“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, INFTY. 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.”

Footnotes

[1]A suburb of Annapolis.