Farthest North / The Life and Explorations of Lieutenant James Booth Lockwood, of the Greely Arctic Expedition

XIX. THE WOEFUL RETURN.

Without stopping to discuss the action of Congress or the Government officials in regard to sending relief to the Greely Expedition, the writer desires to mention that the names of Senator Joseph R. Hawley and Representative E. John Ellis, because of their manly action in Congress in behalf of the suffering explorers, are far more deserving of places on the charts of the North than those of many others which have thus been honored. In 1882 a vessel called the Neptune, Captain William Sopp, was chartered at St. John’s, Newfoundland, and with a full supply of provisions was dispatched for Lady Franklin Bay, but failing in her mission returned to Newfoundland without leaving any of her supplies in the North, but bringing them all back to St. John’s! In 1883 the steamer Proteus, Captain Richard Pike, was rechartered at St. John’s, and with a full supply of provisions sailed for Discovery Harbor, but was crushed in the ice near Cape Sabine, her crew succeeding in landing in a safe place a small part of her cargo, some of which was subsequently utilized by the Greely party.

In 1884 a third rescuing expedition was organized and dispatched for the relief of the Greely exploring party. That expedition was composed of a squadron of three ships, the Thetis, the Bear, and the Alert, under the command of Commander Winfield S. Schley, of the United States Navy. They left St. John’s on the 12th of May, and, after the usual tribulations along the western coast of Greenland, reached the vicinity of Cape Sabine, and discovered the Greely party at Camp Clay, on Sunday, the 22d of June, seventy-three days after the death of Lieutenant Lockwood. The discovery was then made that, out of the twenty-five men connected with the Greely Expedition only seven were alive, viz., Lieutenant Greely, Brainard, Biederbick, Fredericks, Long, Connell, and Ellison. As soon as the survivors could be relieved and transferred to the ships, the remains of the dead were exhumed with care and taken to the ships for transportation to the United States, excepting the remains of Esquimaux Frederick, which were left at Disco.

As the pictures presented by the survivors lying in their camp, dazed with suffering and surprise and a joy they could not manifest, and the incidents they subsequently narrated of intense suffering, can only prove heart-rending to the reader, they will not now be dwelt upon. The departure of the ships, with their strange list of dead and living passengers, seemed to enhance the gloom which filled the sky and rested upon the sea. Their condition was so deplorable, that a delay of a very few days would have left none to tell the tale of woe and suffering. At least two could not have lived twenty-four hours. That this time was gained, under the stimulus of the twenty-five thousand dollars reward, appears from an article written by an officer of the Relief Expedition and published in the “Century” of May, 1885, as follows:

“The reward of twenty-five thousand dollars that Congress had offered for the first information of Greely had incited the whalers to take risks that they otherwise would have shunned. They had expressed a determination to strive for it, and were ever on the alert for a chance to creep northward. The Relief Squadron was determined, on its part, that the whalers should not secure the first information, and were equally zealous in pushing northward. It was this rivalry (a friendly one, for our relations with the whaling-captains were of the pleasantest nature) that hurried us across Melville Bay and brought us together within sight of Cape York. It had been thought possible that Greely or an advance party might be there.”

Mr. Ellis proposed in the last session of Congress that, as the reward had not been spent, yet had contributed to the rescue, it should be appropriated to building, at Washington, a monument to the dead.

The temporary halt at Disco Harbor was saddened by the death of Ellison, after prolonged sufferings, as if his noble spirit was determined to join its departed comrades in their passage to the skies from that Northern Land of Desolation.

In the official record of the Relief Expedition, Commander Schley makes an allusion to the important part taken by Lieutenant Lockwood in the Greely Expedition which should be repeated in this place. After submitting certain papers which had been found in a cairn at Breevort Island, he says: “It was a wonderful story. It told how the expedition, during its two years at Lady Franklin Bay, had marked out the interior of Grinnell Land, and how Lockwood had followed the northern shore of Greenland, and had reclaimed for America the honor of ‘the farthest north.’”

On Thursday, the 17th of July, the Relief Expedition arrived at St. John’s, Newfoundland, where they were kindly welcomed, and the tidings of their arrival promptly telegraphed to the anxious multitudes in the United States. Complete arrangements were made for the continuous voyage of the living and the dead to their several homes.

In a dispatch which the Secretary of the Navy sent to Commander Schley, on the day of his return, he said, “Preserve tenderly the remains of the heroic dead,” and that order was duly obeyed. They were placed in metallic caskets, and the squadron sailed from St. John’s on the 26th of July, arriving at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on the 2d of August. As the first duty after a battle is to bury the dead, it is to be regretted that this was not done before the display was made at Portsmouth. It was not thus that England received her victorious fleet from Trafalgar, bearing home the remains of the dead hero Nelson. The mutilated remains of the dead should first have been delivered over to the bleeding hearts that awaited them. While so many unurned corpses remained in the ships, the celebration was but a ghastly jubilee. Requiems should have been chanted before pÆans were sung. The only casket removed from the ships at Portsmouth was that containing the remains of Sergeant Jewell, who was a native of New Hampshire. The squadron now sailed for New York, and on its arrival, the 8th of August, was received with great enthusiasm. Here the remains of the dead were delivered to the custody of the army commander at Governor’s Island, by whom the final dispositions were made. The remains of Lieutenant Lockwood were forwarded to Annapolis and placed under a military guard, in the church of St. Anne, where the young hero had been baptized, confirmed, and received his first communion. The funeral was of a military character, and the attendance was very large, comprehending all the naval, military, and civil organizations of the city. Recalling the words of the poet Whittier, many of the mourners present must have felt their special force, when he says:

“I know not what the future hath

Of marvel or surprise,

Assured alone that life and death

His mercy underlies.”

The remains of the hero lie in the beautiful cemetery of the Naval Academy, overlooking the place of his birth and the scenes of his childhood. An appropriate tomb was erected over them, bearing this inscription:

JAMES BOOTH LOCKWOOD,
LIEUTENANT UNITED STATES ARMY,
Born at Annapolis, Maryland,
October 9, 1852,
Died at Cape Sabine,
April 9, 1884.

“The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.”

On the day that the rector of St. Anne’s church, Rev. William S. Southgate, gave notice of the time of the burial, he made the following remarks:

“One of the truths of the Bible, taught us by the Church, the most difficult to receive and to hold practically, is that expressed in the words of the Collect for the last week: ‘O God, whose never-failing providence ordereth all things both in heaven and on earth.’

“The difficulty arises from the fact that in so many cases we can not discover either the justice or the mercy or even the expediency of that ordering.

“And yet at times we get a glimpse of light that reveals much of the fitness and beauty of this divine ordering of events. Here is an example before us. There is a peculiar appropriateness in the ordering of events that brings James Booth Lockwood here to be buried. Born in this parish, baptized here, confirmed in St. Anne by Bishop Whittingham, April 19, 1868, he received his first communion at this altar on Christmas-day of the same year. The rector of the parish, who presented him for confirmation and administered to him the holy communion, has just been called suddenly to his rest. In the midst of untiring labors the call found them both at the post of duty, and both were taken away while in the performance of that duty. But there was something peculiarly sad in the circumstances and mode of young Lockwood’s death—circumstances due partly to the nature of the work in which he was engaged, partly to the fault of others. But what matters it how or when he died, if found at Death’s call doing the duty assigned to him?

“One of the earliest of the adventurers along this coast, then as little known to the world as the Arctic regions are now to us, when his little ship was overwhelmed by the stormy sea, comforted the frightened and trembling helmsman with the assuring words, ‘My child, heaven is as near to us by sea as by land.’ And so what matters it where we die and how we die, so long as we are reconciled to God, and are faithfully fulfilling our calling? May God give us grace so to live that we may never be afraid to die in any place or in any manner!”

That the story and the fate of James B. Lockwood excited a profound sentiment of sorrow and admiration throughout the entire country was manifested in many ways, and a notice of some of them will form an appropriate conclusion to this in-memoriam volume. Among the first tributes of honor and affection was the following official order published by the colonel of his regiment, announcing his death to the military associates of the young soldier:

[Order, No. 46.] Headquarters Twenty-third Infantry, Fort Wayne, Mich., July 25, 1884.
Another name is added to the list of our honored dead. The official announcement is received from the War Department of the death of First-Lieutenant James B. Lockwood, at Camp Clay, near Cape Sabine, Smith’s Sound, Arctic regions, April 9, 1884. He was assigned to this regiment as second lieutenant, October 1, 1873, and promoted first lieutenant March 15, 1883. He served with distinction throughout Arizona, Nebraska, Kansas, the Indian Territory, and Colorado, always performing with zeal and thoroughness the various and complex duties that usually fall to the lot of the young officer. In 1881 he turned from the arduous duties and savage warfare of frontier life to face still greater hardship and danger, and finally to lay down his life in those frozen and inhospitable regions which have proved the sepulchre of so many heroes before him.
Lieutenant Lockwood was a young officer of great promise in his profession; of a noble and exalted character, his fine mind tended constantly to the investigation of scientific truths. When the privations, the suffering, and the achievements of the “Lady Franklin Bay Expedition” are fully related, higher authority will doubtless pay a more fitting tribute to the worth, the fortitude, and the matchless courage of an officer who, in Arctic exploration, has carried the American flag to a point in advance of that of any other nation.

His reward is an imperishable fame, which he sought with even greater resolution than leads the soldier to the cannon’s mouth. The pleasant smile and manly form of our comrade are lost to us forever, but his name and memory will be always green in our hearts.
Officers of the regiment will wear the usual badge of mourning for thirty days.
By order of Colonel Black: T. G. M. Smith, First Lieutenant and Adjutant Twenty-third Infantry.

When the news of Lockwood’s fate was known at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, arrangements were at once made, by those who had known and loved him there, to erect a tablet to his memory in the handsome post chapel at that place. When completed it was placed in a conspicuous position, and bore the following inscription:

In Memoriam
JAMES B. LOCKWOOD,
FIRST LIEUTENANT TWENTY-THIRD INFANTRY,
A MEMBER OF THE
Greely Polar Expedition,
Died at Cape Sabine, Grinnell Land,
April 9, 1884.

This tablet was erected chiefly at the expense of Lockwood’s old regiment. To one of the officers General Lockwood presented a sword that had belonged to his son, and, in his acknowledgment, that officer made this remark: “As a friend of your son, I shall take pride and comfort from having in my possession the sword of a friend, who lived so nobly and died so honorably. Should you desire it to come back to your family when I have joined your son, I hope you will tell me so, and I will provide accordingly.” Among those who earnestly co-operated with this gentleman in erecting the tablet was one who wrote to his fellow-officer as follows: “No two people, outside of Lockwood’s own blood relations, loved him more than you and I. And yet I do not know that I am right in calling his end untimely. He died, as he had ever lived, in the discharge of his duty, and I imagine, when the records of the expedition become more known, it will be seen that his duty was well done to the end. He was a man, and has died like one. God grant that when our time comes it may find us, too, in the discharge of our duty!”

During Lieutenant Greely’s sojourn in Portsmouth, when on his way home, and while yet too feeble to use the pen, he dictated the following letter to General Lockwood:

Portsmouth, N. H., August 9, 1884.
My dear General Lockwood: Had I not seen Commander Sigsbee, and given to him such information as he wished, and as I knew would be most important to you in regard to your son, I should have attempted an earlier letter to you. I am still unable to write to you by my own hand. As I told Commander Sigsbee, James died from water around the heart, induced by insufficient nutrition. His last days were quiet and painless. He did his whole duty as a soldier and an officer. His loyalty to truth, fidelity, and zeal could always be relied upon by me. His unvarying kindness, his gentleness, his deep interest in and toward the men of the expedition indicated a nature thoroughly imbued with the essential and fundamental principles of Christianity, and won for him their good-will, confidence, and affection. I feel that you and Mrs. Lockwood may well be proud of such a son. His daily conversation during the past winter told us how much he loved his parents, and how deep and close were the bonds of affection which united him to his sisters and brother. He seemed to feel that he had not done full justice to the many and great advantages that you had given him, and hoped to make amends in the future. His innate modesty in this, as in other matters, I think did scant justice to his true merits. I write by Mrs. Greely’s hand—she joins me in sympathy and condolence. I feel that this letter insufficiently informs you regarding James. From day to day he intended to write you, but delayed too long. His diary, in short-hand, was kept up, I believe, to the day preceding his death. Sincerely yours, A. W. Greely.

Another letter from Portsmouth, written by Sergeant D. L. Brainard in answer to some inquiries made by General Lockwood, was as follows:

Portsmouth, N. H., September 4, 1884.
General H. H. Lockwood.
Dear Sir: Your letter of the 22d ult., requesting information of the missing effects of your dear son, which had been committed to my care, is just received. . . . The effects in question, excepting the ring and coins, I turned over to Major Greely before leaving this city in August. The two latter articles I afterward found and gave to Mrs. Peck, who, with her husband, called on me at the Parker House, in Boston. The setting of the ring, I am sorry to say, was not found after his death, although diligent search was made. He had spoken of it but a few days before his death, and expressed great concern for its safety. It was supposed to be suspended from his neck in a small parcel, but search revealed nothing. The compass was among the effects I transferred to Lieutenant Greely, as were also two pencils, his pipe, spoon, knife, etc. With reference to the inner life of your son, do not feel any concern. Although not an open professor of any particular creed, he followed closely the golden rule during my acquaintance with him. When I reach Washington I shall be glad to call on you. In the mean time I shall willingly answer any question with regard to his life in the frigid zone that you may desire to ask. Place no reliance on any of the adverse newspaper reports that are occasionally seen reflecting on his conduct; they are not worthy of a moment’s thought. Hoping that the articles have reached you in safety ere this, I am, very sincerely yours,
D. L. Brainard.

Another and a very handsome letter sent to General Lockwood by an officer of the army, who had long known the son, was as follows:

“San Antonio, Fla., July 25, 1884.
“My dear General: The newspapers tardily convey to me the news of your son’s heroic death. I can not express to you how much both my wife and myself were affected by this intelligence. I knew your son from his entry into the Twenty-third Infantry in 1873 until I was promoted to the Twenty-second in 1879, and formed so high an estimate of his sterling soldierly character that it is inexpressibly sad to think of his career being cut short at so early an age. But, though early, he has nevertheless left his mark on the scientific record of the country—a record which can never perish while the frozen North continues to hold the secrets he has more nearly penetrated than any other explorer of those regions. This must be, my dear general, some consolation to you, though I well know that it can not wholly atone for the loss of your noble son. But, as time passes, this reflection may soften your paternal grief.
“A life-work need not extend to the allotted threescore years and ten. In the providence of God it often compasses a much smaller period of time; when it is accomplished, God calls the worker home.
“Who shall measure the work your son accomplished in the examples he gave of fidelity to duty, of heroic fortitude? How many fainting souls in the future, reading of his devotion, will be strengthened to go forward in the paths marked out for them! That your grief may be in time assuaged by these reflections is the prayer devoutly offered by your sincere friend.”

Many private letters of condolence and sympathy were written to the parents of the deceased, by personal friends and others, some of which serve to illustrate the character of the departed. One of these friends wrote as follows:

“The tender regard and sincere love I had for James prompts me to write to you and express my heart-felt sorrow in losing him. We were dear friends for years, and a more upright and honorable man never lived, and our regiment has lost a member who can never be replaced, and the memory of him who died far away from us can never be forgotten.”

In another letter a friend wrote as follows:

“Dr. B——, U. S. A., one of James’s most intimate and best friends, desires me to say that, of all the men he knew, James was to him far dearer than any other. As for myself, I shall always hold James dear to my heart, and hope some day, when all things pass away, to meet him in that happy land where our loved ones are gone.”

In another letter occurs the following:

“Lockwood was among the best young officers of the regiment. Very attentive to duty, and correct in habits, his promise of usefulness was unusually great. I hope that the knowledge of duty well performed, and under the most trying circumstances, may in some degree ameliorate your great grief.”

Another friend writes:

“I but echo the feelings of all in the Twenty-third Infantry who knew your son, in saying that your great loss is partly theirs. His kindly and generous impulses, his sterling integrity, and his thoroughness as an officer and a gentleman, secured and retained for him the substantial good-will and friendship of all. And while we may grieve at the mournful end of his career, yet this feeling is somewhat neutralized in the melancholy satisfaction of knowing that he died on the field of honor.”

In another letter from one who had been in the army and on the staff of General Lockwood at Accomac, Va., occurs the following most admirable and appropriate passage: “I do believe, dear general, that all is well with your son. Standing where no human footstep had ever trod before, seeing what no eye had ever before beheld, alone amid the awful silence of that frozen deep—alone with God—there must have been communings with the Holy One of more import to James than all else besides. And at the last day you will again see your son in glory, wearing the crown of those made perfect through suffering.”

Besides the many letters written by personal friends, there were others from perfect strangers, who had either served under General Lockwood in the army, or been especially interested in the fate of the youthful hero.

Among the strangers who wrote letters of condolence was the Rev. William E. Griffis, D. D., of Schenectady, N. Y., who had preached a sermon on the conquests of peace, and in which he made the following allusion to Lieutenant Lockwood: “The laurels that repose on the memory of Lieutenant Lockwood are better than battle-honors or wreaths after bloody victories.” It was his opinion that the Arctic secret would yet be won; and that Lockwood and his brother heroes were doing the will of God as explorers in the far North.

On the 20th of July, 1884, the Rev. Dr. John S. Lindsay, of St. John’s Church, in Georgetown, delivered a sermon in which he alluded to the return of the Greely Expedition, and especially to Lieutenant Lockwood, who had been one of his parishioners. He said: “Just a few days ago we were plunged into sorrow by the news that among the living of the latest Arctic expedition who had been rescued was not our young townsman, the son of one of the most honored members of this congregation; the dispatch that brought the glad intelligence that six were saved was soon followed by the sad announcement that he, vigorous as he was, had sunk under the rigors of the climate, worn out by work and want. Has he left no lesson for you and me, for all his fellow-men? Think of his ceaseless endeavor, of the courage and devotion with which he bore the brunt of the exploration, and wore away his own strength in seeking food for his comrades and himself! See him, with a single companion, penetrating nearer to the north pole than any other man had ever gone, however daring! When he had done his whole duty, more than had ever been done before, he lies down to rest—to die.

THE GREELY EXPEDITION.
MAP SHOWING THE EXPLORATIONS BY
LIEUT. J.B. LOCKWOOD, INFT^Y. A. S. O.
1882-1883
High-resolution Map

“Most fittingly did his brother explorers give his name to this spot, the farthest land north trod by human foot. Lockwood Island shall stand, as long as the earth endures, amid the awful wastes and silence of these mysterious regions, as the monument of this brave young soldier. A child of the Church, the subject of ceaseless prayer—of yours, of mine, of his family—we trust that his spirit, chastened and exalted by the hardships he endured, winged its flight from the inhospitable land that refused sustenance to his body, and now rests and waits in the paradise of God. We mingle our tears with his father’s and his mother’s, and with those of all who loved him; but out of the deep we rejoice in the record he has left behind of devotion to duty even unto death. Surely no life is short in which so much is done, or in vain that gives such instruction and such inspiration to other lives. In conclusion, let us not cast away our faith in God, because of the mysteries and trials and sufferings of life.”

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