The Last Cruise of the Saginaw Part 1

The Last Cruise of the Saginaw.

by George H. Read.

PREFACE

Dear Mr. Read:--

I am greatly obliged to you for letting me read your deeply interesting account of the wreck of the poor Saginaw and the loss of Lieutenant Talbot. With General Cutter's approval I shall take the ma.n.u.script with me to Boston, but I will return it carefully.

I leave the two photographs, but I have the curious drawing and newspaper sc.r.a.ps, which I will safely return.

Very truly yours, EDWARD E. HALE.

Dec. 21, 1880.

WASHINGTON.

A recent re-reading of the above old letter from a friend who in his lifetime stood so high in the literary world, has, together with the suggestions of other friends and shipmates, decided me to launch my narrative of the cruise and wreck of the Saginaw on the sea of publicity.

The story itself may be lost in the immense current of literature constantly pouring forth, but some good friends advise me to the contrary.

The fact that stories of sea life and adventure have ever possessed the power to attract the interest and stir the imagination, adds to the courage given me to set forth my plain unadorned story without any pretensions to literary excellence.

Some of the first instructions given to a newly fledged naval officer enjoin upon him the necessity for brevity and directness in his official communications, both oral and written, and eventually he becomes addicted to formal expressions that pervade his entire correspondence. Eloquence or sentiment would probably be crushed with a reprimand. I trust, therefore, that the reader will consider the above conditions as they have surrounded me throughout my service, should he or she find a lack of decorative language in my narrative.

To my mind, as a partic.i.p.ant in the related events, there is material in the story to rival the fictions of Fenimore Cooper or Marryat, and I think that the heroes who gave up their lives in the effort to save their shipmates should stand as high on the roll of fame as do those lost amid battle smoke and carnage.

G.H.R.

August 16, 1911.

THE LAST CRUISE OF THE SAGINAW

I

THE BEGINNING OF THE CRUISE

During the winter of 1869-70 the United States Steamer Saginaw was being repaired at the Mare Island Navy Yard, and her officers and crew were recuperating after a cruise on the west coast of Mexico,--a trying one for all hands on board as well as for the vessel itself.

The "Alta-Californian" of San Francisco published the following soon after our return from the Mexican coast. It is all that need be said of the cruise. We were all very glad to have it behind us and forget it.

The Saginaw, lately returned from the Mexican coast, had a pretty severe experience during her short cruise. At Manzanillo she contracted the coast fever, a form of remittent, and at one time had twenty-five cases, but a single death, however, occurring.

On the way up, most of the time under sail, the machinery being disabled, the voyage was so prolonged that when she arrived at San Francisco there was not a half-day's allowance of provisions on board and for many days the officers had been on "ship's grub."

Our repairs and refitting were but preliminary to another (and the last) departure of the Saginaw from her native land. Our captain, Lieutenant-Commander Montgomery Sicard, had received orders to proceed to the Midway Islands, _via_ Honolulu, and to comply with instructions that will appear later in these pages. (I should explain here that the commanding officer of a single vessel is usually addressed as "Captain," whatever his real rank may be, and I shall use that term throughout my narrative.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: U.S. STEAMER SAGINAW--FOURTH-RATE Built at the Navy Yard, Mare Island, California, in 1859]

In a northwesterly direction from the Sandwich Islands there stretches for over a thousand miles a succession of coral reefs and shoals, with here and there a sandy islet thrown up by the winds and waves. They are mostly bare of vegetation beyond a stunted growth of bushes. These islets are called "atolls" by geographers, and their foundations are created by the mysterious "polyps" or coral insects.

These atolls abound in the Pacific Ocean, and rising but a few feet above the surface, surrounded by uncertain and uncharted currents, are the dread of navigators.

Near the centre of the North Pacific and near the western end of the chain of atolls above mentioned, are two small sand islands in the usual lagoon, with a coral reef enclosing both. They were discovered by an American captain, N.C. Brooks, of the Hawaiian bark Gambia, and by him reported; were subsequently visited by the United States Steamer Lackawanna and surveyed for charting.

No importance other than the danger to navigation was at that time attached to these mere sandbanks. Now, however, the trans-Pacific railroads, girdling the continent and making valuable so many hitherto insignificant places, have cast their influence three thousand miles across the waters to these obscure islets. The expected increase of commerce between the United States and the Orient has induced the Pacific Mail Steamship Company to look for a halfway station as a coaling-depot, and these, the Midway Islands, are expected to answer the purpose when the proposed improvements are made. To do the work of deepening a now shallow channel through the reef, a contract has been awarded to an experienced submarine engineer and the Saginaw has been brought into service to transport men and material. Our captain is to superintend and to report monthly on the progress made. Thus, with the voyages out and return, coupled with the several trips between the Midways and Honolulu, we have the prospect of a year's deep-water cruising to our credit.

_February 22, 1870._ Once more separated from home and friends, with the Golden Gate dissolving astern in a California fog (than which none can be more dense). Old Neptune gives us a boisterous welcome to his dominions, and the howling of wind through the rigging, with the rolling and pitching of the ship as we steam out to sea, where we meet the full force of a stiff "southeaster," remind us that we are once more his subjects.

On the fourteenth day out we heard the welcome cry of "Land ho!" at sunrise from the masthead. It proved to be the island of Molokai, and the next day, March 9, we pa.s.sed into the harbor of Honolulu on the island of Oahu. We found that our arrival was expected, and the ship was soon surrounded by canoes of natives, while crowds of people were on the wharves.

After six days spent in refitting and obtaining fresh food and ship-stores, we took up our westward course with memories of pleasant and hospitable treatment, both officially and socially, from the native and foreign people. Nothing happened outside of the usual routine of sea life until March 24, when we sighted the Midway Islands, and at 8 P.M. were anch.o.r.ed in Welles's Harbor, so called, although there is barely room in it to swing the ship. The island is a desolate-looking place--the eastern end of it covered with brown albatross and a few seal apparently asleep on the beach. We can see the white sand drifting about with the wind like snow. The next day a schooner arrived with the contractor's supplies and lumber for a dwelling and a scow, the latter to be used by the divers in their outside work. There also arrived, towards night, a strong gale. It blew so hard that with both anchors down the engines had to be worked constantly to prevent drifting either on the island or the reef.

During the month of April work both afloat and ash.o.r.e was steadily pushed. The contractor's house was set up and the divers' scow completed and launched. In addition, a thorough survey of the entire reef and bar was completed.

Our several trips between the Midways and Honolulu need but brief mention. They were slow and monotonous, being made mostly under sail.

The Saginaw was not built for that purpose. On one occasion, on account of head winds, we made but twenty miles on our course in two days.

The last return to the Midways came on October 12, and the appropriation of $50,000 having been expended, our captain proceeded to carry out his orders directing him to take on board the contractor's workmen with their tools and stores and transport them to San Francisco.

We found the sh.o.r.e party all well and looking forward with pleasure to the closing day of their contract. They certainly have had the monotonous and irksome end of the business, although we have not been able to derive much pleasure from our sailings to and fro.

A brief resume of the work performed during their seven months'

imprisonment I have compiled from the journal of Pa.s.sed a.s.sistant Engineer Blye, who remained upon the island during our absences.

Their first attempt at dislodging the coral rock on the bar was made by the diver with two canisters of powder, and about five tons of rock were dislodged and well broken up. Thereafter the work was intermittently carried on, as weather permitted. During September and October there were frequent strong gales from the west, and on such occasions the mouth of the harbor, being on that side, was dangerous to approach.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LANDING AT MIDWAY ISLANDS]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MIDWAY ISLANDS AS WE LEFT THEM]

After toiling laboriously and constantly for six months, using large quant.i.ties of powder and fuse, the result now is a pa.s.sage through the bar fifteen feet in width and four hundred feet in length, whereas one hundred and seventy feet in width is estimated as essential. A proper completion would call for a much larger appropriation.

During the month of April the thermometer ranged from 68 degrees at sunrise to 86 degrees at noon and 80 degrees at sundown. The prevailing winds during the summer months were the northeast trades, varying from northeast to east southeast.

A cause of much annoyance has been the drifting of sand during high winds, when it flies like driven snow, cutting the face and hands.

(This was so great an annoyance that on our first trip to Honolulu I purchased for each person a pair of goggles to protect the eyes.)

Taking into consideration the dangers of navigation in a neighborhood abounding with these coral reefs, the fact that they are visible but a short distance only in clear weather, and that an entrance to the lagoon could only be made in a smooth sea, it really seems a questionable undertaking to attempt the formation of an anchorage here for the large steamers of the Pacific Mail Company.

When the westerly gales blow, the mouth of the lagoon being, as in most coral islands, on that side, the sea breaks heavily all over the lagoon and no work can be done. On one occasion the workmen were returning to the island from the entrance to the channel when one of these gales came on and, as one of them told me, "It was a mighty big conundrum at one time whether we would ever reach the sh.o.r.e."