LIEUTENANT-COMMANDER MONTGOMERY SICARD ToList...

Dear Mr. Read:— I am greatly obliged to you for letting me read your deeply interesting account of the wreck of the poor Saginaw and the loss of Lieutenant Talbot. With General Cutter's approval I shall take the manuscript with me to Boston, but I will return it carefully. I leave the two photographs, but I have the curious drawing and newspaper scraps, which I will safely return. Very truly yours, Edward E. Hale. Dec. 21, 1880. Washington. A recent re-reading of the above old letter from a frie

During the winter of 1869-70 the United States Steamer Saginaw was being repaired at the Mare Island Navy Yard, and her officers and crew were recuperating after a cruise on the west coast of Mexico,—a trying one for all hands on board as well as for the vessel itself. The "Alta-Californian" of San Francisco published the following soon after our return from the Mexican coast. It is all that need be said of the cruise. We were all very glad to have it behind us and forget it. The Saginaw, lately

With the homeward-bound pennant flying from the mainmast head and with the contractor's working party on board, we sailed from the Midway Islands on Friday, October 29, at 4 P.M. for San Francisco. We had dragged high up on the beach the scow from which the divers had worked, secured the house doors, and taken a last look at the blinding sand with thankful hearts for leaving it. As Doctor Frank, our surgeon, and myself were walking down the beach to the last boat off to the ship, there occurred

Sunday, October 30. No pretensions to the official observance of the Sabbath were made to-day. We always had religious services on board the ship when the weather permitted on Sunday, but to-day every effort has been made to further the safety of our condition. The captain, executive officer, and many of the crew went off early to the wreck in order to make further search for supplies and equipment. The wreck appears from the island to be about as we left it, for the wind has been light and the

Friday, November 18. The weather has been fine since the breaking up of the storm of the second. As to work, every one has had his duties portioned out to him, and there is no doubt of the captain's wisdom in providing thus an antidote to homesickness or brooding. Faces are—some of them—getting "peaked," and quite a number of the party have been ill from lack of power to digest the seal meat; but there are no complaints, we all fare alike. Medicines are not to hand, but a day or two of abstinenc

Thursday, November 24. Thanksgiving Day—at home; the noble bird, roast turkey, has not graced our tarpaulin-covered table. He has been replaced by a tough section of albatross. Nor was there any expression of thanks at the mess table until one of the officers, having finished the extra cup of coffee served in honor of the day, said, "Say, fellows, let's be thankful that we are alive, well and still with hope." Last evening about nine o'clock we were given another flurry of excitement over expect

Tuesday, January 3. At midnight. It is near an impossibility sanely and calmly to write up my journal to-night—my nerves are shaken and my pencil falters. I have climbed into the storehouse to get away from the commotion in the tent and all over the camp. No one can possibly sleep, for I can see through a rent in the canvas men dancing around a huge fire on the highest point of the island, and hear them cheering and singing while feeding the fire with timbers that we have been regarding as worth

Honolulu, January 28, 1871. Perhaps some reader may deem the story of the Saginaw's last cruise complete. I cannot, however, consider it so while lacking the sorrowful story of our comrades' voyage in the gig, with its fatal ending as told by Halford, the sole survivor. Nor would it be less than ingratitude to pass unnoticed the fact of our hearty reception when we arrived here on the fourteenth, well fed and well clothed through the generous exertions of our friends. The King, his Cabinet, and

I have been asked several times how it came about that our good ship could have met her sad fate when so recently out of port, her officers knowing the existence of the dangers so near. I have confined my narrative to personal experiences and to incidents of the life under the conditions surrounding us. However, as such questions may arise in the mind of some readers and in order to enlighten them, I set down below some copies of the results from official investigations by those higher in author