Free Sea of Glory by Nathaniel Philbrick

create a series of interlocking triangles with sides of between a half-mile and three miles in length. Their positions would be established by chronometer and later confirmed by the celestial observations of Professor William Bond at Harvard. The small open boats would be used to measure soundings on shoals that, in some cases, were only a few feet below the water’s surface.
    It took longer than he had expected, but Wilkes was able to complete the survey in two months. Sometimes deploying all eleven whaleboats at one time, he insisted that his officers and men meticulously survey even the roughest portions of the bank. No one would improve on Wilkes’s work at Georges Bank until well into the twentieth century.
    In September, he and his officers returned to the Boston Navy Yard to finish the necessary calculations and to work on the chart. Word of Wilkes’s survey quickly reached the acknowledged master of American navigation, Nathaniel Bowditch. As a young sailor, Bowditch had taught himself enough mathematics and astronomy to uncover more than eight thousand errors in the leading navigational guide of his day. In 1802 he came out with his own guide, The New American Practical Navigator, immediately recognized as the most accurate and comprehensive text on celestial navigation ever published. At sixty-four, he was revered in maritime circles as the paramount navigator in the world.
    Wilkes was invited to Bowditch’s home in Boston, and once in the presence of his idol, the normally self-assured naval officer found himself “greatly abashed.” The two men went for a walk, and Bowditch questioned Wilkes about the survey. Placing his cane in the lieutenant’s hand, Bowditch asked Wilkes to draw a diagram in the dirt. “Oh, I see, I see,” he replied, nodding his head. “That will do.”
    Several days later, Bowditch and a friend appeared unannounced at the navy yard to inspect Wilkes’s chart. Wilkes would later remember what followed as “one of the most gratifying incidents of my life”: “The large and rough chart was spread out on the table with each and every station occupied. He took out from his vest pocket a hand full of small change, five & ten cent pieces, and put them on each station on the chart; these were numerous. Then he explained the whole process [to his friend]. . . . [A]fter fully examining all our work which was recorded in a large volume . . . , he passed a very complimentary speech as to the satisfaction he had derived from the whole.” Bowditch subsequently contacted several important government officials about Wilkes’s skill as a surveyor. “To him I think I owe, in part,” Wilkes later wrote, “my appointment to the Command of the Ex. Ex.”
     
    In the months after completing the survey of Georges Bank, some of Wilkes’s staunchest advocates proved to be the passed midshipmen who had served under him. Instead of ruling over his officers in a manner that inspired fear and trembling, Wilkes had acted as if he were one of them. He had accompanied them in the whaleboats and had taken the lead when confronting the worst portions of the Bank. A commander usually dined alone in his cabin; Wilkes chose to mess with his officers in the wardroom. This appears to have fostered a remarkable sense of loyalty and enthusiasm, and most of Wilkes’s passed midshipmen would follow him to his next assignment—a survey of the waters in the vicinity of Savannah, Georgia.
    There was one young sailor, however, who chose not to make the voyage south. Charles Erskine, sixteen, had served as Wilkes’s cabin boy. One of five children, whose father had abandoned the family when he was still an infant, Charlie was strikingly handsome, with bright blue eyes and an infectious smile. Late in life, Wilkes would remember him as “one of the most beautiful boys I ever beheld. . . . [T]hough lowly bred, he had a certain refinement of manner and look that drew all hearts towards him.” Wilkes took such a keen