Sunday Washington globe., 1902-04-20

the vessels of the American navy, they have
been few and insignificant compared with
those that have befallen our British cousins,
who in the past half. dozen years have lost
more than a score of their best ships and
with them have gone down hundreds of
brave men composing the officers, crew and
troops in transit. All the wrecks, however,
have simply demonstrated the fact that
human skill is well nigh powerless when it
undertakes to defeat the elements of nature.
On August 7I, I843, the steam frigate
Missouri was burned at Gibraltar. 1t is
supposed that her loss was due to the break
ing of a demijohn of turpentine in the engi
neer's storeroom. When the fire reached
the magazine 1t blew up the vessel.
The enormous loss of life attending the
disaster to the Maine has been exceeded but
once in the history of the navy. The thirty
six-gun frigate Insurgent, which had been
captured from the French, sailed in August,
1900, with a crew of $40 officers and men
with orders to cruise between 65 degrees
and 68 degrees west longitude and to run as
far south as 80 north latitude She was
never heard from after leaving port. II is
supposed she foundered in one of the Sep
tember gales
The first of our men -of.war to meet dis
aster at the hands of Old Neptune was the
brig Reprisal, celebrated as having been the
first United States warship to visit Europe
carrying Benjamin Franklin soon after the
Declaration of Independence. In I77S she
foundered on the Newfoundland banks and
every one of the 1870 souls pershed.
One Of the most noted and singular dis
asters in the annals Of the American navy
was that which befell the sloop of war
Saginaw in 1870. She was a small vessel
and carried about seventy-fve officers and
men. Midway in the vast expanse OF the
Pacific Ocean the vessel was wrecked upon
a mountain peak. This peak, rising thou
sands of feet above the water, is known as
Ocean Island, one of the Midway group.
On this the voyagers were thrown and
thought themselves fortunate to get ashore
without the loss of a life. Captain (now
rear admiral) Sicard, who commanded the
Saginaw, knew that the nearest inhabited
land was the Sandwich Islands, nearly 400
miles away. He also knew, as dir every
one else that unless news of ~ isaster
could be sent there, and that -edily, he
and his ships company had simply ez-
changed death by drowning for the more
painful one by starvation. So all hands set
to work and with pieces of wreckage from
to render it seaworthy. In this little boat
only twenty eight feet long. Lieutenant
Talbot and Eve men started off for help
After Que of the most thrilling boat jour
neys in the whole history of the sea, oc-
cupying thirty-six days, the most westerly
island of the Sandwich group was reached.
landing was attempted through the surf,
the small boat was capsized and Talbot and
Fost IA dc HaH Ire fa nf
the fifth man not been saved the fate of the
Saginaw's ships company would have re-
NAMED one of the uusolved mysteries Of
the seas Fortunately, almost miracu-
lously, the man upon whose fate rested the
lives of scores Of others, was thrown upon
the beach alive. His named was Halford,
and although he could not swim a stroke
he had survived seven shpwrecks Hal
ford conducted rescue party back to Ocean
Island and for his services was made a
gunner, which Office he now holds. The
boat in which this most famous voyage was
made is preserved at Annapolis
Another most peculiar disaster was that
which overlook the wooden corvette Monon-
gahelia at Santa Cruz in 1861 While she
lay at anchor in the harbor tremendous
earthquake shook the island and was fol
lowed by tidal wave. 1t is estimated that
the wave was sixty feet high II picked
the vessel up and carried her over the town
of Frederickstad and then back again. The
ship knocked down a building and finally
landed about ffty feet from the beach, high
and dry. Strange to say, lives were
lost somewhat similar accident befeu
the sloOp of war Wateree in the next year
at Africa, Peru. A tidal wave. one of the
greatest on record caught up the vessel,
carried it through the main street of the
town and landed it several miles inland in
a tropical forest, where it ended its days as
a hotel The same wave capsized the store
ship Fredonia, anchored in the harbor, and
drowned all hands.
But, saddest of all, the fate of many of
our noble ships and their priceless freight
of human life will remain a mystery until
the sea gives up its dead. Sailed and
never afterward heard from, " is the sad
conclusion in many cases. On October @
1880 the sloop of war Saratoga of eighteen
guns and a crew Of I7o, captured four
British merchantmen, which were retaken
the next day by the British frigate Intrepid.
The Saratoga sailed awav, was sw llowed
up in the mists of that gray October
evening and no mortal eye has since beheld
her.
The revenue cutter pickering, brig rigged,
Of fourteen guns, sailed from the United
States in August, 1900 for the Gauadaloupe
station Her fate remains TO this day one
of the unsolved mysteries of the seas. Gun
boat No. z, with two guns and a crew Of
thirty, sailed from New York in the early
part of 1906 for the Mediterranean. She
sprung her mast, returned TO New York to
reht sailed away June 80 and was never
afterward heard of. In 1910 another gun
boat was lost with all on board. The next
year gunboat No. went to the bottom in
violent gale and only two Of her crew Of
thirty were saved. The next year another
gunSoat was wrecked off Newport, r. T.,
and the commander and nine Of his crew
we're lost. In 1873 guuboat No. Ga, after
being condemned, was ordered to sea- She
encountered a severe gale and took her en-
tire crew to the bottom with her. The
Hamilton, of nine guns, and the Scourge,
Of ten guns, capsized in a squan on Lake