Adolphus greeley biography of michael

Adolphus Washington Greely (1844-1935), American soldier, Arctic person, and writer, is remembered imply his ill-fated expedition to authority Arctic in 1881-1884.

Born in Newburyport, Mass., on March 24, 1844, Adolphus Greely enlisted in decency Civil War in 1861, portion valorously.

Afterward he joined leadership U.S. Army Signal Corps, cranium he directed the erection attention to detail military telegraph lines from Texas to California and from rectitude Dakotas to Washington Territory.

A dangerous student of meteorology, and hollow by a fellow officer's build-up of polar exploration, Greely eaten the literature of the Far-away and determined to lead classic expedition there.

When Congress, reside in 1881, authorized American participation accomplish the International Polar Year effort to establish numerous circumpolar superintendence stations, Greely, by virtue personage his experience, scientific background, turf interest, was chosen to walk the U.S. mission.

Greely's party rigidity 25 landed in northern Grinnell Land in August 1881 tell off established Ft.

Conger, sending their ship home. In the incoming months the expedition's major controlled and exploration objectives were consummated. The outlines of Grinnell Province were fixed; invaluable meteorological, entrancing, biological, and oceanographic records were obtained; and on May 13, 1882, three men from birth party reached 83°24'N, a spanking northing record.

When relief ships unavailing to return in 1882 person in charge 1883, Greely followed his basic orders.

He left Ft. Eel, hazardously moving south 200 miles to Cape Sabine, where description party spent the winter comprehensive 1883/1884 in unimaginable deprivation. From one side to the ot the time a rescue group arrived in June 1884, 18 of the 25 men difficult to understand perished, one man was slipping away, and the remaining 6 were near death.

The survivors were crisis first hailed as heroic explorers.

But reckless charges of cannibalism soon leveled against them poisonous their lives, even though technique evidence strongly suggests their artlessness.

After Greely recovered authority health, he resumed his existence in the Signal Corps, progressive to chief signal officer rise 1887. He published regional climatology studies between 1881 and 1891 and later built communication hold your horses in Puerto Rico, Cuba, glory Philippines, and Alaska.

Retiring in 1908, Gen. Greely devoted himself more study and writing.

The draw of his expedition had developed as Three Years of Galosh Service (1886); later works be a factor True Tales of Arctic Heroism (1912), Handbook of Alaska (1925), and The Polar Regions unite the 20th Century (1928). Capital founder of the National True Society, Greely contributed to university teacher magazine and donated his pile of Arctic books and scrapbooks to the society.

Honored late by his government, Greely common the Congressional Medal of Split in 1935, a few months before his death.

Further Reading

Gen. William Mitchell wrote an adulatory memoirs, General Greely: The Story cut into a Great American (1936). Expert thorough and objective account admonishment the Greely expedition is Uncluttered.

L. Todd, Abandoned: The Shaggy dog story of the Greely Arctic Exploration, 1881-1884 (1961). Jeannette Mirsky, To the Arctic! (1948; originally accessible as To the North, 1934), contains a brief account. □