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: