Ghosts of Cape Sabine: The Harrowing True Story of the Greely Expedition [Hardcover]

Leonard F. Guttridge (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 7, 2000

An extraordinary, true Arctic drama of man against nature--and man against man.

Twenty-five men went north. Only six returned alive.

In July 1881, an expedition comprised mainly of American soldiers sailed off to establish a scientific base in the remote Arctic region of Lady Franklin Bay. What happened then is a remarkable three-year saga of human achievement and human fallibility, of heroism, hardship, bad luck and worse judgment. Compounded by deliberate political negligence back home, particularly on the part of Secretary of War Robert Todd Lincoln, son of the late president, and increasingly fierce dissension in its own camp, the expedition's fate, and those of its would-be rescuers, would eventually encompass starvation, mutiny, suicide, shipwreck, execution . . . and cannibalism.

Until now, the story has been only partly known and full of dark riddles, but more than seven years of research by acclaimed historian Leonard Guttridge have uncovered journals, letters, diaries, and other documentary material that for the first time provide intimate day-by-day details of the swirling thoughts, feelings, and events of that ill-fated voyage--from turbulent birth to bizarre and tragic finale. The result is a work of nonfiction narrative that reads like a novel--a raw, vivid, harrowing adventure, brilliantly told.

Illustrated with maps and 16 pages of black-and-white photographs Bibliography Notes Index

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In May 1884, huddled in a tent on the northwest coast of Greenland, Private Roderick R. Schneider looked around at his companions and wrote in his journal: "It is horrible to see eighteen men dying by inches." One month later, Schneider was dead, a victim of starvation. Schneider was one of 24 men sent to establish a scientific base in Lady Franklin Bay in 1881. A combination of poor planning, bad weather, weak leadership, and a lack of support from the government that had sent them north caused all but six men to perish. Historian Leonard F. Guttridge tells the story of the ill-fated Greely expedition in Ghosts of Cape Sabine.

The expedition got off to a rocky start, underprovisioned and manned with soldiers who had never been to the Arctic. Still, once established at Lady Franklin Bay, the team performed its scientific studies and even made a foray north, breaking the British record. Personality conflicts between Lieutenant Adolphus Greely and several of his men were intensified by the fact that the ships supposed to resupply and, after two years, relieve them, never came. Dangerously low on food and supplies, the party was forced to attempt to retreat on its own. After weeks of travel, much of it spent drifting on the ice pack in Kane Basin, the party arrived at Cape Sabine and made camp. As the weeks passed and the food ran out, the men subsisted on leather from their boots, miniscule shrimp, bits of moss scraped from the rocks, and--as the days grew longer and the party grew smaller--the bodies of their fallen comrades. "In the wan light of an unsetting sun during those early Arctic summer weeks, one or more of the desperate men at Cape Sabine had been up on the ridge of the dead, busy with scalpel or hunting knife."

Guttridge utilized journals, reports, and personal correspondence to create an almost day-to-day account of the expedition, and he excels at bringing to life those desperate months waiting for rescue ships that came too late for most of the Greely expedition. Juicy details and a mastery of the subject make Ghosts of Cape Sabine read like a suspenseful novel. --Sunny Delaney

From Publishers Weekly

Mutiny, shipwreck, a new farthest north, bureaucratic ineptitude, cannibalism. A story that features all these elements promises more than enough excitement, but Guttridge (Icebound, etc.) doesn't corral all the pieces of his story into a coherent narrative until the end, when the stark and tragic facts take on their own momentum. The Greely Expedition set out in 1881 to conduct scientific observations at Lady Franklin Bay, a remote spot on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic. Under the command of U.S. Army Lieut. Adolphus Greely, the expedition was part of a multinational research effort in which several countries were making scientific observations. But funds were hard to obtain for the expedition and, more importantly, for the relief parties that were sent out the following year to cache supplies in the event the Greely party had to retreat southward. The events themselves are gripping, and Guttridge shows how Greely's men steadily lost faith in their commander. Greely's most dependable sergeant wrote in his journal: "Why does the United States government persist in sending a fool in command of an Arctic expedition?" But Guttridge delves too deeply into the details of bureaucratic infighting and provisioning and fails to successfully evoke the rigors and beauties of the Arctic climate. He relies heavily on the words that the officers and men wrote in their journals, which give readers a sense of the inexorable breakdown of discipline and morale in the face of poor leadership, but don't offer any lingering sense of the men who wrote them or of the conditions to which they ultimately succumbed.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 354 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult; 1ST edition (February 7, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399145893
• ISBN-13: 978-0399145896
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #588,788 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Detailed Account Of A Forgotten Tragedy, January 13, 2000

By 

Peter Savage "seriously" (Near Portland, ME USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ghosts of Cape Sabine: The Harrowing True Story of the Greely Expedition (Hardcover)

I admit I am hooked on anything to do with the Canadian Arctic, but this book is the best I've read in several months. A tale of exploration, coupled with an unfolding tragedy caused by bureaucratic bungling in Washington and military incompetence on a grand scale. It's everything the book blurb says, it's a Hollywood movie that should be made, and you shouldn't hesitate to buy it.

39 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hurrah! for a book on the Lady Jane Franklin Bay expedition, February 7, 2000

By 

Susan R. Matthews (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Ghosts of Cape Sabine: The Harrowing True Story of the Greely Expedition (Hardcover)

If you're interested in the adventure literature of polar exploration you may already have noted that though intriguing references to the Lady Jane Franklin Bay expedition keep cropping up, nothing seems to be available in the literature to explain what it was -- how it came about -- what happened, and how the story survived to be told. Existing references were out of print or otherwise unavailable . . . until now!

The Ghosts of Cape Sabine tells the complete story of the Greely expedition to Lady Jane Franklin Bay. The ghastly mismanagement of the relief and rescue expeditions must be read to be believed, but it is all true. Guttridge's research uses previously unconsulted archival information to present a deeply affecting picture of the emotions and aspirations of the men of the expedition. Of particular interest to me was his exploration of the ways in which Greely's own perhaps over-careful instructions for relief and reprovisioning can be said to have contributed to the disaster that befell the expedition.

Under conditions of appalling stress and privation Greely's leadership was tested more severely than it had been even under fire, and it can be said that it was found wanting to an extent. Not every man can be a Shackleton. And still he brought every man in his command alive to Cape Sabine, and could have brought them all back home again -- if only, if only.

Guttridge is a fair and sympathetic historian who declines to either idolize or demonize, treating the personalities involved with compassion and respect. This book is an invaluable contribution to the literature of polar exploration. He writes well and with persuasive conviction, and does an altogether too effective job of communicating the horrors of Cape Sabine without stooping to sensationalism.

My thanks to Leonard Guttridge for making this story available one again -- and now I have to go look up his story about the Jeanette!

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally the truth about the Greely Expedition, February 24, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Ghosts of Cape Sabine: The Harrowing True Story of the Greely Expedition (Hardcover)

Len Guttridge's extensive research has uncovered the true story of what happened to the ill-fated Greely expedition. For the first time, we are given new details of this horrendous part of our history. In the past, things that have been written about this expedition have been almost entirely from Greely's official records. The excerpts from new unpublished diaries and papers in Guttridge's book give us new insights about other members of the expedition and their hostility towards Greely. We see Lieutenant Greely's decisions on the retreat south as pure madness. As Mr. Guttridge concluded, Mr. Greely was no match for the arctic. Washington politics concerning the rescue of these poor souls was equally disheartening. Guttridge has subtly exposed a desperate plot by a chosen few to stay alive. Interesting that the two cooks, Greely and Brainard are among those who managed to survive. The horror of the fate of those not so lucky makes this book a real page turner. It would make a fabulous movie.