Trial by Ice (43 page)

After six days of grueling testimony, the board of inquiry was no closer to the truth. Its report was printed and submitted to President Grant under a cover letter by Secretary Robeson.

The United States' first exploration to discover the North Pole had failed in every way, and Robeson immediately distanced himself from its shortcomings. Too many questions remained unanswered. There were too many shadowy accusations, and too many people were demanding answers. Charles Francis Hall had died mysteriously, the North Pole had not been reached, half the crew had been abandoned on the ice, the fate of the
Polaris
was undetermined, and the conduct of the officers and men left much to be desired. Ever the consummate bureaucrat, Robeson attempted to deflect any blame away from himself.

“This report is made directly to yourself,
as the person under whose orders the expedition was organized,
and I have myself signed it, concurring as I do in all the statements and conclusions,” the secretary wrote to the president.

In some of the testimony as given will be found some statements of facts, and several strong expressions of feeling on the part of some of the witnesses against the officer remaining in command of the ship after the death of Captain Hall.

These I feel great reluctance to publish while the person refened to is absent in the discharge of dangerous and responsible duty; but I am constrained to believe that it is better fcr him, and will be more satisfactory to his friends, as well as to the friends of those still on board of the Polaris, that :hey should be published as given, rather than that their suppression should be made the foundation of sensation a and alarming reports in no degree justified by the real facts.

It must, however, be clearly understood that in permitting this publication the Department neither makes nor declares any judgment against Mr. Buddington, who is still abser t in the midst of dangers, and has had no opportunity for defense or explanation.

Then Robeson laid into Buddington with a damning paragraph:

The facts show that though he was perhaps wanting in enthusiasm for the grand objects of the expedition, and at times grossly lax in discipline, and though he differed in judgment from others as to the possibility, safety, and pro-priet) of taking the ship farther north, yet he is an experienced and careful navigator, and when not affected by liquo', of which there remained none on board at the time of the separation, a competent and safe commander.

Obviously no question remained in the minds of the board of inquiry as to who was to be the scapegoat for a poorly planned and disorganized expedition.

With the fate of the
Polaris
still up in the air, the navy mobilized a relief force with surprising speed. The cries of the newspaper editorialists, the general population, and politicians to rescue the stranded explorers hastened their efforts. A three-masted steamship, the USS
Juniata,
embarked for Greenland on the twenty-fourth of June with seventy tons of coal and extra lumber. This time the navy was taking no chances. Everyone aboard was regular navy,
officers and crew. The one exception was Capt. James O. Budding-ton, the uncle of Sidney O. Buddington. Employed as the ice pilot, the uncle might have sailed in an attempt to rescue the family name as well as his nephew.

Racing from Holsteinsborg to Disko and then on to Upernavik, Commander D.L. Braine of the
Juniata
gathered sled dogs and sealskins for the relief column. At Disko, Karrup Smith, the Danish district inspector, related Captain Hall's fears of never returning from the expedition as he turned over Hall's manuscript of his search for Sir John Franklin. Ironically now both Hall's and Franklin's bones would reside forever in the Arctic.

With everything set to go, Braine's expedition ground to a halt. None of the Inuit would guide their sleds. The superstitious Inuit sensed that bad joss followed anything associated with the
Polaris,

In frustration Braine anchored in Upernavik. The steam launch was lowered, filled with food and two months of coal for its boilers, and christened the
Little Juniata.
Lieutenant George Washington DeLong, James Buddington, and eight volunteers steamed off on August 2. For nine days they sailed along the Greenland coast of Baffin Bay, searching and poking into suitable coves for signs of the rest of the
Polaris
expedition. Ice and heavy fog blocked further passage north off Cape York, so the
Little Juniata
returned empty-handed.

After receiving Secretary Robeson's troubling report, President Grant brought the power of his office to bear on the matter. Eyes were looking at him, and he wanted the matter of the
Polarises
survival resolvedand quickly. Grant met personally with Joseph Henry, president of the National Academy of Sciences; Spencer Baird; Professor Newcomb, of the Naval Observatory; and Professor Hilgarde, of the Coastal Survey Office. The scientists felt that the testimony proved the
Polaris
was still seaworthy, and they assured Grant that the missing half of the crew still had a good chance of being alive. The president's consulting with these men, each a member of the National Academy of Sciences, with no naval representatives present sent a message to the Navy Department:

Grant was unhappy with their performance and was prepared to go outside the regular channels to resolve this matter.

Suddenly red tape dissolved. Secretary Robeson found sixty thousand dollars to purchase the sturdy little
Tigress,
which had rescued Tyson. Built in 1871, the 350-ton vessel was especially designed for sealing in Arctic waters and had the widely flaring hull that the
Folaris
fatally lacked.

With an iron-braced frame, buttressed with heavy beams, and carrying half-inch iron plating along the forward twelve feet of the three-foo>thick bow, the
Tigress
was exactly the vessel the
Polaris
should h^ve been. After her boilers had been converted to burn anthracite coal and her quarters modified, the newly acquired naval steamer sailed from the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Learring from their mistakes, the navy filled the ship with commissioned officers and men. George Tyson volunteered his expertise and was named ice master, with the rank of acting lieutenant. Ebierbing accompanied Tyson. Hans and his family sailed as far as Disko beiore returning to their village on the coast.

Unde r the glare of publicity, many of the crewmen from the ice floe bravely volunteered to return with the rescue effort. In the three months since their rescue, all had fully recuperated and were fit to ship aboard a rescue mission for their comrades. However, when the
Tigress
left, most failed to show up. Only Gustavus Lind-quist, Wi liam Lindermann, and Robert Kruger sailed. Interestingly the rest of the German seamen slipped into the shadows. History has swallowed them.

Frank Y. Commagere, the noted correspondent of the
New York Herald
who was covering the story, attempted to join the relief effort but was refused. The navy was leery of what it might find, even if half the rumors were untrue. Undaunted, Commagere enlisted in tie navy as an ordinary seaman and shipped aboard. When Commander Greer, the captain, discovered who Commagere was, long aftei the
Tigress
was too far north to turn back, he grudgingly promotec the reporter to yeoman in recognition of his ingenuity. Greer also got back at the
Herald
reporter by quartering him in the forward deckhouse with Hans and his family, whose lack of hygiene offended the noses of all the officers and men.

Ever mindful of the closing window of summer, Greer made all speed to Upernavik, rendezvousing with the
]uniata
on August 10. Two days later the
Tigress
found the
Little Juniata
and learned the distressing news that no trace of the
Polaris
or Buddington had been found.

Greer then drove the
Tigress
up the coast, past Cape York to Northumberland Island. Since their abandonment on the ice, a battle had raged between Frederick Meyer and George Tyson as to their exact location when separated from the
Polaris.
While Meyer steadfastly swore they were off Northumberland Island and based all his calculations on that notion, Tyson believed just as adamantly that the island they saw on the horizon was Littleton. Now Tyson had the satisfaction of seeing that he was right. Northumberland held no signs of the
Polaris
or its remaining crew.

Doggedly Greer sailed close by Cape Parry, Cape Alexander, and Hartstene Bay looking for survivors among the rugged out-croppings of the Greenland coast.

As the
Tigress
approached Littleton Island, Tyson and his former companions shouted out in recognition. The ragged peaks of Littleton and its smaller island, McGary, remained etched in their minds. Greer dropped anchor and lowered a boat.

While they pulled for shore, the sounds of human voices drifted across the waters from the land. “Silence!” Greer ordered. Scanning the rocky coast, Greer shouted, “I see their house! Two tents, and human figures are on the mainland near Littleton Island!”

As the excited rescuers waded ashore, their hearts sank into their rubber boots. The figures were Inuit. Running to meet them were natives wearing scraps of clothing discarded by Buddington and his men. Tyson recognized a half-rotted hawser belonging to the
Polaris
tied to a rock by the shore. The frayed end of the line floated loosely in the churning surf.

Through Ebierbing and Tyson, Greer learned from the chief that Captain Buddington's group had built two boats and set sail “about the time when the ducks begin to hatch.” Greer bristled when the village leader informed him that Buddington had made
him a present of the
Polaris
before the men left. The ship was a commissioned naval vessel and belonged to the United States.

To the great distress of the new owner, however, the
Polaris
had attempted to follow her crew. Breaking loose during a gale, the ship drifted a mile and a half after her men before sinking. Now she belonged completely to the Arctic, like Charles Francis Hall, and that cold territory had no intention of giving her up. When Greer rowed to the spot where the ship had foundered, he found her grave marked by two icebergs that had grounded on the sunken vessel.

Examining the wooden and canvas house that remained proved unsettling. While the wooden bunks, galley, and carpenter's bench remained intact, the floor was strewn with stores and broken instruments. The naval officers along with Tyson gasped at the disorder. Riggng, bags of potatoes, corn, tea, pork, and meal covered the floor, interspersed with broken compasses and medical supplies. The ship's bell lay beside a pile of broken firearms. As Tyson bitterly noted, “There is one thing certain; these men did not suffer from the want of food or fuel, as discarded provisions were lying scattered all among the rocks, and, of course, the natives had eaten all they wanted in the interval besides.”

This wanton destruction cannot be blamed on the Inuit. No Native would destroy a coveted rifle or pistol, and anything metal, such as the instruments, would be kept for trade. The frenzied destruction bore the stamp of frustrated men venting their rage on their own things as they departed a camp that might have been unbearable 1 o them.

Shakiig his head, Greer walked among the mess, collecting torn books and manuscripts and broken instruments. Not only was this deliberate destruction of government property, but maintaining records of the expedition and its scientific findings was one of the highest priorities of the mission, next only to reaching the North Pole. Examining the mutilated papers aboard the
Tigress,
Tyson and Greer found many pages missing from the logs. The defacing of the logs and journals was carefully done, something entirely different from the random scattering of the supplies. All references to the death of Captain Hall were torn out. “I had an opportunity last evening,” Tyson wrote in another journal he had started on boarding
the
Tigress,
“of looking over the mutilated diaries and journals left in the deserted hut off Littleton Island. Not one but has the leaves cut out relating to Captain Hall's death.” In fact, no mention of the separation of Tyson's group on the night of October 15 existed either.

It appeared as if someone had taken great pains to systematically eliminate any notation of those two events. Tellingly, on one scrap of torn paper, Tyson found the written words
“Captain HalVs papers thrown overboard today.”

As Greer's men searched further, no evidence of the ship's scientific papers could be found. The captain decided to return at once. No survivors were at the winter site.

Leaving the ruined camp astern, Commander Greer next steered the
Tigress
across the straits and hunted down the eastern side of Baffin Island, just in case the currents had carried Budding-ton's boats to the west, as they had Tyson's ice floe. As Greer and Tyson traced the coastline to the east, the
]uniata
left Upernavik and resumed combing the western side of the bay. By running both sides of the bay, they hoped to find Buddington and his men.

One night as the
]uniata
steamed through the dark waters far from the
Tigress,
the horizon ahead exploded with signal rockets and flashing lights. The
]uniata
hove to and prepared to meet the oncoming vessel. It was the
Cabot,
a swift steamer, hired by the U.S. consul Molloy, bearing the news that the rest of the
Polaris
survivors had finally been found. Hurriedly the captain of the
Cabot
related the events surrounding the rescue of the remaining group from the
Polaris
debacle.

On June 3 the Scottish whaler the
Ravenscraig,
out of Dundee, had spotted Buddington's two boats beached on an ice floe. Their flag waving atop one of the boat's masts clearly marked them as white men in distress. The watch in the crow's nest first thought the men on the ice were whalers from another Scottish vessel. But those on the ice were waving hats, and all the Scots wore woolen caps. Someone suggested that the group they watched might be survivors of the
Polaris,
and a rescue party was hurriedly formed. As the ice beset the
Ravenscraig,
a party of eighteen volunteers trekked over the ice to rescue the exhausted men.