Autobiography of Rear Admiral Charles Wilkes, U.S. Navy 1798-1877 (review)

Abstract

BOOK REVIEWS187 who were temperamentally disenchanted with conventional Unitarianism but unable because of their theological liberalism to join the evangelical mainstream. Unfortunately, however, this thesis is not pursued very deeply into the thought and consciousness of the principals. There is an account of the moderate antislavery persuasion of William Ellery Channing which has similar limitations. We fail to learn enough about Channing's broader world view to make his "philosophical " brand of antislavery fully comprehensible. In general, therefore, the book provides an adequate description of "patterns" of Unitarian antislavery but offers only a few glimpses into the intellectual, social, or psychological sources of the range ofattitudes and convictions surveyed. The study makes little contribution to the major effort historians are now making to reinterpret the antislavery movement in terms of a more sophisticated understanding of midVictorian religion and culture. The bibliography contains no titles published since 1970, and hence Stange is unable to draw on the new and highly relevant insights of such historians as Lewis Perry and Ronald Walters. If the work makes a useful contribution, therefore, it is more to the history of Unitarianism than to that of antislavery. George M. Fredrickson Northwestern University Autobiography of Rear Admiral Charles Wilkes, U.S. Navy 1798-1877. Introduction by Rear Admiral John D. H. Kane, Jr., USN (Ret.) Edited by William James Morgan, etal. (Washington: Department of the Navy, 1978. Pp. xxii, 944. $13.50.) This is an exasperating yet fascinating work because it is the autobiography of an exasperating but fascinating man, Admiral Charles Wilkes. Gideon Welles, Lincoln's Secretary of the Navy, has perhaps best described Wilkes as a "trouble-some man of a good deal of ability, of great leisure, and who is not delicate as regards means." Characteristically, Wilkes described his superior, the Secretary of the Navy, "as truly ignorant and unfit to do the duties incumbent on him to perform . . ." Of course, he would have had a different opinion of Welles had he written of him when the Secretary promoted Wilkes from Captain to Commodore and then acting Rear Admiral commanding the West Indies Squadron, all within a time span of forty days, a spectacular recognition of his abilities. Although the Autobiography was compiled years after the persons or events described, it is presented as if it were a diary or journal and written in the present tense. Thus, it is an exasperating work for anyone who may wish to use it as a primary source, or even a reasonably reliable account of the man's life and times. The reader of Wilkes' memoirs must be constantly on guard, must always remind himself that these are the 188CIVIL WAR HISTORY recollections of an old man, and a very opininated, arrogant old man at that. He will then, one hopes, excuse the errors, the misconceptions, the distortions of fact, and find much that is interesting, insightful, and incisive in some 925 pages of text. Wilkes' two trips to the ante-bellum South, for instance, describe in colorful detail life in a slave society. Again, his strictures on the North Carolinians, whom he finds grasping, illiterate and unpleasant on the whole, should be taken with a grain of salt. He had business reverses in North Carolina which typically colored his narrative. But his eye for the physical setting of the ante-bellum South, this reviewer found both compelling and persuasive. His description of his career in the "Old Navy," a career that went back to 1818, is written with a dramatic flair. His discussion of the three year exploring expedition in the Antarctic, the mid-Pacific, and the Pacific North West is properly brief because he had already published his account in six volumes. In fact the reader who wants a balanced treatment in depth of the Wilkes' expedition, should consult David Tyler's The Wilkes Expedition or William Stanton's The Great United States Exploring Expedition, not the Admiral's Autobiography. There is no doubt that Wilkes was a talented individual. As a meteorologist, as a student of winds and tides, he had no equal in the nation at the time. He was also an exceptionally fine shiphandler, perhaps the best in a Navy, whose officers...