Sea of Glory

bogus islands may have also been the result of the hurried nature of the Expedition’s survey of the island group in the wake of the Peacock ’s loss. Wilkes’s confrontation with Robert Johnson is detailed in Wilkes’s July 17, 1841, journal entry.
    Wilkes’s frustrations about how Hudson conducted his cruise of the central Pacific are in an August 6, 1841, journal entry. I have found Bordwell’s analysis of the mounting tensions between Wilkes and Hudson during the survey of the river especially helpful, pp. 169-73. Wilkes tells of having to start from scratch with the survey of the river in his Narrative, vol. 5, p. 113; he speaks of how he labored to “bring things into order” in ACW, p. 503. Soon after Wilkes asked Reynolds about his pea jacket, he decided that it was too dangerous to continue sailing up the river on a foggy night and ordered the Flying Fish back to Bakers Bay. “No man in his senses,” Reynolds ranted, “would have started. Great was our relief, to get rid of him. When we reached the cove, he went ashore & pitched his tent for the night.” Wilkes describes the incident with his commodore’s pennant in an August 25, 1841, journal entry. Both Stanton, p. 267, and Bordwell, p. 175, speak of the importance of Wilkes’s decision to allow the philologist Horatio Hale to leave the squadron and pursue his own interests.
    Henry Eld’s praise of Wilkes’s “indomitable perseverance & tenacity” comes from a letter he wrote to his father after the Expedition on March 16, 1845 (at LOC); cited by Tyler, p. 397. Unlike Reynolds, Eld had maintained a healthy skepticism concerning the Expedition and its leader from the very beginning. Back on August 17, 1838, as the squadron sailed from Norfolk, Virginia, he wrote his father that “all the Zeal that I ever felt for the Service or my country has Evaporated” (LOC). Having never committed himself on a personal level to Wilkes, Eld was able to witness the disintegration of relations between the commander and his officers with an unusual, and much-needed, degree of detachment.
    Wilkes writes about his potential difficulties with the secretary of the navy and the possibility of a “full investigation” in an October 18, 1841, letter to Jane. Reynolds predicts that there will be a court-martial at the end of the Expedition in an August 10, 1841, letter to his father. Reynolds compares refitting the schooner at sea to a drowning man mending his clothes in a November 7, 1841, letter. He describes the Flying Fish ’s difficulties off Oregon in both his journal and a November 7, 1841, letter to Lydia. Wilkes writes about Yerba Buena and San Francisco Bay, as well as the Vincennes ’s ordeal at the bar, in his Narrative, vol. 5, pp. 152, 171, 254-56. He tells of being “master now of all” in an October 18, 1841, letter to Jane.

CHAPTER 13: HOMEWARD BOUND
    In a November 22, 1841, letter to Jane, Wilkes reveals his plan to use his findings from the Pacific Northwest to win himself a promotion: “I have no idea of giving up my results until I am satisfied they intend doing what I conceive ought in justice to be done for me.” For information concerning how developing American attitudes toward the Oregon territory influenced Wilkes and the Expedition, I have looked to John Wickman’s dissertation “Political Aspects of Charles Wilkes’s Work and Testimony, 1842-1849,” Indiana University, pp. 27- 28. Wilkes speaks of John Aulick’s claims about his unbalanced mental state and Ross’s dismissal of his Antarctic results in two letters written on November 22 and November 27, 1841, both written from Oahu. James Ross would write in detail about his doubts about Wilkes’s claims and his meeting with Aulick in A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions, pp. 275-90. Wilkes tells Jane to remove Aulick and his family from “the vocabulary of our acquaintance” in a November 27, 1841, letter.
    William Reynolds writes of learning that the Flying Fish would not be sold in Oahu in his journal; unless otherwise noted, all quotations from Reynolds in this chapter are from his journal. Wilkes tells of the orders he issued to the Expedition’s commanders at Oahu in his Narrative, vol. 5, p. 265; he also refers to the many “Asiatic nations” at Singapore, p. 374. George Emmons included extensive notes and transcripts from Knox’s court of inquiry with the February 19, 1842, entry of his journal. Wilkes responds to the