CHAPTER I.

ORGANIZATION—NEW YORK TO THE NORTH WATER.

In the month of December 1852, I had the honour of receiving special orders from the Secretary of the Navy of the United States, to “conduct an expedition to the Arctic Seas in search of Sir John Franklin.”

I had been engaged, under Lieutenant De Haven, in the Grinnell Expedition, which sailed from the United States in 1850 on the same errand; and I had occupied myself for some months after our return in maturing the scheme of a renewed effort to rescue the missing party, or at least to resolve the mystery of its fate. Mr Grinnell, with a liberality altogether characteristic, had placed the Advance, in which I sailed before, at my disposal for the cruise; and Mr Peabody of London, the generous representative of many American sympathies, had proffered his aid largely toward her outfit. The Geographical Society of New York, the Smithsonian Institution, the American Philosophical Society, and a number of scientific association and friends of science besides, had come forward to help me; and by their aid I managed to secure a better outfit for purposes of observation than would otherwise have been possible to a party so limited in numbers, and absorbed in other objects.

Ten of our little party belonged to the United States Navy, and were attached to my command by orders from the Department; the others were shipped by me for the cruise, and at salaries entirely disproportioned to their services: all were volunteers. We did not sail under the rules that govern our national ships; but we had our own regulations, well considered and announced beforehand, and rigidly adhered to afterward through all the vicissitudes of the expedition. These included—first, absolute subordination to the officer in command, or his delegate; second, abstinence from all intoxicating liquors, except when dispensed by special order; third, the habitual disuse of profane language. We had no other laws.

All hands counted, we were eighteen at the time of sailing. Another joined us a few days afterward; so that the party under my command, as it reached the coast of Greenland, consisted of—

Elisha Kent Kane, Commander.
Henry Brooks, First Officer. Isaac I. Hayes, M.D., Surgeon.
John Wall Wilson.August Sontag, Astronomer.
James M’Gary.Amos Bonsall.
George Riley.George Stephenson.
William Morton.George Whipple.
Christian Ohlsen.William Godfrey.
Henry Goodfellow.John Blake.
Jefferson Baker.
Peter Schubert.
Thomas Hickey.

Two of these, Brooks and Morton, had been my associates in the first expedition; gallant and trustworthy men, both of them, as ever shared the fortunes or claimed the gratitude of a commander.

The Advance had been thoroughly tried in many encounters with the Arctic ice. She was carefully inspected, and needed very little to make her all a seaman could wish. She was a brig of one hundred and forty-four tons, intended originally for carrying heavy castings from an iron-foundry, but strengthened afterward with great skill and at large expense. She was a good sailor, and easily managed. We had five boats; one of them a metallic life-boat.

Equipment