AN OFFICER IN THE REVENUE CUTTER SERVICE
Finally, a volume would be required to adequately record the work of the Revenue Cutter Service during the Civil War. Its cutters were employed as despatch boats, joined in the pursuit of blockade runners, did guard and scouting duty, and often shared in engagements with Confederate batteries and vessels. In truth, it was a revenue cutter, the Harriet Lane, which, in Charleston Harbor, in April, 1861, fired on the Union side, the first shot of the Civil War. The Harriet Lane was long the pride of the Revenue Cutter Service, and had a notable career. Named after the beautiful and gracious niece of President Buchanan, she participated in the naval expedition to Paraguay, and during the Civil War was often under fire. Again, during the war with Spain, the Revenue Cutter Service achieved an enviable and heroic record.
The proper patrol of our long coast line requires a large number of vessels, and the Revenue Cutter Service at the present time has a complement of thirty-seven vessels, all splendidly adapted to the work in hand. During the last sixty years steamers have slowly but steadily replaced the top-sail schooners of the old days, and the vessels now employed by the Revenue Cutter Service are, with one or two exceptions, small, compact, well-built steamers, which, save for the guns they carry, might easily be mistaken for swift steam yachts. In size they range from 130 to 500 tons burden. The majority of them have been built under the direct supervision of officers of the service and are perfectly adapted to the varying wants of the several stations. Nearly all of them are armed with from two to four breech-loading rifled cannon and carry small arms for the use of their crews. Most of the vessels bear the names of former secretaries and assistant secretaries of the Treasury, but the Andrew Johnson, the William H. Seward and U. S. Grant are also among the names to be found on the list. The U. S. Grant, which does duty at Port Townsend, is a bark-rigged steam propeller, and a model of its size and type. Strange to say, it is the only ship of the United States that bears the name of the greatest captain of his age.
The vessels of the Revenue Cutter Service are always ready for instant duty in the most distant quarters. When, in 1867, Alaska became a part of the United States, within a week after the ratification of the treaty, the revenue cutter Lincoln was steaming northward, and was the first to obtain accurate information regarding the geography, resources and climate of our new possession. Three or more revenue cutters now cruise every year in Alaskan waters, guarding the seal fisheries and often giving much needed relief to the whaling fleet that yearly sails from San Francisco for a cruise in the waters above the Behring Sea.
Officers and crews of the cutters doing service in the waters of Alaska have remarkable stories to tell, and the log-books of the cutters Corwin and Bear have been filled during the last twenty-five years with a record all too brief, of many thrilling adventures in the frozen North. The Corwin left San Francisco for the Polar Sea in May, 1881, charged with ascertaining, if possible, the fate of two missing whalers, and to establish communication with the exploring steamer Jeanette. Five times during the previous year the Corwin had attempted to reach Herald Island, and failed each time. On this voyage better success attended, and after braving the perils of the drift ice, a landing was made, while at the same time the bleak coast of Wrangel Land was sighted to the westward. On August 12, 1881, the Corwin having pushed its way through great masses of floating and grounded ice, into an open space near the island, effected a landing on Wrangel Land, this being the first time that white men had ever succeeded in reaching that remote corner of the Arctic waste.
The cruises of the Corwin in 1880 and 1881 covered over 12,000 miles, and the officers and crew, while carefully preventing illegal raids upon the sealing interests, also found time to prosecute important surveys and soundings, to make a careful study of the natives of Alaska, and to collect a great mass of important data relative to the natural features and mineral wealth of the country. The cruises of the Corwin in the succeeding years of 1882, 1883, 1884 and 1885, were of scarcely less importance. One of these cruises was to St. Lawrence Bay, Siberia, where timely succor was given to the officers and crew of the burned naval relief steamer Rogers, which had gone north in the spring of 1881 in search of the Jeanette. During the Corwin's cruise in 1883 a considerable portion of the interior of Alaska was carefully explored and an outbreak among the natives on the mainland promptly quelled. During its two succeeding cruises the Corwin saved from death nearly 100 shipwrecked whalers and destitute miners.
Since 1885 the cutter Bear has patrolled the Alaskan waters, making a record equal to that of its predecessor. Its work in protecting the sealing fisheries is well known, and it has also suppressed in large measure the illegal sale to the natives of firearms and spirits. Its record as a life saver is also a long one, and some of its experiences have been more thrilling than those to be found in the pages of any romance.
When the Bear reached Alaskan waters in 1887 the captain of the whaling ship Hunter handed its commander a most remarkable message, which had been delivered to him a few days before by the natives of Cape Behring. This message consisted of a piece of wood, on one side of which was rudely carved: "1887 J. B. V. Bk. Nap. Tobacco give," and on the other "S. W. C. Nav. M 10 help come."