Source

• Born: 27 March 1844
• Birthplace: Newburyport, Massachusetts
• Died: 20 October 1935
• Best Known As: U.S. Army Arctic explorer

Adolphus Washington Greely was the first volunteer private in the United States Army to rise to the rank of Major General, and the leader of an Arctic expedition (1881-84) that was tragic but successful. After serving in the Civil War and operating as a communications expert in various wilderness expeditions, Greely was named head of the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition. Although the expedition managed to get further north than any previous attempts (83 degrees 24 minutes north latitude), two years passed before the arrival of a relief expedition and 19 of 25 men died. At first Greely was criticized, but he was absolved after an investigation found that he had acted properly. Considered a scientific hero for the meteorological reports he gathered, Greely was also in charge of the construction of thousands of telegraph lines throughout the U.S. and some of its overseas possessions. He also directed the relief operation after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and was a founding member of the National Geographic Society. He died in 1935, less than a year after being awarded the U.S. Congressional Medal of Honor.

Greely, Adolphus Washington (1844-1935) army officer and Arctic explorer, born in Newburyport, Massachusetts. Greely fought briefly in the Civil War but spent most of his army career with the U.S. Signal Corps, which he joined in 1869. In 1881 he led an ill-fated expedition to Greenland; resupply ships never arrived, and most of the party died before a naval rescue operation found the survivors (1884). Greely's leadership and judgment were subsequently called into question. During his tenure as chief officer (1887-1906), the Signal Corps expanded its weather forecasting service, laid undersea cables during the Spanish-American War (1898), and established the Alaskan telegraph, cable, and wireless system. Greely was a founding member of the National Geographic Society and a recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor (1935).

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

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

Born in Newburyport, Mass., on March 24, 1844, Adolphus Greely enlisted in the Civil War in 1861, serving valorously. Afterward he joined the U.S. Army Signal Corps, and he directed the erection of military telegraph lines from Texas to California and from the Dakotas to Washington Territory.

A serious student of meteorology, and influenced by a fellow officer's promotion of polar exploration, Greely devoured the literature of the Arctic and determined to lead an expedition there. When Congress, in 1881, authorized American participation in the International Polar Year project to establish numerous circumpolar observation stations, Greely, by virtue of his experience, scientific background, and interest, was chosen to command the U.S. mission.

Greely's party of 25 landed in northern Grinnell Land in August 1881 and established Ft. Conger, sending their ship home. In the next months the expedition's major scientific and exploration objectives were achieved. The outlines of Grinnell Land were fixed; invaluable meteorological, magnetic, biological, and oceanographic records were obtained; and on May 13, 1882, three men from the party reached 83°24'N, a new northing record.

When relief ships failed to return in 1882 and 1883, Greely followed his original orders. He left Ft. Conger, hazardously moving south 200 miles to Cape Sabine, where the party spent the winter of 1883/1884 in unimaginable deprivation. By the time a rescue squadron arrived in June 1884, 18 of the 25 men had perished, one man was dying, and the remaining 6 were near death.

The survivors were at first hailed as heroic explorers. But reckless charges of cannibalism soon leveled against them tainted their lives, even though all evidence strongly suggests their innocence. After Greely recovered his health, he resumed his career in the Signal Corps, advancing to chief signal officer in 1887. He published regional climatology studies between 1881 and 1891 and later built communication lines in Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Philippines, and Alaska.

Retiring in 1908, Gen. Greely devoted himself to study and writing. The story of his expedition had appeared as Three Years of Arctic Service (1886); later works included True Tales of Arctic Heroism (1912), Handbook of Alaska (1925), and The Polar Regions in the 20th Century (1928). A founder of the National Geographic Society, Greely contributed to its magazine and donated his collection of Arctic books and scrapbooks to the society. Honored belatedly by his government, Greely received the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1935, a few months before his death.

Further Reading

Gen. William Mitchell wrote an adulatory biography, General Greely: The Story of a Great American (1936). A thorough and objective account of the Greely expedition is A. L. Todd, Abandoned: The Story of the Greely Arctic Expedition, 1881-1884 (1961). Jeannette Mirsky, To the Arctic! (1948; originally published as To the North, 1934), contains a brief account.

1844–1935, American army officer and arctic explorer, b. Newburyport, Mass. Entering the Union army at 17, he emerged a brevet major of volunteers at the end of the Civil War. In 1881, as a lieutenant in the regular army, Greely was given command of the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition to establish one of a chain of international circumpolar meteorological stations. Although he was without previous arctic experience, he and his party performed notable feats of exploration; many hitherto unknown miles along the coast of NW Greenland were added to the map, Ellesmere Island was crossed from east to west, and Lt. James B. Lockwood achieved a new northern record of 83°24′. Relief ships failed to reach Greely's party encamped at Cape Sabine; when the third relief vessel arrived in 1884, all but Greely and six others had perished from starvation, drowning, or exposure. The survivors themselves were near death, and one died on the homeward journey. Greely's account of his tragic polar expedition is Three Years of Arctic Service (1886); another record is the diary of David L. Brainard, published as Six Came Back (ed. by B. R. James, 1940). The Congressional Medal of Honor was awarded him in 1935. His writings include Handbook of Alaska (rev. ed. 1925) and The Polar Regions in the Twentieth Century (1928).

Bibliography

See his autobiographical Reminiscences of Adventure and Service (1927); biography by W. Mitchell (1936).