Throughout May and June we were busy loading stores, coaling ship,
running our trials, cleaning up the odds and ends of our alterations,
and signing on the crew.
De Long in Washington, deluged from all over the country with requests
from young men, old men, cranks, and crackpots of every type, eager to
go along in all sorts of ridiculous capacities, diplomatically solved
his difficulty by rejecting each claim in about the same letter to all:
“I have room in the _Jeannette_ for nobody but her officers and
crew. These must be seamen or people with some claim to scientific
usefulness, but from your letter I fail to learn that you may be
classed with either party.”
And then, having thus disposed of the undesirables, from Washington he
wrote the _Jeannette_, carefully instructing Chipp as to the essential
requirements for the seamen he desired to have signed on:
“Single men, perfect health, considerable strength, perfect temperance,
cheerfulness, ability to read and write English, prime seamen of
course. Norwegians, Swedes, and Danes preferred. Avoid English, Scotch,
and Irish. Refuse point-blank French, Italians, and Spaniards. Pay to
be Navy pay. Absolute and unhesitating obedience to every order, no
matter what it may be.”
De Long’s instructions with respect to nationalities were based mainly
on his assumptions with regard to their supposed abilities to withstand
the rigors of the north, but they seemed to me to a high degree
humorous when I consider that I, of Scotch descent, fell in the class
to be “avoided,” while De Long himself of French Huguenot parentage,
came in the group “to be refused point-blank.”
How little the average American of that day went to sea may be inferred
from the fact that it did not even enter De Long’s mind to mention
“Americans” among the various categories to be considered for his crew,
though not forty years before in the heyday of wooden ships, the sails
of Yankee clippers manned by Yankee seamen, whitened every ocean.
In early June, De Long came west and at Mare Island joined us to
witness the final completion and trial of the ship. Completely
satisfied with the changes made in the ship, he had nothing but praise
for the manner in which we, his three subordinates, had carried on in
his absence, and waved aside the gloomy prognostications of the Navy
Yard officers and their comments about inadequate spars and sails,
improper shape of hull, and (to put it briefly) the _Jeannette_ as a
whole, which they damned euphemistically in their official trial report:
“_So far as practicable_, we are of the opinion that she has been
repaired and placed in condition for service in the Arctic Ocean.”
But on one thing, securing an escort as far as Alaska, De Long had
firmly set his heart. He was anxious to get from San Francisco into the
Arctic as rapidly as possible to take advantage of what summer weather
he could in working his way north. The weather at sea to be expected
being mostly head winds, speed meant proceeding under steam rather than
under sail on the long trip to Alaska. This of necessity would use up
most of our coal, forcing us to start the Arctic part of our journey
with our bunkers either empty or what was almost as bad, full of such
inferior and almost unburnable coal as was available in Alaska; unless
an escort ship accompanied us as far as the Arctic Circle to replenish
our bunkers then with the excellent anthracite obtainable in San
Francisco.
Regardless, however, of all his arguments and his persuasions, De Long
was unable to get the commandant at Mare Island to approve the detail
of any naval vessel for this duty; nor, with Bennett unfortunately
abroad, did he have, in spite of his most urgent telegrams, any better
luck in forcing the Navy Department itself to order one. In this
dilemma, at the last minute Bennett saved the situation by a cable from
Paris, authorizing the charter of a schooner, the _Fanny A. Hyde_, to
carry the coal north. De Long, relieved of his worry but exasperated
beyond measure by the controversy, eased his mind by wiring back to the
_Herald_,
“Thank God, I have a man at my back to see me through when countries
fail!”
On June 28, the _Jeannette_ was commissioned as a ship of the Navy.
Thirty years have passed since then, but still that gay scene is as
fresh and bright in my memory as only yesterday. Our entire ship’s
company was mustered on the poop for the ceremony, officers in the
glitter of swords, gold lace, and cocked hats to starboard, seamen in
sober navy blue to port. Between those lines of rough seamen about to
dare the Arctic ice, Emma De Long stepped forth, as fresh and lovely
on that June day as summer itself, the very embodiment of youthful
feminine grace if ever I have seen it in any port on this earth. With
a dazzling smile that seemed to take in not only our captain but every
member of his crew as well, she manned the halliards and amidst the
hoarse cheers of the sailors swiftly ran aloft our flag, a beautiful
silken ensign lovingly fashioned for her husband’s ship by the slender
fingers which for the first time now hoisted it over us. And then with
a seagoing salute as our new banner reached the masthead, she passed
the halliards to the quartermaster, stepped back to De Long’s side,
and clung proudly to his arm while he read the orders detailing him to
the command, and the commandant of the Navy Yard, Commodore Colhoun,
formally (and no doubt thankfully) turned the ship over to him.
A few days later, under our own steam we moved from Mare Island to San
Francisco and there, away from the din of the yard workmen finally, we
finished in peace loading stores in preparation for departure.
At last, on July 8, 1879, with the North Pole as our destination, the
_Jeannette_ weighed anchor, and gaily dressed out in all her signal
flags, slowly steamed through the harbor, escorted by all the larger
craft of the San Francisco Yacht Club, while as an indication of the
esteem of Californians generally, Governor Irwin himself accompanied us
to sea aboard a special tug.
That was a gala day for San Francisco, climaxing a week of banquets
and farewell parties given for us in the city. Telegraph Hill was
black with cheering crowds; on every merchant vessel in the bay as we
passed flags dipped and impromptu salutes rang out. From the Presidio,
a national salute blazed from the fortifications as we passed, the
Army’s godspeed on our mission to their brothers of the Navy. It was
well the Army saluted us, for that was the only official salute we
received on our departure. De Long, much chagrined, noted as I noted,
that not a single naval vessel, not a single naval officer, took part
in the ovation at our departure, and that though three warships, the
_Alaska_, the _Tuscarora_, and the _Alert_, lay at the Navy Yard only
twenty-six miles away, and one of them at least might have been sent
for the purpose. And as if to emphasize the point, the navy yard tug
_Monterey_, which that very morning had brought the commandant down to
San Francisco on other business, not only lay silently at her wharf
while we steamed by her, but fifteen minutes later crossed our wake
hardly a mile astern of us and without even a blast of her whistle as
a farewell, steamed off in the direction of Mare Island.
From the machinery hatch where I was keeping one eye out for my clumsy
engines and the other out for my last long glimpse of home, I watched
in puzzled surprise as the _Monterey_ silently disappeared astern,
then looking up at the bridge nearly overhead, caught a glimmer of
a wry smile on De Long’s face as he watched the _Monterey_. A navy
expedition, we were sailing without the presence of a single naval
representative in that vast crowd of men and ships cheering us on;
worse perhaps, for it seemed as if we were being studiously ignored.
Why? I have often wondered. Not enough rank on the _Jeannette_, perhaps.
But this was the only cloud on our departure, and I doubt if
overwhelmed in the roar of the guns from the Presidio, the cheers from
the citizens of San Francisco, and the shrieking of whistles from the
flag-decorated vessels we passed, others, especially civilians, ever
noticed it.
Slowly, under engines only, we steamed out the Golden Gate and met the
long swells of the Pacific. Astern, one by one the escorting yachts
turned back. On the starboard wing of the bridge at her husband’s side
stood Emma De Long, a sailor’s daughter, and after a hectic courtship
terminating finally in a sudden shipboard marriage in the far-off
harbor of Le Havre, for eight years now a sailor’s wife. Silently she
looked forward through the rigging, past furled sails, past yards
and mast and bowsprit, across the waves toward the unknown north.
Occasionally she smiled a little at De Long, rejoicing with him on the
surface at least that at last his dream had come true, her eyes shining
in her pride in the strength and the love of the man by whom she stood.
But what her real feelings were, I, a rough seaman, could only guess,
for she said nothing as she clung to the rail, her gaze riveted over
the sea to the north into which in a few brief hours were to disappear
forever her husband and her husband’s ship.
We stood on a few miles more. The coast line astern became hazy,
our escorting fleet of yachts dwindled away to but one. Then a bell
jangled harshly in the engine room below me, the engines stopped. For
a few brief minutes the _Jeannette_ rolled in the swells while to the
shrilling of the silver pipe in the mouth of Jack Cole, bosun, our
starboard whaleboat was manned, lowered, and shoved off, carrying
toward that lone yacht which now lay to off our quarter, Emma De Long
and her husband. There in that small boat, tossing unevenly in the
waves a shiplength off, was spoken the last farewell. A brief embrace,
a tender kiss, and De Long, balancing himself on the thwarts, handed
his wife up over the low side of the yacht.
Another moment, and seated in the sternsheets of the whaleboat, De Long
was once more simply the sailor. Sharply his commands drifted across
the waves to us,
“Shove off!”
The bowman pushed clear of the yacht.
“Let fall!”
In silence, except for the steady thrash of the oars, our whaleboat
came back to us, rounded to under the davits, was hoisted aboard. Again
the bell jangled below. Our engines revolved slowly, the _Jeannette_
sluggishly gathered speed, the helmsman pointed her west northwest.
Off our quarter, the yacht came about, swiftly picked up headway, and
with the two ships on opposite courses, she dropped rapidly astern.
For a few minutes, with strained eyes I watched a white handkerchief
fluttering across the water at us, then it faded in the distance. The
bosun secured the whaleboat for sea, piped down, and without further
ceremony, the sea routine on the _Jeannette_ commenced. I took a final
look at the distant coast and went below to watch the operation of my
engines at close range.