Transcriber's Note:
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THE LAST CRUISE OF
THE SAGINAW
THE LAST CRUISE OF
THE SAGINAW
BY
GEORGE H. READ
PAY INSPECTOR, U.S.N. (RETIRED)
With Illustrations from Sketches by Lieutenant
Commander (afterwards Rear-Admiral)
Sicard and from Contemporary
Photographs
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
1912
COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY GEORGE H. READ
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published February 1912
ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY COPIES OF
THIS FIRST EDITION PRINTED AND
BOUND UNCUT WITH PAPER LABEL
THIS BOOK
IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF THE NOBLE
MEN WHO LOST THEIR LIVES IN THE
EFFORT TO OBTAIN RELIEF FOR
THEIR SHIPWRECKED
COMRADES
PREFACE
Dear Mr. Read:—
I am greatly obliged to you for letting me read your deeplyinteresting account of the wreck of the poor Saginaw and the loss ofLieutenant Talbot. With General Cutter's approval I shall take themanuscript with me to Boston, but I will return it carefully.
I leave the two photographs, but I have the curious drawing andnewspaper 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 friend who in hislifetime stood so high [viii]in the literary world, has, together with thesuggestions of other friends and shipmates, decided me to launch mynarrative of the cruise and wreck of the Saginaw on the sea ofpublicity.
The story itself may be lost in the immense current of literatureconstantly pouring forth, but some good friends advise me to thecontrary.
The fact that stories of sea life and adventure have ever possessedthe power to attract the interest and stir the imagination, adds tothe courage given me to set forth my plain unadorned story without anypretensions to literary excellence.
Some of the first instructions given to a newly fledged naval officerenjoin upon him the necessity for brevity and directness in hisofficial communications, both ora