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Charles Wilkes

1798–1877 · 79 years Specialist

A junior lieutenant who charted a continent nobody believed existed

Portrait of Charles Wilkes — Unknown author — 1877 — Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Charles Wilkes was three when his mother, Mary Seton Wilkes, died in 1802, and the aunt who took him in and tutored him at home was Elizabeth Ann Seton, later canonized as the first American-born Catholic saint. His father, a New York merchant, objected when the boy chose the navy anyway, and Wilkes entered as a midshipman on January 1, 1818, contentious from the start — a man biographers describe as unable to tolerate opposition or criticism from anyone above or below him. He spent the 1820s at sea and, in 1830, was put in charge of the Navy's small Depot of Charts and Instruments, an unglamorous survey post that put him, eight years later, in position for the assignment that made him.

In 1838 the Navy needed someone to lead its first major scientific voyage, the United States Exploring Expedition, after the original commander quit in frustration and more senior officers turned the assignment down. It went to Wilkes, a 40-year-old lieutenant who promptly wore a captain's insignia he had not earned and kept it for four years. Six ships and roughly 350 men, including a corps of naturalists the crew nicknamed clam diggers and bug catchers, sailed nearly 87,000 miles between 1838 and 1842, losing two ships and 28 men along the way. Wilkes charted 1,500 miles of Antarctic coastline, confirming the continent's existence, mapped stretches of the Pacific Northwest and dozens of Pacific islands, and brought home some 60,000 specimens that became the founding collection of the Smithsonian Institution.

The expedition that made Wilkes famous nearly cost him his career before it paid off. He came home in 1842 to a court-martial over the loss of the Peacock and, more damagingly, over floggings ordered far past what regulations allowed; he was acquitted on the shipwreck charge but convicted on the punishment charge and publicly reprimanded. The naturalists who had sailed under him never forgave the contempt he showed them, and it took nearly two decades, until 1861, for the expedition's scientific reports to finish publishing, partly for lack of colleagues willing to help him. He married Jane Renwick in 1826; she bore him four children and died in 1848. He remarried in 1854, to Mary Lynch Bolton, and had two more children, one of whom died in infancy when Wilkes was 67.

Wilkes never fully recovered the standing the expedition should have earned him. A second court-martial in 1864, for insubordination toward a superior officer, ended with another public reprimand and a suspension Lincoln quietly cut from three years to one. He retired as a rear admiral in 1866 and died in Washington in 1877, largely written out of the credit his own reports had documented. His name outlasted his reputation: Wilkes Land in Antarctica, a chain of Pacific islands, and a run of Navy ships all carry it, and the 60,000 specimens he brought home still anchor the Smithsonian's natural history collections, decades after the man who collected them stopped getting invited back.

Lifespan

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Charles Wilkes's life against the full span of the corpus.

Notable works

United States Exploring Expedition mission
Six ships, roughly 350 men, nearly 87,000 miles logged over four years 1838
Charting of the Antarctic coastline discovery
1,500 miles surveyed, confirming Antarctica as a continent 1840
Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition book
Five-volume account of the voyage, followed by 19 more scientific volumes through 1861 1844
Seizure of Mason and Slidell other
Stopped the British mail packet Trent and removed two Confederate diplomats, nearly triggering war with Britain 1861
Smithsonian founding natural-history collection other
Roughly 60,000 expedition specimens transferred to the new institution 1858

Life in brief

with age at each point

April 3, 1798 aged 0 Born in New York City
January 1, 1818 aged 19 Enters the Navy as a midshipman
April 26, 1826 aged 28 Marries Jane Renwick
August 18, 1838 aged 40 Departs Hampton Roads with the Exploring Expedition
January 25, 1840 aged 41 Sights the Antarctic coast, confirming a continent
June 10, 1842 aged 44 Returns to New York, then faces court-martial over the voyage Acquitted of losing a ship, convicted of excessive punishment of his crew.
November 8, 1861 aged 63 Seizes two Confederate diplomats off the British ship Trent Lincoln disavowed the action to defuse a crisis with Britain.
August 6, 1866 aged 68 Retires as a rear admiral
February 8, 1877 aged 78 Dies in Washington, D.C., at 78