Sea of Glory

Wilkes, Reynolds, and the highlights of the voyage . . . for those who want a compelling read, a page-turning adventure story that proves once again that truth is stranger than fiction, then Sea of Glory is for you.”
    — Naval History

PENGUIN BOOKS
    SEA OF GLORY
    Nathaniel Philbrick is the author of Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War and The New York Times bestseller In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, which won the National Book Award. Since 1986 he has lived on Nantucket Island.

NATHANIEL



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    First published in the United States of America by Viking Penguin,
a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 2003
Published in Penguin Books 2004
     

     
Copyright © Nathaniel Philbrick, 2003
    All rights reserved
     
    Illustration of the squadron by Mark Myers
Map by Jeffrey L. Ward
    Includes bibliographical references and index
    eISBN : 978-1-440-64910-3

     
     
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To my father,
    Thomas Philbrick

I have ventured . . .
This many summers in a sea of glory,
But far beyond my depth. . . .
    —WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
King Henry VIII 3.2

PREFACE
    Young Ambition
    HE WAS NOT YET FORTY-FIVE, but he looked much older, his health broken by four years of hardship and danger. But he had done it. He had successfully completed the voyage of a lifetime—the kind of voyage that had made heroes of Christopher Columbus and James Cook.
    The odds had been against him from the start. When his squadron of six sailing vessels set out from the Norfolk Navy Yard in 1838, most of the world’s oceans had already been thoroughly explored. That had not prevented the United States from sending him on a bold, some said foolhardy mission: to scour the Southern Hemisphere of the earth for new lands.
    Miraculously, he had made discoveries that would redraw the map of the world. He and his officers had surveyed dozens of uncharted Pacific islands. They had completed America’s first survey of what would one day become the states of Oregon and Washington. His team of scientists had brought back forty tons of specimens and artifacts, including two thousand never-before-identified species. Most impressive of all, he had established the existence of a new continent. Battling icebergs and gale-force winds in his fragile wooden ships, he had charted a 1,500-mile section of Antarctic coast that still bears his name: Wilkes Land.
    But on that September day in 1842, just a few months after his return to the United States, Lieutenant Charles Wilkes was anything but a hero. Instead of being honored with speeches and parades, he had been put on trial in the crowded cabin of the USS North Carolina anchored in New York Harbor. Beside him sat his attorney; across from them were the judges—thirteen naval officers who were about to decide whether he was guilty of illegally whipping his men, massacring the inhabitants of a tiny Fijian island, lying about the discovery of Antarctica, and other outrages. Sitting in the gallery were many of his own officers. They whispered among themselves and smiled, confident that their hated commander would soon get his due.
    He was a slight man with brown hair and a sharp blade of a nose, his cheeks pitted from