93-611: The Jeannette expedition of 1879–1881, officially called the U.S. Arctic Expedition , was an attempt led by George W. De Long to reach the North Pole by pioneering a route from the Pacific Ocean through the Bering Strait . The premise was that a temperate current, the Kuro Siwo , flowed northwards into the strait, providing a gateway to the hypothesized Open Polar Sea and thus to
186-671: A BA in history. In 2017, he was awarded an honorary doctorate in humane letters from Colorado College. Sides lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico , with his wife Anne Goodwin Sides, a journalist and former NPR editor. Sides is a past fellow of the Santa Fe Institute , Yaddo , the MacDowell Colony , and the Japan Society , and has been an Edwards Media Fellow at Stanford University . He is
279-485: A Pulitzer -winning biography of King, wrote in The Washington Post that Hellhound was "a carefully constructed true-crime narrative" and "a memorable and persuasive portrait" that "makes a valuable contribution to the historical record." Black Label Media will produce and direct a film adaption, with a spring 2018 target for start of production. The script will be adapted by Scott Cooper who will also direct
372-555: A few months later and found the bodies of De Long and his boat crew. Overall, the doomed voyage took the lives of 20 expedition members, as well as additional men lost during the search operations. De Long's death – and that of the other men – was assumed to have occurred at or about the end of October. By direction of the United States government, the remains of De Long and his companions were brought home and interred with honour in his native city. In 1890,
465-409: A logic of its own ... No amount of contrary evidence could dislodge it from the collective imagination". The fact that all northbound voyages had, sooner or later, been stopped by ice was rationalized through a belief that the undiscovered sea was encircled in a ring or "annulus" of ice which, it was thought, could be penetrated via one of several warm-water gateways or portals. The initial quest for
558-1092: A member of the Society of American Historians and serves on the boards of the Authors Guild and the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference. Sides has guest-lectured at Columbia , Yale , Stanford , Cal Tech , the Autry National Center of the American West , the American Embassy in Manila , the National World War II Museum , the Chautauqua Institution , the Explorers Club , the Sun Valley Writers' Conference, and
651-630: A million copies worldwide and has been translated into a dozen foreign languages. Erik Larson , author of The Devil in the White City , praised Ghost Soldiers as a "Great Escape for the Pacific Theater," and Esquire called it "the greatest World War II story never told." The book was the subject of documentaries on PBS and The History Channel , and was partially the basis for the 2005 Miramax film, The Great Raid (along with William Breuer 's The Great Raid on Cabanatuan ). Ghost Soldiers won
744-539: A month after the ship was first trapped, Herald Island was still in sight. As October developed, the direction of drift shifted to the northwest, and it became apparent to De Long that "Wrangel's Land" was not after all a land mass, but was a relatively small island. At the same time, analyses of sea currents, salinity and temperature provided data confirming the Geodetic Survey's findings, by then known in Washington, that
837-511: A path to the polar sea. At the time no one had attempted to reach the polar sea by this route. In July 1873, the United States Navy dispatched USS Juniata to Greenland, to search for survivors from the Polaris expedition , which had disintegrated after the death of its leader, Charles Francis Hall. Juniata ' s second-in-command was George W. De Long , a 28-year-old graduate of
930-468: A perfectly God-forsaken place", he returned home captivated by the Arctic. Emma wrote: "The polar virus was in his blood and would not let him rest". The abortive Little Juniata mission brought De Long to public notice, and he saw himself as a possible leader of the next U.S. Arctic expedition. He approached Henry Grinnell , a philanthropic shipping magnate who had funded several previous expeditions. Grinnell
1023-463: A prolonged journey in the Arctic ice. De Long spent much of the early part of 1879 in Washington, D.C. , promoting the expedition among officials, searching for appropriate crew members, and harrying Navy Secretary Richard W. Thompson for practical support. His requests included the use of a supply ship to accompany Jeannette as far as Alaska . Among the less standard equipment acquired by De Long
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#17328477956321116-406: A sizeable settlement about 100 miles (160 km) from the coast. The boats made good progress through the morning, and Melville initially thought they might strike land after a single night at sea. In the afternoon the weather worsened; the boats separated and lost sight of each other. De Long used a sea anchor to stabilize his craft in the ferocious seas and, despite having his sail torn away by
1209-453: A week's hard traveling on the ice, the northward drift had nullified their progress; they were further from land than they had been when they set out. When the direction of the ice shifted, the party was finally able to advance in the right direction, but the going was slow and difficult. Part of the problem lay with the dogs who, after nearly two years of relative idleness, were either lethargic or quarrelsome, unable to work in harness. Some of
1302-619: A well-connected Washington family, was recommended to Bennett by former U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant . Such sponsorship won Danenhower his place, despite a history of depression that had seen him briefly incarcerated at the Government Hospital for the Insane . On Bennett's request, Danenhower accompanied De Long on the voyage from Le Havre to San Francisco, during which he confided details of his medical history. The navigator's competent performance persuaded De Long that such troubles were in
1395-605: Is a multifaceted retelling of the Battle of Chosin Reservoir through the experiences of marines, commanders, pilots, Korean citizens and the Chinese. It also acts an indictment of the overweening hubris of General of the Army , Douglas MacArthur . Through MacArthur's self-proclaimed expertise on the "Oriental mind" and what Sides referred to as MacArthur's "solemn regard for his own mind", MacArthur
1488-520: Is editor-at-large for Outside magazine and has written for such periodicals as National Geographic , The Wall Street Journal , The New Yorker , Esquire , Men's Journal , The American Scholar , Smithsonian , and The Washington Post . His magazine work, collected in numerous published anthologies, has been twice nominated for National Magazine Awards for feature writing. A native of Memphis, Sides attended PDS Memphis and Memphis University School , and graduated from Yale with
1581-569: The New York Herald —and under the auspices of the United States Navy, Lieutenant Commander De Long sailed from San Francisco on the ship USS Jeannette with a plan to find a way to the North Pole via the Bering Strait . As well as collecting scientific data and animal specimens, De Long discovered three islands and claimed them for the United States in the summer of 1881. The government did not endorse this claim, and
1674-705: The Aleutian Islands , where De Long sought information on Nordenskiöld from the crew of a revenue cutter , newly returned from the Bering Strait. The cutter had no news of him. On August 12, Jeannette reached St. Michael , a small port on the Alaskan mainland, and waited for Francis Hyde to arrive with extra provisions and coal. At St. Michael, De Long hired two experienced Inuit dog drivers, and took on board sled dogs . On August 21, after transferring provisions and fuel, Francis Hyde departed; Jeannette set out for
1767-642: The Chukchi Peninsula on the Siberian coast, to enquire after Nordenskiöld. At Saint Lawrence Bay the Chukchi people reported that an unidentified steamer had recently passed by, going south. De Long then headed through the Bering Strait towards Cape Dezhnev , where he learned from locals that a ship had called at Cape Serdtse-Kamen , further along the coast. Here, a shore party from Jeannette quickly established from artifacts left behind with villagers that this ship
1860-543: The De ;Long Islands , the De Long Mountains in northwest Alaska , and the De Long Fjord in Greenland bear his name. Hampton Sides Wade Hampton Sides (born 1962) is an American historian, author and journalist. He is the author of Hellhound on His Trail , Ghost Soldiers , Blood and Thunder , On Desperate Ground , and other bestselling works of narrative history and literary non-fiction. Sides
1953-626: The Lena Delta in Siberia. During this journey, and in the subsequent weeks of wandering in Siberia before rescue, twenty of the ship's complement died, including De Long. The chief exponent of the theory of a warm-water gateway to the North Pole was the German cartographer August Petermann . He encouraged James Gordon Bennett Jr. , the proprietor of The New York Herald , to finance a polar expedition based on
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#17328477956322046-526: The Little Juniata adventure. Another veteran of the Polaris rescue mission, George W. Melville , was appointed as ship's engineer. Other experienced Arctic hands were William F. C. Nindemann , a Polaris survivor, and the ice pilot William Dunbar, who had many years' experience in whalers. The appointment of the expedition's navigating officer was problematic; John W. Danenhower , a young naval officer from
2139-570: The U.S. Department of the Navy for an Arctic command, a request that he was informed would "receive due attention". James Gordon Bennett Jr. had succeeded his father as proprietor of the Herald in 1866. He had won renown in 1872, when his reporter Henry Morton Stanley , sent by Bennett to Africa in search of the British missionary-explorer David Livingstone , cabled that Livingstone had been found. Bennett knew
2232-475: The United States Naval Academy , making his first visit to the Arctic. Ice conditions prevented Juniata from advancing beyond Upernavik ; De Long volunteered to take the ship's tender , a small steamer named Little Juniata , in the hope of finding survivors at Cape York , a further 400 nautical miles (740 km) north. The attempt failed; Little Juniata faced extreme weather conditions and
2325-610: The Western Writers of America . Blood and Thunder was the subject of a major documentary on the PBS program American Experience and is currently under development for the screen. Hellhound on His Trail (Doubleday 2010) is about the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. , and the largest manhunt in American history to capture James Earl Ray , who pleaded guilty in 1969 and served
2418-476: The whaleboat . Danenhower, who outranked Melville, complained bitterly to De Long about being placed under the engineer's command, but De Long replied that Danenhower was unfit for duty, a view confirmed by Ambler. De Long instructed that the boats should each aim for a point indicated as "Cape Barkin" on the Petermann map; if they became separated, and landed in different areas, the parties should rendezvous at Bulun,
2511-556: The 2002 PEN USA Award for non-fiction and the Discover Award from Barnes & Noble . The book's success led Sides to create The Ghost Soldiers Endowment Fund, a non-profit foundation dedicated to preserving the memory of the sacrifices made by Bataan and Corregidor veterans by funding relevant archives, museums, and memorials. Americana: Dispatches from the New Frontier is a 2004 collection of non-fiction essays . The book
2604-607: The Bering Sea; encounters with locals convinced him that the wreck was not that of Jeannette . On June 16, another relief vessel, USS Rodgers , left San Francisco but was destroyed by fire in Saint Lawrence Bay in November. On board Jeannette , the discovery of the islands had raised De Long's spirits—the expedition would, wherever the drift took it, have some concrete geographical achievement to its credit. The onset of
2697-649: The DMZ." The Washington Post named On Desperate Ground one of the ten best books of 2018, and the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation named it the year's best non-fiction book. Considerable parts of the narrative follow aviator Jesse L. Brown , who is also the subject of the 2022 film Devotion . The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook
2790-506: The Edison arc lighting system erected, but the generating mechanism failed to produce even the dimmest of lights and the apparatus was swiftly abandoned, along with the equally ineffective telephone system. Christmas 1879, and the start of the new year, were celebrated without great joy; De Long wrote of Christmas as "the dreariest day of my life, and it is certainly the dreariest part of the world". On January 19, 1880, Jeannette ' s hull
2883-657: The Google campus, among other venues and institutions. He has appeared as a guest on such national broadcasts as the American Experience , the Today show , Book TV , the History Channel , Fresh Air , CNN , CBS Sunday Morning , The Colbert Report , and NPR's All Things Considered . Ghost Soldiers (Doubleday, 2001), a World War II narrative about the rescue of Bataan Death March survivors, has sold slightly over
Jeannette expedition - Misplaced Pages Continue
2976-514: The Gulf Stream but ultimately failed to break through the ice, Petermann grew dispirited. In the year before he took his own life in 1878 he transferred his advocacy to the Kuro Siwo , a Pacific Ocean current analyzed in the 1850s by the hydrographer Silas Bent . Petermann followed Bent in believing that a branch of the Kuro Siwo flowed through the Bering Strait and might be powerful enough to create
3069-461: The Kuro Siwo had no effect north of the Bering Strait. The vista of endless ice surrounding the ship raised profound doubts about the entire concept of the Open Polar Sea. Amid the boredom of the largely eventless drift, the crew ate well; ship's stores were boosted by regular hunting parties which brought a harvest of seal and polar bear meat. In late October, as winter approached, De Long ordered
3162-449: The Kuro Siwo had no perceptible effect on the areas north of the Bering Strait. The survey's report went on to dismiss the entire concept of "gateways" and a warm polar sea. By the time these conclusions were published, Jeannette had sailed, and De Long remained in ignorance of this information. Jeannette ' s departure from San Francisco, on July 8, 1879, was a popular spectacle, witnessed by large crowds who came from all quarters of
3255-542: The New Siberian Islands, Novaya Sibir , was in sight. For the first time since moving away from Herald Island nearly two years previously, they were in the charted world. De Long steered the boats through the channel between Novaya Sibir and Kotelny Island , before skirting the southern coast of Kotelny and beginning the final stage of the journey, across the open sea to the Lena Delta. Their last halt on September 10
3348-507: The North Pole thus became a search for one of these portals. After British naval expeditions in 1818 and 1827–1828 had probed north of Spitsbergen and found no sign of the supposed polar sea, the quest was in abeyance for twenty-five years. In the 1850s, the search for the lost Franklin expedition generated a rash of incursions into the Canadian Arctic . From these forays, particularly that of Edward Augustus Inglefield in 1852, emerged
3441-488: The Open Polar Sea from a distance. The Smith Sound route was not favored by everyone; among those who rejected it was leading cartographer August Petermann from Germany , widely known as the "Sage of Gotha ". A firm believer in the Open Polar Sea theory, Petermann believed that the most likely portal would be found by following the Gulf Stream , which swept up the coast of Norway to the unexplored Arctic regions. He thought
3534-726: The Pacific via the Northeast and Northwest passages. The English sea explorer Henry Hudson , namesake of the Hudson River , is presumed to have died in Hudson Bay in 1611 while trying to find the Northwest Passage. The possibility of a third route, directly across the North Pole , was raised by early geographer Richard Hakluyt . The early explorers had little success in finding these routes, but made important geographical discoveries. In time,
3627-485: The Siberian coast for news of Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld and his ship Vega . The Swedish explorer was currently attempting the first navigation of the Northeast Passage; he was not overdue, and there was no evidence that he was in difficulty. Nevertheless, Bennett sensed the opportunity for a rescue story to equal his Stanley-Livingstone scoop, and persuaded Thompson to issue the order. De Long, unaware that his patron
3720-485: The Siberian coast. The entire crew of thirty-three men was still together. De Long's general plan was to march with dogs and sleds to the New Siberian Islands , somewhere to the south, and then use the boats to carry his party to the Siberian mainland. According to Petermann's maps his intended landfall, the Lena Delta , was studded with settlements that would provide them with shelter and safety. By June 25, after
3813-480: The award-winning program, American Experience . Hellhound on His Trail reached #6 on The New York Times Best Seller list and was a finalist for the 2011 Edgar Awards as the year’s best non-fiction mystery. Janet Maslin of The New York Times called the book "spellbinding...bold, dynamic, unusually vivid," while a reviewer in The New York Times Book Review suggested that Hellhound "may be
Jeannette expedition - Misplaced Pages Continue
3906-399: The best path to the pole, passage through the Bering Strait using the Kuro Siwo would enable investigation of the unexplored, barely glimpsed land mass known since 1867 as " Wrangel's Land ". He theorized that this land formed part of a transpolar continent, connected to Greenland; if so, it might provide an alternative, land-based route to the pole should the expedition fail to find a portal to
3999-629: The brief Arctic summer brought fresh hopes that Jeannette would at last be released from the ice, and on June 11, she was briefly free, afloat in a small pool. However, the next day the ice returned with renewed force, which battered the ship and finally penetrated the hull beyond repair. De Long supervised an orderly evacuation of men, dogs, equipment and provisions. In the early morning of June 13, 1881, Jeannette sank—her final recorded position being 77°15′N 155°0′E / 77.250°N 155.000°E / 77.250; 155.000 —around 300 nautical miles (560 km; 350 mi) off
4092-437: The charted position of Wrangel's Land, but with ice thickening all around, movement became slow and erratic. On September 4, from the crow's nest , Dunbar sighted the known landmark of Herald Island , but the ice now presented an almost insuperable obstacle to progress. De Long raised steam and repeatedly charged the pack, seeking to batter a way forward. The thick plume of smoke from Jeannette's stack, observed by whalers,
4185-524: The city. The army at Fort Point provided an eleven-gun salute; in contrast, De Long noted that none of the naval vessels in and around San Francisco made any formal acknowledgement of their sister-ship's departure, "[not even] the blast of a steam whistle". Bennett, absent in Europe, cabled that he hoped to be present when Jeannette made its triumphant return. The first weeks on the journey northwards were uneventful. On August 3, Jeannette reached Unalaska in
4278-580: The conquest of the American West . A critic for the Los Angeles Times described Blood and Thunder as "stunning, haunting, and lyrical," while The Washington Post called it "riveting, monumental...authoritative and masterfully told." Blood and Thunder was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2006 by Time magazine, and was selected as that year's best history title by the History Book Club and
4371-510: The cook and steward were recruited by Danenhower from San Francisco's Chinatown district. De Long quickly found himself at odds with the naval engineers at Mare Island, whose estimates of the work required to prepare Jeannette for the Arctic greatly exceeded his own judgement of what was necessary. De Long spent much time negotiating on Bennett's behalf with the Navy Department in an effort to reduce costs. In this he
4464-604: The current would weaken or even penetrate the protective ice ring, and that a sturdily-built steamer following the course of the stream might thus be able to break through into the supposed polar sea. After two expeditions sponsored by Petermann—the German North Polar Expedition of 1869 led by Carl Koldewey , and the Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition of 1872 under Karl Weyprecht and Julius von Payer —had followed separate branches of
4557-517: The existence of an ocean current moving the permanent Arctic ice from east to west. This discovery inspired Fridtjof Nansen to mount his Fram expedition nine years later. A monument to the Jeannette ' s dead was erected at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis , Maryland , in 1890. European exploration of the Arctic regions began in the 16th century, with searches for new routes to
4650-456: The expedition. Two others from Jeannette ' s voyage from Le Havre, carpenter Albert Sweetman and boatswain John Cole, were enlisted, as was the Herald ' s meteorologist, Jerome Collins . Dubbed "chief scientist," he was in charge of the Edison apparatus and of a rudimentary telephone system that De Long hoped to utilize. The remaining places were filled from a long list of applicants;
4743-435: The film. In the Kingdom of Ice (2014, Doubleday) recounts the tragic true story of the first official American attempt on the North Pole, the voyage of the USS Jeannette led by Navy captain George DeLong in 1879. Key historical figures in the book include James Gordon Bennett, Jr. , owner of the New York Herald newspaper and financier, and August Heinrich Petermann , a German cartographer whose theory helped spawn
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#17328477956324836-459: The first Henrietta Island , after Bennett's mother, and the second Jeannette Island . A sledge party under Melville was dispatched to Henrietta Island, to claim the territories for the United States. At around this time, the USRC Thomas Corwin was in Alaskan waters, seeking news of De Long's expedition. Corwin ' s captain, Calvin Hooper, heard stories of a shipwreck in the far north and set off to investigate. For five weeks he circled
4929-429: The first book on King that owes less to Taylor Branch than Robert Ludlum ." Time magazine said Hellhound "unfolds like a mystery—one read not for the ending but for all the missteps and near misses along the way." Critic Laura Miller, writing on Salon.com , described Hellhound as a "meticulous yet driving account that is in essence a true-crime story and a splendid specimen of the genre." David Garrow , author of
5022-557: The islands are under Russian jurisdiction. The ship became trapped in the ice pack in the Chukchi Sea northeast of Wrangel Island in September 1879. It drifted in the ice pack in a northwesterly direction until it was crushed in the shifting ice and sank on June 12, 1881 , in the East Siberian Sea . De Long and his crew then traversed the ice pack to try to reach Siberia pulling three small boats. After reaching open water on September 11 they became separated and one boat, commanded by Executive Officer Charles W. Chipp ,
5115-410: The lack of anesthetic —left the navigator largely incapacitated and unable to perform his duties. On the last day of 1880 De Long wrote in his journal: "I begin the new year by turning over a new leaf, and I hope to God we are turning over a new leaf in our book of luck". Early in 1881, De Long noted that after sixteen months, Jeannette was still only 220 nautical miles (410 km; 250 mi) from
5208-423: The navy and would be subject to naval discipline. Bennett remained responsible for financing the enterprise, and undertook to reimburse the government for all costs incurred. Meanwhile, De Long was released from active duty to oversee Pandora ' s refit in England. In June 1878, after a thorough overhaul at Deptford on the Thames Estuary , Pandora was sailed to Le Havre in France where, on July 4, she
5301-451: The nearest settlement appeared to lie 95 miles (153 km) away. De Long thought their rations would last for three-and-a-half days. George W. De Long George Washington De Long (August 22, 1844 – c. October 31, 1881 ) was a United States Navy officer and explorer who led the ill-fated Jeannette expedition of 1879–1881, in search of the Open Polar Sea . In 1879, backed by James Gordon Bennett Jr. —owner of
5394-426: The news value of Arctic exploration; two Herald reporters had accompanied Juniata , and in 1874 Bennett was helping to fund British sailor Allen Young and his decommissioned former gunboat Pandora , on one of the final Franklin searches. Bennett was interested in Petermann's theories, and in 1877 traveled to Gotha to discuss possible Arctic routes with the geographer. Petermann thought that as well as providing
5487-408: The north of Svalbard before being stopped by ice. The prevalent theory of polar geography throughout this period was that of a temperate " Open Polar Sea " surrounding the North Pole. The observable southward drift of Arctic ice was thought to result from the "pushing" effect of this warmer water. According to the historian Hampton Sides , despite the lack of scientific evidence the theory "gathered
5580-419: The officers and men of the United States Navy dedicated the Jeannette Monument , a granite-and-marble monument designed by George P. Colvocoresses —a cross with carved icicles hanging from it that sits atop a cairn. The 24-foot (7.3 m)-high structure is in the United States Naval Academy Cemetery overlooking the Severn River . His journal, in which he made regular entries up to the day on which he died,
5673-401: The past. The ship's surgeon, James Ambler, was assigned to the expedition by the Navy's Bureau of Medicine and Surgery , only because he was next on the list of medical officers available for sea duty. Ambler deduced from Danenhower's medical records that a probable cause of the navigator's medical lapses was syphilis , but Danenhower's influential connections ensured that he kept his place on
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#17328477956325766-433: The point where she had been trapped. He wrote: "We are drifting about like a modern Flying Dutchman ... thirty-three people are wearing out their lives and souls". On May 16, an island was sighted, followed almost immediately by another—the first land seen for well over a year. "There is something then beside ice in the world!", wrote De Long. They were in uncharted seas, so these islands were discoveries. De Long named
5859-435: The polar expedition. The book has been translated into French, German, Chinese, Polish, and Russian, among other languages. Mark Bowden , author of Black Hawk Down, called In the Kingdom of Ice "the most dramatic polar mission you’ve never heard of. Once you start, you won’t stop." S.C. Gwynne , author of Empire of the Summer Moon called it "an Arctic thriller . . . an authentic narrative masterpiece." Efforts to locate
5952-463: The polar sea. "My idea", he told Bennett, "is that if one door will not open, try another". He offered Bennett full use of his maps and charts. Petermann's advice convinced Bennett that a new American polar venture should go ahead. On his return from Gotha, he cabled De Long requesting him to seek leave of absence from the Navy, and to begin the search for a ship suitable for Arctic exploration using Petermann's Bering Strait route. As no suitable ship
6045-409: The pole. This theory proved illusory; the expedition's ship, USS Jeannette and its crew of thirty-three men, was trapped by ice and drifted for nearly two years before she was crushed and sunk north of the Siberian coast. De Long then led his men on a perilous journey by sled, dragging the Jeannette 's whaleboat and two cutters , eventually switching to these small boats to sail for
6138-402: The rest of his life in prison. Sides, who is a native of Memphis , is the first historian to make use of a new digital archive in that city, called the B. Venson Hughes Collection, which contains more than 20,000 documents and photos, many of them rare or never before published. Sides' research forms much of the basis for PBS's documentary "Roads to Memphis", which originally aired May 3, 2010, on
6231-428: The search for trade routes became secondary to the prestige objective of reaching the North Pole itself, or at least of registering a " Farthest North ". In 1773, a British naval expedition under captain Constantine Phipps sought a route to the pole from the Seven Islands , but found the way impassably blocked by ice. On May 28, 1806, whaling captain William Scoresby achieved a new record northern latitude of 81°30' to
6324-433: The ship was commissioned into the U.S. Navy as USS Jeannette , and sailed under navy laws and discipline. Before its demise, the expedition discovered new islands—the De Long Islands —and collected valuable meteorological and oceanographic data. Although Jeannette ' s fate demolished the widely believed Open Polar Sea theory, the appearance in 1884 of debris from the wreck on the south-west coast of Greenland indicated
6417-418: The theory that Smith Sound , a northerly channel between Greenland and Ellesmere Island , was one of the fabled gateways to the polar sea. This brought a succession of expeditions to this area: Elisha Kane in 1853–1855 , Isaac Israel Hayes in 1860–1861, Charles Francis Hall in 1872–1874, and George Nares in 1875–1876. No gateway was found, although both Kane and Hayes claimed, mistakenly, to have seen
6510-406: The untried Pacific route. Bennett acquired a former Royal Navy gunboat , Pandora , and changed her name to Jeannette . De Long, whom Bennett chose to lead the expedition, was a serving United States Navy officer with previous Arctic experience. Although essentially a private venture, in which Bennett paid all the bills, the expedition had the full support of the U.S. government. Before departure
6603-406: The vessel was lost and headed back to San Francisco. After a week's rest, the party departed Bennett Island on August 6, leaving a message in a cairn . The ice was now too loose for sled travel, so the party transferred to the boats. Having no further use for the dogs, De Long ordered them shot. The general direction of the ice flow carried the party south-west, and on August 20 the most easterly of
6696-455: The weather that would release them from the ice, writing in his journal: "I am told that in the later part of September and early part of October there is experienced in these latitudes quite an Indian Summer". The following weeks brought no increase in temperature, and De Long reluctantly accepted that Jeannette was trapped for the winter. The initial direction of Jeannette ' s drift was haphazard, back and forth—on October 13, nearly
6789-513: The west of the 180° meridian, but two months later had retreated back to the other side of the line. The summer brought no relief; although it briefly seemed possible in August that Jeannette might break free and find open water, this proved a false hope. The condition of Danenhower was a further source of anxiety. His syphilis began to take toll of his body, particularly his left eye which, despite Ambler's repeated operations—stoically endured, given
6882-401: The wind, managed to hold a course to the west. The storm had largely subsided by the morning of September 14, but progress was erratic in the absence of the sail, and it was three more days before the cutter ran aground at the most northerly limit of the Lena Delta. De Long and his crew waded ashore, carrying their provisions from the boat, and prepared for a long foot journey. Based on their map,
6975-513: The worst offenders were shot for food. On July 12, land appeared to the south; fleetingly, De Long thought this was part of the New Siberian Islands, but it was another uncharted island. When the party reached it on July 29, De Long named it Bennett Island , and called the point of landing "Cape Emma", after his wife. Meanwhile, hundreds of miles to the east, Corwin had given up on its rescue mission. After months of searching vainly for definite news or traces of Jeannette , Hooper had concluded that
7068-618: The wreck of the USS Jeannette have been led by the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation , for which Sides has served as a consultant. In the Kingdom of Ice is reportedly being developed for the small screen by Emmy Award winning screenwriter Kirk Ellis (John Adams). On Desperate Ground: The Marines at The Reservoir, the Korean War's Greatest Battle , was published on October 2, 2018. It
7161-435: Was Vega and that Nordenskiöld's expedition had therefore safely completed the Northeast Passage. De Long left a note of his findings for transmission to Washington. On August 31, Jeannette left, in the assumed direction of Wrangel's Land, where De Long hoped to establish his winter quarters. Jeannette initially made good speed northward; on September 2 she was about 100 nautical miles (190 km; 120 mi) from
7254-517: Was an experimental arc lamp system devised by Thomas Edison , which would supposedly provide light equivalent to 3,000 candles and thus transform the Arctic winter darkness. Having successfully undergone her sea trials, on June 28, ten days before her scheduled departure, Jeannette was formally commissioned into the Navy as USS Jeannette . In selecting his crew, De Long's priority was men with Arctic experience. For his second-in-command he chose lieutenant Charles W. Chipp , who had served with him on
7347-463: Was available in the U.S., De Long went to England, where he found Young's Pandora on offer at $ 6,000. The vessel's Arctic pedigree made it seem ideal, but Young's hesitancy about selling delayed the purchase until late 1877. At Bennett's instigation, Congress passed legislation that gave the Navy Department full control over the expedition; it would fly the American flag and the crew would be engaged by
7440-404: Was breached by the ice and she began to take in water rapidly. De Long prepared to abandon ship, but she was saved by the actions of Nindemann and Sweetman, who waded into the freezing water in the hold and staunched the inflow by stuffing whatever materials were available into the breaches. Melville used elements of the discarded Edison apparatus to build a mechanical pumping system, and the problem
7533-603: Was broadly successful, but in other areas he faced setbacks. In April he learned that the navy was unable to provide a supply ship to accompany Jeannette northward, a decision which, he thought, left the fate of the expedition "hanging by a thread". Bennett eventually resolved this difficulty by chartering a schooner , the Frances Hyde , to carry extra coal and provisions as far as Alaska. Late in his preparations, De Long received orders from Secretary Thompson that, before proceeding with his own Arctic mission he should enquire along
7626-634: Was edited by his wife and published in 1883 under the title Voyage of the "Jeannette" , and an account of the search which was made for him and his comrades by Melville was published a year later under the title of In the Lena Delta . Union veterans in the Kingdom of Hawai‘i on September 23, 1882, named the post of the Grand Army of the Republic there after him. Two United States Navy ships have been named USS DeLong after George W. De Long. In addition to
7719-487: Was forced to retreat a few miles from Cape York. De Long returned to Juniata in mid-August, having found no trace of the Polaris crew—who had meanwhile been rescued by the Scottish whaler SS Ravenscraig —but the experience had profoundly affected his outlook. Having earlier described the Greenland coast in a letter to his wife Emma as "a dreary land of desolation ... I hope I may never find myself cast away in such
7812-454: Was largely resolved by the construction of a new watertight bulkhead. De Long noted in his journal that the efforts of Nindemann and Sweetman were at least worthy of recommendation for the Medal of Honor . For months on end Jeannette hardly moved at all; De Long recorded on March 2 that their position was almost precisely what it had been three months earlier. On May 5, the ship passed to
7905-437: Was lost; no trace of it was ever found. De Long's own boat reached land, but only two men sent ahead for aid survived. The third boat, under the command of Chief Engineer George W. Melville , reached the Lena Delta and its crew were rescued. Melville later found and brought to the U.S. the ships log books which now sit in the U.S. National Archives. De Long died of starvation near Matvay Hut, Yakutia . Melville returned
7998-479: Was not prepared to offer financial support, instead advising De Long to approach James Gordon Bennett Jr. , owner and publisher of The New York Herald and a known sponsor of bold schemes. De Long met Bennett in New York City early in 1874; the newspaperman was impressed by De Long, and assured him that his Arctic ambitions would have the enthusiastic support of the Herald . In the meantime De Long had applied to
8091-400: Was on the tiny Semyonovsky Island , fewer than 100 nautical miles (190 km; 120 mi) from the Siberian coast. The entire crew were still together on Semenovsky Island. The boats left the island early in the morning of September 12, in fair weather. Thirteen men were with De Long in the large cutter , Chipp with seven others took the smaller cutter, while Melville and ten men sailed in
8184-456: Was published in paperback on April 13, 2004, through Doubleday . The book consists of several essays that Sides wrote while traveling through the United States and examining American cultures during a period of 15 years. Sides pays specific attention to subcultures that would fall under the topic of " Americana ". Blood and Thunder (Doubleday, 2006) focuses on the life and times of controversial frontiersman Kit Carson , and his role in
8277-425: Was renamed Jeannette , after Bennett's sister who performed the ceremony. On July 15, the ship, manned by De Long and a small crew, sailed from Le Havre to begin the 18,000-nautical-mile (33,000 km) voyage to San Francisco , the port from which the Arctic expedition was to sail. They arrived on December 27, 1878, and transferred Jeannette to Mare Island Naval Shipyard to undergo further work in readiness for
8370-399: Was still about 15 nautical miles (28 km; 17 mi) away; a sled party under Chipp set off across the ice to investigate the possibility of a winter harbor should Jeannette regain maneuverability. Chipp's party was unable to get closer to the island than six nautical miles (11 km) before the volatile ice conditions forced their return to the ship. De Long still hoped for a change in
8463-469: Was the final sighting of Jeannette by the outside world. The next day, September 5, the crew caught a brief glimpse of Wrangel's Land—or perhaps, as De Long surmised, a mirage . Ice conditions now made it impossible to move closer to this tantalizing shore, and De Long made Herald Island his new objective. Shortly afterwards, Jeannette was sealed within the pack, "as tightly as a fly in amber" according to historian Leonard Guttridge . Herald Island
8556-470: Was the originator, protested that this requirement would jeopardize his primary mission, but was forced to modify his plans. De Long was unaware, as he prepared to sail, that the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey was studying the latest hydrographical and meteorological data obtained from its research ships in the Bering Sea. The material indicated conclusively that, contrary to Bent's theories,
8649-473: Was thoroughly convinced of American victory; instead, and while completely ignoring the advice of leaders on the ground, MacArthur sent American troops into what could only result into a massacre. Historian Douglas Brinkley called the book "a heart-pounding, fiercely written . . . one of the finest battle books ever." A reviewer for Bloomberg , calling the book " superb," wrote that On Desperate Ground "should be required reading for negotiators on both sides of
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