Sea of Glory

been George Washington’s personal physician), had recently left town, and he was now “almost totally without society.”
    Just the year before, the three officers had attended naval school together. Prior to the creation of the academy in Annapolis, midshipmen first went to sea for several years before learning what was known as the “philosophy” of their calling. Reynolds was one of forty-five midshipmen assigned to the Gosport Ship Yard in Norfolk, Virginia, where they attended lectures by day while studying in nearby boardinghouses by night. Adams had been Reynolds’s roommate. May had lived in the next room down the hall. Of the threesome, May was the ladies’ man. Handsome and impulsive, he had already fought at least one duel. For his part, Reynolds stayed true to his studious self while in Norfolk. In a letter to Lydia, he claimed to be “perfectly indifferent to the attraction of the fair ladies. . . . [W]hile I remain here, my book, the immaculate ‘Bowditch,’ the Midshipman’s Bible, will be the only object.”
    Reynolds’s affections may have already been spoken for. In an earlier letter to his sister, he objected to her concern about being seen with a girl named Rebecca Krug, who lived just down the street from the Reynolds family in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Lydia had explained that if a young woman spent time with the sister of an eligible young man, it was generally assumed that the woman and man must be engaged. “Why Good God,” William wrote, “it’s absurd to think of such a thing, no one would say so, & if they did, why then, what matter who would believe them on such a foundation.” (Despite his protestations, Reynolds would later prove to have more than a neighborly affection for Rebecca Krug.)
    By May of 1837, William and the rest of his class were in Baltimore, nervously awaiting their examinations. The first midshipman to be examined failed, or “bilged,” after a grueling seven hours of interrogation. As it turned out, both Adams and May bilged, while Reynolds earned the rank of passed midshipman.
    The following winter, after a brief stint aboard the newly launched Pennsylvania —at 210 feet and 3,104 tons displacement, the largest ship in the U.S. Navy—Reynolds enjoyed an extended stay at home in Lancaster. William was the second oldest of eight children. His father, a former newspaper publisher and state legislator, was now managing an ironworks in nearby Cornwall, Pennsylvania, where the family had taken up residence. It had been his father’s good friend Congressman James Buchanan who had secured Reynolds’s midshipman’s appointment back in 1831, and William’s younger brother John was now a cadet at West Point. Of his seven brothers and sisters, it was Lydia, three years his junior, to whom Reynolds was closest. In addition to his usual letters, William often included enclosures for Lydia that were not to be shared with the rest of the family. So it was not unusual that, without his friends Adams and May to talk to in Washington, Reynolds turned to Lydia soon after reporting to his new assignment: the Depot of Charts and Instruments.
     
    On April 20, the very day Reynolds reported for duty at the Depot, Charles Wilkes was approved by President Van Buren as commander of the U.S. Exploring Expedition. Most members of the service viewed the appointment of so junior an officer as an insult to the navy—even though all previous, more senior candidates had refused the position. But Reynolds was inclined to think differently. His friend William May had served with Wilkes during the survey of Georges Bank. May had nothing but good things to report about his young commander.
    Perhaps inevitably, Reynolds began to consider volunteering for the impending Exploring Expedition. Since the Depot was located on the grounds of Wilkes’s house, he had already had ample opportunity to meet the new leader of the Expedition. “I like Captain Wilkes,” he told Lydia, “which is important (to me).” May was planning to get over a recent love affair by shipping out on the Ex. Ex. “It is most likely, I shall bear him company,” Reynolds wrote, “though I may not share his desperate motives.”
    On May 13, he wrote Lydia from the office of the observatory. “I cannot give up the Exploring Expedition,” he declared. “I shall offer myself to Captain Wilkes today or tomorrow, therefore be ye all prepared.” As if to emphasize the strength of his resolve, he sealed the