Ordered to California by Sea round Cape Horn! Is not this enough to rouse the most placid?
June 30th 1846 Letter
Wrote a young Sherman who was summoned as an army officer to travel to California recently claimed by the United Sates following their war with Mexico. Even before the discovery of gold the value of the land and its strategic location on the Pacific was appreciated if not coveted. John Fremont and other 19th century fortune seekers had written copiously about its bounty. Sherman was assigned to assist in a ‘peaceful possession’ of of Monterey through the Sierras. In one of his first letters he instructs his sister:
You have Fremont’s map on the parlor table. Look at the map and you will see Monterey and San Francisco with the back country. It is in that region I believe we will be for some time…
Letter to Elizabeth Sherman, 1846
At that time there were two ways to cross the landmass we now call the United States. One could travel overland by foot or beast which beyond the Mississippi was fraught with dangers, mainly from Indians protecting their homelands. Or by sea, which took much longer since it was necessary to travel around the tip of South America and present day Chile. The voyage included crossing the equator line twice, a stay in the ports of Rio de Janeiro and Valparaiso and tumultuous passage around the tip of Cape Horn, where waters of the Atlantic and Pacific furiously intermingled. What Sherman understates succinctly almost laconically in his Memoirs, most likely an editor’s call, he humorously expounds in great detail in letters to his family.
The seas of water known as oceans are the “high road that leads from Africa and Asia to the United States” wrote Sherman. On July 17 he along with close to 100 crew, army personnel and some passengers sailed from the port of New York on the USS Lexington, a sloop of war, converted into a cargo ship, which still carried six guns for defense on the spar/or upper deck. Sherman writes that it was well stocked with food, ammunition and other supplies that would be needed on their arrival to California. He appreciated that logistics for the voyage were well planned; “by foresight, the greatest of evils may be avoided”. But he also surmises that
“the certainty of the vast journey bids me be prepared”.
Letter 1846
Copious and amusing descriptions of the ship and voyage abound: The upper deck included a strong floor and was surrounded by bulwarks ‘about breast high’. “Our cargo is very heavy as we carry out so may guns for California service, and the magazine of the ship could not contain half our powder which amounts to about eight hundred barrels”. A coop full of chickens and a few dozen pigs were also in transport perhaps some to be used for upcoming meals. The berth/lower deck included the sleeping quarters. He concludes: “We have many books of all kinds but our voyage will be so long that we will be forced to read even the tables in Bowditch”, a 19th century handbook of navigation by Nathanial Bowditch.
Indeed the first part of the voyage seems like a cruise on a luxury liner. Soldiers and officers including young Sherman bound for California watched while sailors nimbly coiled ropes and rigged sails. Sherman notes however, that all of the men, himself included were assigned tasks and were required to assist in the event of storms. There were four women, wives of the officers and finally two children: “ to whom the sailors are fast teaching them all the oaths in their calendars”. I take that to mean expanding their vocabulary in ways that their mothers blushed, lamented and reprimanded. Or all three. After 57 mostly pleasant sunny days days, USS Lexington crossed the line (the equator) and made port at Rio de Janeiro for close to two weeks giving Sherman and his companions time to explore the colonial city and its surrounding mountainsides.
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