probably written in the fall of 1840.

CHAPTER 12: THE WRECK OF THE PEACOCK
    An excellent discussion of the joint occupation of the Oregon territory by the United States and Britain is The Wilkes Expedition: Puget Sound and the Oregon Country, edited by Frances Barkan, p. 92. For information on the discovery and exploration of the Columbia River, I have relied on William Dietrich’s Northwest Passage: The Great Columbia River, pp. 67-70, and Timothy Egan’s The Good Rain: Across Time and Terrain in the Pacific Northwest, pp. 27-29. Vancouver’s mention of detecting freshwater along the Oregon coast is cited in Egan, p. 28. Gray’s discovery of the Columbia is recounted in John Boit’s log, which appears in Voyages of the Columbia, edited by Frederick Howay. My thanks to Mary Malloy for providing me with the estimate of the number of ships that had visited the Columbia River prior to Lewis and Clark. William Reynolds writes of the surprise of Belcher’s officers when they heard the Ex. Ex. was to survey the Columbia River in a October 19, 1840, letter.
    Wilkes was in such a rush to get the Vincennes and the Porpoise out of Honolulu that he personally oversaw the recoppering of the brig. His lack of knowledge in this area, however, turned the usually straightforward procedure into a comical embarrassment for his officers. In his March 26, 1841, journal entry, George Sinclair writes, “Capt. Wilkes seems to have taken charge of the operation and everything goes on head over heels and is more noise and confusion than would be made in heaving down the whole navy at home.” Robert Johnson speculates about Wilkes’s commodore’s pennant in a March 24, 1841, journal entry: “I can suppose the possibility of the commander of the Expedition having authority to hoist a broad pendant, but it does appear to me strange he should do so without by intimation (at least) of such authority, Subject himself to the Suspicion, which I believe to be general, of an usurpation of dignities which are not his of right.” Wilkes writes of meeting Captain Aulick with his commodore pennant flying in a letter to Jane written from March 14-April 4, 1841.
    Wilkes’s description of the Columbia River bar is in his Narrative, vol. 4, p. 293. My description of the Columbia River and the