After the war, Greely accepted a second lieutenant's commission in the regular army. In 1881, he was appointed to command the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition, a 25-man expedition organized to carry out Arctic explorations. The expedition ran short of food and several resupply and rescue missions were unsuccessful, and by the time Greely and his men were rescued in 1884, there were only six survivors.
In March 1887, Greely was serving as a captain when President Grover Cleveland appointed him as the Army's Chief Signal Officer with the rank of brigadier general. As Signal chief, he was responsible for creating and maintaining the worldwide communications networks required during and after the Spanish–American War and during the Philippine–American War. Greely was promoted to major general in February 1906. In April 1906, he was assigned to command relief efforts following the San Francisco earthquake. Greely left the Army in 1908 after reaching the mandatory retirement age of 64.
In retirement, Greely authored numerous magazine articles and books on his Arctic experiences. In March 1935, he was awarded the Medal of Honor in recognition of "his life of splendid public service." Greely died in Washington, D.C., on October 20, 1935. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
On 18 March 1863, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the 81st United States Colored Infantry.[1] He was promoted to first lieutenant on 26 April 1864 and to captain on 4 April 1865.[1] After the war he received a brevet promotion to major in recognition of his meritorious service.[1] He was mustered out of the Volunteer Army on 22 March 1867.[1]
During his Civil War service, Greely took part in several battles, including Ball's Bluff, Antietam, and Fredericksburg.[2] From 1865 to 1867, Greely took part in the post-war occupation of New Orleans.[2]
Continued career
He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the 36th Infantry Regiment of the Regular Army on 7 March 1867 and was reassigned to the 5th Cavalry Regiment on 14 July 1869 after the 36th Infantry was disbanded.[1] Greely was detailed for service with the Signal Corps from 1871 to 1880, and he was promoted to first lieutenant on 27 May 1873.[1][3]
Steamer Proteus in Arctic 1881The Explorers of Lady Franklin Bay prior to departure in 1881. Photograph by Moses Rice.
In 1881, First Lieutenant Greely was named to command the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition.[1] Promoted by Henry W. Howgate, its purpose was to establish one of a chain of meteorological-observation stations as part of the First International Polar Year.[4] The expedition also was commissioned by the US government to collect astronomical and polar magnetic data, which was carried out by the astronomer Edward Israel, who was part of Greely's crew.[5] Another goal of the expedition was to search for any clues of USS Jeannette, lost in the Arctic two years earlier.[6]
The expedition sailed on the steamship SS Proteus.[1] Greely was without previous Arctic experience, but he and his party succeeded in discovering and exploring much of the coast of northwest Greenland.[1] The expedition also crossed Ellesmere Island from east to west, and James B. Lockwood and David Legge Brainard achieved a new "farthest north" record of 83° 23' 8" on Lockwood Island.[7] In 1882, Greely sighted a mountain range during a dog sledding exploration to the interior of northern Ellesmere Island and named it the Conger Range.[8] He also sighted the Innuitian Mountains from Lake Hazen.[9]
Greely's party ran into difficulty when two supply parties failed to reach Greely's encampment at Fort Conger on Ellesmere Island in 1882 and 1883.[1] In accordance with his instructions, Greely decided in August 1883 to abandon Fort Conger and travel south.[10] His team reached Cape Sabine expecting to find food and equipment left by the supply ships, but these had not been provided.[1] With winter setting in Greely and his men were forced to remain at Cape Sabine with inadequate rations and little fuel.[11]
The six survivors of the U.S. Army's Greely Arctic expedition with their U.S. Navy rescuers, at Upernavik, Greenland, 2–3 July 1884. Probably photographed on board the USS Thetis. (22: Adolphus Greely, 23: Julius Frederick, 24: David L. Brainard, 25: Henry Bierderbick, 26: Maurice Connell, 27: Francis Long
A rescue expedition, led by Capt. Winfield Scott Schley on USRC Bear (a former whaler built in Greenock, Scotland), was sent to rescue the Greely party.[1] By the time Bear and the ships Thetis and Alert arrived on June 22, 1884, 18 of Greely's 25 men had perished from starvation, drowning, hypothermia, and, in one case, a gunshot from the execution of a soldier ordered by Greely as punishment for repeatedly stealing food.[12][13]
Greely and the other survivors were near death; one died on the homeward journey.[14] They were venerated as heroes, though the heroism was temporarily tainted by sensational accusations of cannibalism, which Greely denied.[15][16] An exhibition on the Greely expedition was part of the Columbian Exposition in 1893 and was captured on stereoscopic images.[17]
Later career
Greely receives the Medal of Honor from Secretary of War George Dern (1935)
In June 1886, Greely was promoted to captain.[2] In March 1887, President Grover Cleveland appointed him as Chief Signal Officer of the U.S. Army with the rank of brigadier general.[2] During his tenure as Chief Signal Officer of the Army, he oversaw construction, operation, and maintenance of numerous telegraph lines during and after the Spanish–American War, including: Puerto Rico, 800 miles (1,300 kilometers); Cuba, 3,000 mi (4,800 km); and the Philippines, 10,200 mi (16,400 km).[18] Greely also oversaw construction under adverse conditions a telegraph system for Alaska consisting of nearly 4,000 mi (6,400 km) of submarine cables, land cables and 107 mi (172 km) of wireless telegraphy, which at the time was the longest regularly working commercial system in the world.[18]
Greely's innovations as Chief Signal Officer led to the Army's fielding of wireless telegraphy, airplanes, motorized automobiles and trucks, and other modern equipment.[2] He represented the United States at the 1903 International Telegraph Congress in London and the 1903 International Wireless Telegraph Congress in Berlin.[2] As an expert on the telegraph, Greely worked on some of the first international telecommunication treaties.[2]
On February 10, 1906, he was promoted to major general and assigned to command the Pacific Division.[2] In 1906, he commanded the relief effort that followed the San Francisco earthquake.[2] As commander of the Northern Division, Greely was responsible for negotiating an end to the 1905-1906 Ute Rebellion.[2] Greely commanded the Department of the Columbia in 1907.[2] His terminal assignment was commander of the Department of Dakota in late 1907 and early 1908.[19] In 1908, Greely reached the mandatory retirement age of 64.[2]
Greely received the Medal of Honor in 1935: "For his life of splendid public service, begun on March 27, 1844, having enlisted as a private in the U.S. Army on July 26, 1861, and by successive promotions was commissioned as major general February 10, 1906, and retired by operation of law on his 64th birthday."[37]
Greely was the second person (after Frederick W. Gerber) to receive the award for lifetime achievement rather than for acts of physical courage at the risk of one's own life.[38]
During the Civil War, Greely was wounded twice, once at the Battle of Glendale, and once at the Battle of Antietam.[19] When the Purple Heart was created in 1932, Greely received the medal with an oak leaf cluster in recognition of his wounds.[19]
^Lotz, J. 2009. Canada's Forgotten Arctic Hero: George Rice and the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition, 1881–1884. Breton Books, Wreck Cove, Nova Scotia. ISBN1-895415-94-2
^Schley, Winfield S Commander, US Navy [1887] 1884 Greely Relief Expedition Washington Printing Office (via American Libraries)
^'England's Present to America; The Steam-Ship Alert for the Greely Search Expedition' 4/23/1884 New York Times. (via NYT Archives)
^Shattuck, George B., ed. (August 21, 1884). "Anthropophagy". The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. Boston, MA: Houghton, Mifflin and Company. pp. 185–187 – via Google Books.
^"Fort Greely". Alaska-Highway.org. Delta Junction, AK: Delta Junction: Official End of the Alaska Highway. Retrieved August 22, 2021.
^ ab"Fort Abercrombie". Crusty Old Joe's Kodiak Alaska Military History. Kodiak, AK: Kodiak Military History Museum. May 16, 2014. Retrieved August 22, 2021.
^Denniston, Eliza Olver (October 1915). "Ready Reference D.A.R. Chronology". Daughters of the American Revolution Magazine. Washington, DC: Daughters of the American Revolution. p. 235 – via Google Books.