Wrapping it in a blanket, Colwell carried it to the landing-place, where a seaman took the bundle on his shoulder. Presently the boat came off, and all who had remained on shore were taken on board the Bear. The ships returned to Payer Harbor.
The next day, June 23, Lieutenant Emory, accompanied by Sebree and Melville, and a number of men made a second search at Camp Clay, which lasted several hours; everything was gathered up and brought away.
The officers of the Thetis meanwhile had secured from Stalknecht Island Greely’s tin boxes containing his scientific records and standard pendulum.
The relief squadron in 1884 under Captain W. S. Schley and Commander W. H. Emory, and fitted out under the personal orders of the Hon. W. E. Chandler, Secretary of the Navy, had brilliantly executed its commission and had out-rivalled the early Scotch whalers, to whom a bounty had been offered by Congress for the speedy rescue of Greely, in pushing boldly through the “middle ice.” “No relief or expeditionary vessels ever ventured at so early a date into the dangers of Melville Bay,” writes Greely.
“That the United States Navy won in the race for Sabine is an illustration of the wonderful adaptability and abundant resources of the representative American seaman, which so well fits him for coping successfully with new and untried dangers and makes him a worthy rival of our kin across the sea.”
In triumph they bore the remnant of the Lady Franklin Bay expedition home to relatives and friends. Only six reached America alive (brave, pitiful Elison had died at Godhaven, July 8), six soldiers out of a company of twenty-five, broken in health, yet courageous in spirit, and loyal to a nation that through “a hard winter—a hard winter—in sore distress—” had left them to their fate!
Rear Admiral Schley, U.S.N.
Courtesy of Clinedinst