Interesting Trivia:

• his 1838 -1842 around the globe expedition was the last all-sail naval mission ever to do so
• reached the rank of commander in 1843 and that of captain in 1855
• in 1862, reached the rank of commodore
• in 1866, he was promoted to the rank of rear admiral on the retired list
• claimed to be the first to provide proof of the existence of an Antarctic continent

His Story:

Charles Wilkes became a half orphan at age three when his mother died.  He was raised by his aunt Elizabeth Seton.  When she became a widow, Charles was sent to boarding school.  He attended Columbia College and entered the US Navy in 1818 as a midshipman.  He did well in the Navy and by 1826, had the rank of lieutenant.

In 1833 he was in charge of the Navy's Department of Charts and Instruments. Later, this Department became the Naval Observatory and Hydrographic Office.

At the time, America was keen to explore and Wilkes was right in the middle of it all.  As he was experienced in nautical survey work, and working with civilian scientists, he was given command of the government exploring expedition.  This expedition, officially known as The United States Exploring Expedition (but more commonly known as the Wilkes Expedition) was authorized by act of the Congress on May 18, 1836 with a budget of $300,000. Several ships (6 in total; the "Vincennes", "Peacock", "Porpoise", "Sea Gull", "Flying Fish", and the "Relief") were to carry the naturalists, taxidermists, botanists, philologist, and mineralogist.  There were even artists on board to make drawings and paintings. 

On 18^th August, 1838 they left Hampton Roads (in Virginia, USA) and sailed south.  It was to be a long expedition. Sailing to places such as Rio de Janeiro, Madeira Islands, Tierra del Fuego, Chile, Peru, Tuamotu Archipelago, Samoa, they arrived in New South Wales, Australia.  They continued their journey from Sydney and sailed into the Antarctic Ocean in December 1839.  On their way back to New York they visited Fiji, the Hawaiian Islands, explored the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Puget Sound, the Columbia River, the San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento River, then back via the Philippines, the Sulu Archipelago, Borneo, Singapore, Polynesia and the Cape of Good Hope.  They returned home on 10^th June 1942.

They had sailed into Antarctic waters twice, once in February - March of 1839, and in January - February of 1840. (They had made use of the Antarctic winter months to extend their knowledge of the Pacific island groups, but had returned early the next year) This part, like the other stages of their journey, had been part of a larger plan in the Pacific and here also, major accomplishments were gained. Wilkes sailed along the edge of the ice pack south of Australia for some 1500 miles and had sighted land on several occasions. He reported this (on 19^th January, 1840) and is now known as the first to provide proof of the existence of an Antarctic continent. (Later he found out that the French explorer Dumont d'Urville also claimed January 19 as the date of his first view of the Antarctic mainland.) Wilkes made sketches of what he took to be a distant range of mountains. He even named one of them (Ringgold's Knoll, after the captain of one of the accompanying ships). The crew managed to captured an emperor penguin. Upon examination, they found pebbles in the bird’s stomach, further proving that land was not far off. More proof was that the water they sailed in was shallow. Having sailed as far south as possible, they turned westwards in an attempt to find a passage through the pack ice. On 21^st February 1840, Wilkes (onboard the “Vincennes”) confronted a wall of ice that stretched as far as the eye could see. He could go no further and decided to name it Termination Land (a name which was later changed to Termination Ice Tongue and still later changed to the Shackleton Ice Shelf). The wall of ice extended 180 miles out from the shoreline.

There were various incidents on the way and Wilkes reigned with a firm hand.  In one incident, on Fiji’s Malolo Island, two of the sailors (one of them being Wilkes’ nephew) got killed and Wilkes did not hesitate in his retribution.  According to a survivor on the island, nearly 80 Fijians were killed in the incident. On his journey Wilkes lost 28 men and two ships and upon his return Wilkes was court-martialed. He was accused of excessively punishing his men and the regular mistreatment of his subordinate officers. Besides that, the loss of his ships was unacceptable.  He was acquitted on most charges, and his “punishment” (for the illegal punishment of his men) was that he was attached to the Coast Survey.

When the American Civil War broke out, Captain Wilkes was assigned to the command of the ship “San Jacinto” in search of the Confederate commerce destroyer “Sumter”.

An incident, which involved Wilkes, happened on 8^th November 1861, and almost led to war between the United Kingdom and the United States.  He had intercepted the “RMS Trent”, which was a British Royal Mail paddle steamer. The two Confederate diplomats James Mason and John Slidell were on board. They had been on their way to Great Britain and France to press the Confederacy’s case for diplomatic recognition by Europe. Wilkes brought the men brought to Fort Warren in Boston Harbor. Although Wilkes was officially thanked by the US Congress for his actions, it was later disavowed by President Lincoln due to diplomatic pressure placed on the Administration by the British Government. The incident became known as the Trent Affair, (or the Mason and Slidell Affair).

Wilkes was not very much liked, he had a reputation as being arrogant and capricious. His temper got him in trouble again when he crossed swords with the Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles.  In 1864 it led to his being court-martialed again.  This time he was found guilty and sentenced to public reprimand and suspension for three years. It was the intervention by President Lincoln that saw his suspension reduced to one year and the balance of charges were dropped.

Books:

• “United States Exploring Expedition”, five volumes (and an Atlas), 1845 (only 100 printed copies were allowed by Congress)
• He edited the scientific reports of the 1838 -1842 expedition (20 volumes and 11 atlases, 1844–1874) and was the author of Vol. XI (“Meteorology”) and Vol. XIII (“Hydrography”)
• “Western America, including California and Oregon” in 1849
• “Theory of the Winds” in 1856

• He also authored his autobiography