Prominent captains and navigators expressed their opinion that there must have been disaffection, insubordination, and even mutiny on board Polaris for such a large number of its crew to be left behind. Publicly, Robeson said he attached no importance to such speculation, pointing out that the ship and crew had been carefully chosen, the vessel strengthened and equipped for polar service, and furthermore, he would not have been surprised if Captain Buddington had remained with her in Arctic waters and, if the vessel was in seagoing condition, attempted with his remaining crew to return northward.
In a surprisingly callous statement, Robeson, who had been a strong supporter of Charles Francis Hall and his expedition, also told the press that “as soon as the sad news of Captain Hall’s death is confirmed,” Hall’s government pay of nine hundred dollars per annum, paid in monthly increments of seventy-five-dollars to his wife, Mary, would cease immediately. Robeson added that the government would “probably not” attempt to seek a return from the widow of any overpayment.
On May 15, USS Frolic, a side-wheel steamer of 880 tons built during the Civil War and armed with five howitzers, was dispatched from New York. After skirting more than a hundred icebergs and three ice floes the previous night, Frolic had arrived at St. John’s on the morning of May 22. Unavoidably detained in port until May 27, Frolic sailed that afternoon with the Tyson party on board, arriving at the Washington Navy Yard shortly after one o’clock on June 5.
The Washington Navy Yard, the U.S. Navy’s oldest shore establishment, had been in operation since 1799. Its original boundaries along 9th and M streets southeast were still marked by a white brick wall that surrounded the yard on the north and east sides. The yard had been completely rebuilt since it was burned, on orders of its commandant, during the War of 1812, rather than letting it fall into enemy hands during the British march on Washington. Following that war, the yard never regained its prominence as a shipbuilding center, since the waters of the Anacostia River were too shallow to accommodate larger vessels and the yard was deemed too inaccessible to the open sea. Its mission shifted to ordnance and technology, and workers presently were busy building the very latest in steam engines for American vessels of war. During the Civil War, the yard had become an integral part of the defense of Washington, and President Abraham Lincoln was a frequent visitor. The famous ironclad Monitor was repaired at the yard after her historic battle with CSS Virginia. The Lincoln assassination conspirators were brought to the yard following their capture, and the body of John Wilkes Booth had been examined and identified on the monitor Sangus, which had been moored there at the time.
Now another bit of history was about to be made at the yard. Assembling at four that day aboard USS Tallapoosa, a 974-ton, 205-foot steamer with a complement of 190 officers and men, was an official board of inquiry composed of Commodore William Reynolds, the senior officer of the Navy Department, Professor Spencer F. Baird of the National Academy of Sciences, Captain H. W. Howgate of the Signal Service Corps, and its presiding member, Navy Secretary George M. Robeson.
Tallapoosa was a ship with a colorful past even before the historic inquiry about to take place aboard her. After the Civil War, she had served in the Gulf Squadron, cruising the West Indies and the Gulf of Mexico, until assigned as a dispatch vessel that brought her one of her more interesting missions. In January 1870 she carried Admiral David Farragut, a naval hero of the Battle of Mobile Bay during the Civil War who rallied his men with the famous cry “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” as he sailed into torpedo-mined waters near a Confederate stronghold, to meet with HMS Monarch at the end of that British turreted battleship’s voyage across the Atlantic. Early the following summer, Tallapoosa carried Farragut from New York City to Portsmouth, New Hampshire. It was hoped that the cool sea breezes of New England would improve the aged and ailing admiral’s health. As Tallapoosa neared Portsmouth on July 4, she fired an Independence Day salute with her two one-hundred-pound howitzers and four twenty-pounders to her famous passenger, the Navy’s highest-ranking and most respected officer. Upon hearing the warship’s guns, Farragut left his sickbed, donned his dress uniform, and walked to the man-of-war’s quarterdeck. There he commented, “It would be well if I died now, in harness.” A month later, Farragut passed away while still at Portsmouth.
In a spacious, well-appointed cabin, the board members sat lined up on one side of a polished mahogany table. Situated directly in front of the board was a single chair. A male stenographer sat close by. There was no gallery, press, or public section.
Before anyone in the Tyson party was called, Commander C. M. Schoonmaker, the captain of Frolic, reported to the board. A dapper officer with a distinguished naval record in peace and wartime, he described the journey from St. John’s as a “pleasant voyage, except that we encountered a gale after leaving St. John’s, and had to slow down, as the ship is not suited to combat ice.”
Schoonmaker said he had found the ice-floe survivors in the charge of the consulate at St. John’s, and he took them aboard Frolic on May 27. “I had no trouble with any of them. They are all well-behaved, orderly people, and all seem to be good men. Captain Tyson seems to be very intelligent. I have seen him more than any of the rest, as I have had him with me in the cabin. He has made a very favorable impression on me.”
The board heard from George Tyson first. Seated in the chair facing the high-ranking officials, Tyson, after a month of shipboard meals and plenty of rest, appeared well on his way to regaining full strength after his long ordeal. He had a recent haircut—his slicked-back brown hair was parted on the side—and a shave that left longish sideburns and a mustache. A healthy color had returned to his complexion, and he had put a few pounds back on his lanky frame, which had begun to resemble Ichabod Crane’s.
“Captain Tyson, I desire your statement about this voyage,” began Secretary Robeson, whose unruly hair, bushy side whiskers, and large mustache had grayed considerably in the two years Polaris had been gone. Robeson was Grant’s second Secretary of Navy following a disastrous, short-lived appointment—all of three months—of an old friend, Adolf Borie, who had won Grant’s undying gratitude when he bought a house for the general at the close of the Civil War. Like most members of Grant’s beleaguered cabinet, Robeson had been the subject of a congressional investigation. The previous year, allegations had surfaced that Robeson, a Camden lawyer who had served as New Jersey’s attorney general, had received kickbacks from contractors awarded shipyard work for the Navy. While as yet unsubstantiated, persistent rumors of skulduggery continued to shadow Robeson into the first year of Grant’s second term.
“All that you know about it,” Robeson went on, “and all that happened to you on the ice. Your own statement, made in your own way, not mixed up or colored with any outside suggestions. For that reason I have sent for you first, as the chief person of the expedition, among those who are here. You are aware, perhaps, that this subject has attracted a great deal of attention, and that there is a good deal of interest in the expedition, and in the persons who composed it, on the part of the government and the public. It is proper, therefore, that an investigation should be had, which will develop all the facts as they occurred and that the government may be rightly informed. I will ask you a few questions by way of opening your statement, but I prefer to have you give a regular detailed account in your own way.”
Tyson nodded.
“Your name?”
“George E. Tyson.”
“Your home?”
“Brooklyn, New York.”
“Your age, and business?”
“Forty-four, last December. I have been a whale man, and have been a master on several cruises: of the brig Georgiana, of the bark Orra Taft, the bark Antelope, and schooner Erie, for two voyages. I have made five whaling voyages as master. I have been in the whaling business since I was twenty-one.”
Tyson told of meeting Charles Francis Hall in 1860, and ten years later Hall offering him the sailing-master position aboard Polar
is but his turning it down due to a prior commitment to serve as master of a commercial whaler. After that whaling voyage fell through, he had called on Hall at the Washington Navy Yard in the summer of 1871, while Polaris was being outfitted. By then, he explained, Sidney Buddington had been appointed sailing master; nonetheless, Hall had made it clear he wanted Tyson along in some capacity.
“You knew Captain Buddington?” Robeson interjected.
“I was acquainted with him slightly.”
Tyson continued with his narrative, describing the departure of Polaris for the Arctic, their arrival at St. John’s and various ports of call up the coast of Greenland. Sans questions from the board, he told of their passage north and achieving a northernmost latitude of 82 degrees, 16 minutes, before being stopped by heavy ice.
“Did you force your way any farther?” Robeson asked.
“No, sir. There was no forcing of the way. It was pretty foggy, and when we got pretty well through, I could see open water beyond, and the land lying as far to the north as I could see. I was at the masthead a great deal of the time. The working of the ice through the winter, too, led me to think there was a large and extensive bay beyond.”
Tyson told of Hall landing provisions on the ice one day in case the ship was crushed by the floe. “We took the supplies aboard again the next day. Captain Hall steamed in under the land, and came to anchor behind some bergs. The next morning, he called the mate, Mr. Chester, and myself to join a consultation to see whether we should proceed north or not. Our decision was to go north, but it was overruled by Buddington.”
“How?”
“By his influence over Captain Hall.”
“What reason did he give?”
“He said we would never get back again, and we had no business to go. Buddington, with an oath, said he would be damned if we should move from there. He walked off, and Captain Hall followed him, and they had some conversation together.”
“Then you considered that that conversation decided the fact that the ship should then and there be laid up for the winter?”
“Yes, sir.”
Tyson’s narrative turned to the conditions of their winter quarters, then to Hall’s last sledge journey of October 10 and his return two weeks later. “I exchanged a few words with him on shore. He said he was never better in his life. He enjoyed his sledge journey amazingly, and was going right off on another journey, and wished me to go with him. As soon as he went on board, I resumed my work. It soon came on dark, and I went on board. I heard he was sick; I cannot remember who told me. I went into the cabin, and he was lying in his berth. He said he felt sick at his stomach. I asked if he did not think an emetic would do him good. I said, if he was bilious, I thought an emetic would do good. He said he thought he was bilious. He grew rapidly worse. I do not think it was twenty-four hours before he became delirious. He was under medical treatment; Dr. Bessels was attending him. The doctor said that it was ‘apoplexy’—that was what he called it. He said Captain Hall was paralyzed on one side. He said he ran a needle into his leg, and that there was no feeling in it. Captain Hall took medicine, but at times he strongly objected to taking it, and to having anything done for him. At other times, he would be quite docile.”
Robeson wanted to know if Hall ever talked rationally after he was taken ill.
“After he had been sick seven or eight days, he got better, around the second or third day of November. He talked rationally and went around tending to his business and writing in his journal. He got around, and appeared to have the use of his side and leg. He appeared rather strong. He again proposed another sledge journey and said he wished me to go with him. But he still appeared to be thinking that someone was going to injure him. He was very suspicious. He thought somebody was going to poison him. He was very careful as to what he ate and drank. While Captain Hall was sick I saw him every day.”
“Did he accuse anyone when you were with him?”
“Yes, sir. He accused Buddington and the doctor of trying to do him injury. After not more than twenty-four hours, he became very sick again.”
“Was he taken again with the same symptoms as at first?”
“He retired in the evening. Mr. Chester was with him, and Mr. Chester said that Captain Hall was recovering rapidly and felt first-rate, and would be around in a few days. During the night he grew worse. I got the information first from Buddington, who came to my room and told me the captain was dying. I got up and went to the cabin and looked at him. He was insensible—knew nothing. He lay upon his face in his berth, breathing very heavy. I could not see his face. His face appeared to be buried in his pillow, and he was breathing heavy. He died that night.”
Without waiting for a question, Tyson continued: “Before his death there had been some difficulty between Buddington and himself.” He told of Hall twice being close to suspending Buddington from duty—once early in the trip, and again just before his last sledge journey. In the first instance, “the difficulty was Buddington taking anything he could lay his hands on—the provisions about the ship,” Tyson explained. “Captain Hall said he was going to put him off duty, and asked me what I thought of it. I objected to it. I thought it would be breaking up the ship’s company at that early stage. I told him to give him a good talking to, and perhaps the man would do better. On the strength of that he passed it over.”
“How did Captain Hall and the doctor get along?” Robeson asked.
“Not very well. Captain Hall was sometimes a little stern with the doctor. He did not think the doctor was qualified for his position; he said so, but the doctor did not have any words with him, at least, I never knew of any.”
Tyson described Hall’s burial, then the change of command.
“Captain Buddington assumed command in his way, and the winter we passed was wretched indeed. The spring came on, and there was nothing done. He swore that nobody should do anything, and he kept his word.”
“How came he to do it?”
“We lay inactive until June, when he allowed Mr. Chester and I to attempt an expedition with the boats. Before leaving, I told Captain Buddington that he knew very well those boats could not do anything, and he agreed.”
Tyson explained the fiasco of the boat expeditions, and the loss of the two boats.
“We returned to the ship by land,” Tyson went on, “and found the ship was leaking from the stem forward, at the six-foot mark, but not very seriously. We could pump out in four minutes one hour’s leakage, and we pumped her every hour.”
Robeson asked Tyson if he had been privy to any consultations between Buddington and Bessels as to whether Polaris should sail for home.
“I do not know. Buddington asked me if I wished to stay another winter. I told him no. If a man swears that nobody shall do anything, I want to get home as soon as possible. I thought that, under the circumstances, with him in command, I would rather get home. We started for home on the twelfth day of August. The ship was leaking still the same. The leak did not increase any at the time. On the fifteenth day of August we were beset in the ice, just north of Cape Frazier, in latitude 80 degrees, 2 minutes north. The cause of that, I think, was that Captain Buddington got intoxicated, and ran the vessel off in the middle of the sound.”
The board members exchanged glances, but waited for Robeson.
“Was Captain Buddington drunk at the time you were beset?” asked the Navy Secretary, sounding somewhat offended.
“Yes, sir, he was drunk. Not on rum or whisky, but alcohol reduced to preserve specimens.”
“How do you know that?”
“It was all there was to get drunk on. He got it from the scientific stores.”
Curiously, Robeson seemed to be losing patience with his own line of questioning.
“How do you know that?”
“The doctor caught him at it. I was not present. I was on deck.”
“Tell all you know about that.”
“Captain Buddington was drunk, and the doctor decided he was going
to catch him and he did. There was no liquor on board, except a couple jars of this alcohol, at that time.”
From there, Tyson segued to the drama of October 15. He told of the engineer’s report that Polaris had sprung a new leak, and Buddington’s order to throw provisions overboard. Tyson described the panic that night, and his dropping down onto the ice with other volunteers to save what provisions they could.
He told of later going back aboard ship and finding out that the engineer had issued a false alarm, and that Polaris was not taking on more water than usual. A short time after returning to the ice, he told the board, the ship broke away in the darkness “when the piece of ice on the starboard drifted away and she righted from her beam ends.”
“How did you happen to have all the Eskimos on the ice?”
“They said that Captain Buddington told them the ship was going to be lost and they must get out.”
At that point, the board adjourned for the day. Tyson was told to return in the morning at nine o’clock, and to refrain from discussing his testimony with anyone.
The next morning, Tyson picked up where he left off, telling of the first “terrible night” on the ice: “The wind was blowing strong, it was snowing, and fearfully dark.”
He described their efforts the following morning to launch the boats and try to make their way toward land, but held back criticizing the crew for their slowness. “They were very tired, and very hungry, and very wet. They had had nothing to eat since three o’clock the day before.”
He told of their being stopped by ice and having to haul the boat onto a floe, then seeing Polaris come around a point about eight or ten miles distant, under sail and steam, but their hope for rescue were soon dashed when the ship anchored behind a nearby island.
“I did not feel right about the vessel not coming for us,” Tyson admitted.
He told about the other abortive efforts to make for land and eventually, giving up hope of immediate rescue, how they settled in on the ice floe for the winter.
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