text: polaris expedition the polaris expedition ( 1871 ) was led by the american charles francis hall , who intended it to be the first expedition to reach the north pole . sponsored by the united states government , it was one of the first serious attempts at the pole , after that of british naval officer william edward parry , who in 1827 reached latitude 82 ° 45 ′ north . the expedition failed at its main objective , having been troubled throughout by insubordination , incompetence , and poor leadership . under hall 's command , the polaris departed from new york city in june 1871 . by october , the men were wintering on the shore of northern greenland , making preparations for the trip to the pole . hall returned to the ship from an exploratory sledging journey , and promptly fell ill . before he died , he accused members of the crew of poisoning him . an exhumation of his body in 1968 revealed that he had ingested a large quantity of arsenic in the last two weeks of his life . the expedition 's notable achievement was reaching 82 ° latitude by ship , a record at the time . on the way southward , nineteen members of the expedition became separated from the ship and drifted on an ice floe for six months and 1 , 800 miles ( 2 , 900 km ) before being rescued . the damaged polaris was run aground and wrecked near etah , greenland , in october 1872 . the remaining men were able to survive the winter , and were rescued the following summer . a naval board of inquiry investigated hall 's death , but no charges were ever laid . preparations origins in 1827 , william edward parry led a british royal navy expedition with the aim to be the first men to reach the north pole . in the 50 years following parry 's attempt , the americans would mount three such expeditions : elisha kent kane in 1853 – 55 , isaac israel hayes in 1860 – 61 , and charles francis hall with the polaris in 1871 – 73 . hall had no special academic background or sailing experience ( he was a blacksmith , engraver , then owner of a cincinnati newspaper ) , but he was a voracious reader with an obsession for the arctic . after john franklin 's 1845 expedition was lost , hall 's focus was directed toward the arctic . he was able to launch two expeditions in search of franklin and his crew ; one in 1860 – 63 , and a second in 1864 – 69 . these experiences established him as a seasoned arctic explorer , and gave him valuable contacts among the inuit people . the renown he gained eventually allowed him to convince the united states government to fund his third expedition , an attempt on the north pole . finance and materiel in 1870 , a bill was introduced in the senate called the arctic resolution , to fund an expedition to the north pole . hall , aided by the secretary of the navy george m. robeson , successfully lobbied for , and received , a grant of $ 50 , 000 from the u.s. congress to command the expedition and began recruiting personnel in late 1870 . he secured the u.s. navy tugboat , a 387 - ton screw - propelled steamer . at the washington navy yard the ship was fitted as a fore topsail schooner , and renamed polaris . she was prepared for arctic service by the addition of solid oak timber all over her hull , and the bow was sheathed in iron . a new engine was added , and one of the boilers was retrofitted to burn seal or whale oil . the ship was also outfitted with four whaleboats , 20 feet ( 6 . 1 m ) long and 4 feet ( 1 . 2 m ) wide , and a flat - bottomed scow . during his previous arctic expeditions , hall came to admire the inuit , and brought a similarly constructed collapsible boat which could hold 20 men . food packed on board consisted of tinned ham , salted beef , bread and sailor 's biscuit . the men intended to supplement their diet with fresh muskox , seal and polar bear , in order to ward off scurvy . personnel in the spring of 1871 , u.s. president ulysses s. grant had named hall as overall commander of the expedition , and he was being referred to as captain . though hall had abundant arctic experience , he had no sailing experience , and so the title was purely honorary . in selecting the officers and seamen , hall relied heavily on whalers with experience in the arctic . this was markedly different from the polar expeditions of the british admiralty , which tended to use naval officers and highly disciplined crews . for his selection of sailing master , hall first turned to sidney o. budington , then to george tyson , who both initially declined due to prior whaling commitments . when those commitments fell through , hall named budington as sailing master and tyson assistant navigator . budington and tyson had decades of experience between them captaining whaling vessels . in effect , the polaris now had three captains , a fact which would weigh heavily on the fate of the expedition . further complicating matters , in 1863 budington and hall had quarrelled because budington had denied permission for hall to bring his inuit guides , joseph ebierbing and tookoolito , with him on an expedition at a time when they were ill and in budington 's care . the rest of the officers and scientific staff were americans ( first mate hubbard chester , second mate william morton , and astronomer and chaplain bryan ) and germans ( chief scientist and surgeon emil bessels and meteorologist frederick meyer ) . the seamen were mostly german , as was chief engineer emil schumann . in addition to the 25 officers , crew , and scientific staff , hall brought inuit interpreter and hunter ebierbing , his wife tookoolito , and their child . a greenlandic aboriginal named hans hendrik , his wife and three children also joined the expedition . expedition new york to upernavik even before leaving the brooklyn navy yard on june 29 , 1871 , the expedition ran into personnel troubles . the cook , a seaman , a fireman , and assistant engineer wilson deserted . the steward turned out to be a drunk , and was left in port . the ship stopped in new london , connecticut , to pick up a replacement assistant engineer , leaving on july 3 , 1871 . by the time the ship reached st. john 's , there was dissension among the officers and scientific staff . bessels , backed up by meyer , had openly rejected hall 's command over the scientific staff . the dissension spread to the crew , which was divided along nationalist lines . in his diary , assistant navigator george tyson wrote that by the time they reached disko island , greenland , " ... expressions are freely made that hall shall not get any credit from this expedition . already some have made up their minds how far they will go and when they will get home again . " hall asked captain davenport of the supply ship congress to intervene . davenport threatened to have meyer shackled for insubordination and sent back to the united states , at which point all of the germans threatened to quit . hall and davenport were forced to back down , however davenport delivered a strongly worded speech on naval discipline to the crew . in another open display of dissent , the ship 's boilers had been tampered with by one of the crew . the special blubber - fired boilers had disappeared , apparently thrown overboard . on aug 18 , 1871 , the ship reached upernavik on greenland 's west coast , where they picked up the inuit hunter and interpreter hans hendrik . the polaris proceeded north through smith sound and nares strait , passing previous furthest north records ( by ship ) held by elisha kane and isaac hayes . polar preparations and hall 's death by sept . 2 , 1871 , polaris had reached her furthest north of 82 ° . tension flared again as the three leading officers could not agree on whether to proceed further or not . hall and tyson wanted to press north , to cut down the distance they would have to travel to the pole by . budington did not want to further risk the ship , and walked out on the discussion . in the end , they sailed into thank god harbor ( now called hall bay ) on sept . 10 , 1871 , and settled in for the winter on the shore of northern greenland . within a few weeks , hall was making preparations for a sledging trip with the aim of beating sir william parry 's furthest north record . mistrust amongst the men in charge showed again when hall told tyson that " i cannot trust that man ( captain budington ) . i want you to go with me , but don 't know how to leave him alone with the ship . " there is some evidence that budington may have been an alcoholic ; on at least three occasions he raided the ship 's stores , including the alcohol kept by the scientists for preservation of specimens . hall had complained about budington 's drunken behavior , and it fully came to light from the crew 's testimony at the inquest following the expedition . with tyson watching over the ship , hall took two sledges with first mate chester , and the native guides ebierbing and hendrik , leaving on oct 10 , 1871 . the day after leaving , hall sent hendrik back to the ship to retrieve a number of forgotten items . hall also sent back a note to bessels , reminding him to wind the chronometers at the right time every day . in his book trial by ice , richard parry postulated that such a note from the uneducated hall must have rankled bessels , who held a number of degrees from stuttgart , heidelberg , and jena . it was another example of hall 's micromanagement of the expedition . before he left on the overland trip , hall gave budington a detailed list of instructions regarding how to manage the ship in his absence . this likely did not sit well with a sailing master with over 20 years of experience . upon their return on oct 24 , 1871 , hall suddenly fell ill after drinking a cup of coffee . his symptoms started with an upset stomach , then progressed to vomiting and delirium the following day . hall accused several of the ship 's company , including bessels , of having poisoned him . following these accusations , he refused medical treatment from bessels , and drank only liquids delivered directly by his inuit friend tookoolito . he seemed to improve for a few days , and was even able to go up on deck . bessels had prevailed upon bryan , the ship 's chaplain , to convince hall to allow the doctor to see him . by november 4 , hall relented , and bessels resumed treatment . shortly after , hall 's condition began to deteriorate , and he suffered vomiting and delirium , and collapsed . bessels diagnosed apoplexy , and hall finally died on november 8 . he was taken ashore and given a formal burial . attempt at north pole according to the protocol provided by navy secretary george m. robeson , command of the expedition was turned over to budington , under whom discipline further devolved . the precious coal was being burned at a high rate : 6 , 334 pounds ( 2 , 873 kg ) in november , which was 1 , 596 pounds ( 724 kg ) more than the previous month , and close to 8 , 300 pounds ( 3 , 800 kg ) in december . budington was often seen to be drunk , but he was far from the only one to pilfer the alcohol stores ; according to testimony at the inquiry , tyson was also seen " drunk like old mischief " , and schumann had gone so far as to make a duplicate of budington 's key so that he could help himself to alcohol as well . whatever the role of alcohol , it was clear that shipboard routine was breaking down ; as tyson remarked , " there is so little regularity observed . there is no stated time for putting out lights ; the men are allowed to do as they please ; and , consequently , they often make nights hideous by their carousing , playing cards to all hours . " for purposes unknown , budington chose to issue the ship 's supply of firearms to the crew . there is some evidence of a morally questionable plan being formulated among the senior officers that winter . on jan 1 , 1872 , tyson wrote in his diary : " last month such an astonishing proposition was made to me that i have never ceased thinking of it since ... it grew out of a discussion as to the feasibility of attempting to get farther north next summer . " and then on april 19 , 1872 : " had a talk with chester about the astounding proposition made to me in the winter . we agreed it was monstrous and must be prevented . chester said he is determined , when he got home , to expose the matter . " author farley mowat has suggested the officers were contemplating faking a journey to the pole , or at least to a very high latitude . whatever the unmentioned plan was , an expedition to try for the pole was dispatched on june 6 , 1872 . chester led the expedition in a whaleboat , but this was crushed by the ice within a few miles of polaris . chester and his men hiked back to the ship , and persuaded budington to give them the collapsible boat . with this , and tyson piloting another whaleboat , the men set northward again . in the meantime , the polaris had found open water , and was searching for a route south . budington , not eager to spend another winter in the ice , sent ebierbing north with orders for the tyson and chester : return to the ship at once . the men were forced to abandon both craft and walk 20 miles ( 32 km ) back to polaris . now three of the ship 's precious lifeboats were lost , and a fourth ( the small scow ) would be crushed by ice in july after being carelessly left out overnight . the expedition had failed in its main objective to reach the north pole . fate of polaris and journeys home with the expedition 's main goal abandoned , polaris turned south for home . in smith sound , west of the humboldt glacier , she ran aground on a shallow iceberg and could not be freed . on the night of october 15 , 1872 , with an iceberg threatening the ship , schuman reported that water was coming in and the pumps could not keep up . budington ordered cargo to be thrown onto the ice to buoy the ship . men began throwing goods overboard , as tyson put it , " with no care taken as to how or where these things were thrown " . much of the jettisoned cargo was lost . a number of the crew were out on the surrounding ice during the night when a break - up of the pack occurred . when morning came , the group , consisting of tyson , meyer , six of the seamen , the cook , the steward , and all of the inuit , found themselves stranded on an ice floe . the castaways could see the polaris 8 to 10 miles ( 13 to 16 km ) away , but attempts to attract the ship 's attention with a large black cloth were futile . resigned to the ice , the inuit soon had igloo shelters built , and tyson estimated that they had 1 , 900 pounds ( 860 kg ) of food . they also had the ship 's two whaleboats , and two kayaks , although one kayak was soon lost during a breakup of the ice . meyer reckoned that they were drifting on the greenland side of the davis strait and would soon be within rowing distance of disko . he was incorrect ; the men were actually on the canadian side of the strait . the error caused the men to reject tyson 's plans for conserving . the seamen soon broke up one of the whaleboats for firewood , making a safe escape to land very unlikely . one night in november , the men went on an eating binge , consuming a large quantity of the food stores . the group drifted on the ice floe for the next six months over 1 , 800 miles ( 2 , 900 km ) before being rescued off the coast of newfoundland by the sealer tigress on april 30 , 1873 . all probably would have perished had the group not included the skilled inuit hunters ebierbing and hendrik , who were able to kill seal on a number of occasions . despite this , scarcely a word was written about the inuit in either the official reports of the expedition , or the press . on october 16 , with the ship 's coal stores running low , captain budington decided to run the polaris aground near etah . having lost much of their bedding , clothing , and food when it was haphazardly jettisoned from the ship on october 12 , the remaining 14 men were in poor condition to face another winter . they built a hut from lumber salvaged from the ship , and on october 24 , extinguished the ship 's boilers to conserve coal . the bilge pumps stopped for good , and the ship heeled over on her side , half out of water . fortunately , the etah inuit helped the men survive the winter . after wintering ashore , the crew built two boats from salvaged wood from the ship , and on june 3 the crew sailed south . they were spotted and rescued in july by the whaler ravenscraig , and returned home via scotland . aftermath inquiry on june 5 , 1873 , a united states navy board of inquiry began . at this time , the crew and inuit families had been rescued from the ice floe , however the fate of budington , bessels , and the remainder of the crew was still unknown . the board consisted of admiral louis m. goldsborough , secretary of the navy robeson , commodore reynolds , captain henry w. howgate of the army , and spencer f. baird of the academy of sciences . tyson was the first to appear for questioning , and related the friction between hall , budington , and bessels , and hall 's deathbed accusations of poisoning . the board also inquired about the whereabouts of hall 's journals and records . tyson responded that while hall was delirious , he instructed budington to burn some of the papers , and the rest had disappeared . later , journals of other crew members were discovered at the site of the polaris wreck , but these had the sections regarding hall 's death cut out . meyer testified to budington 's drinking , saying that the sailing master was " drunk most always while we were going southward " . steward john herron testified that he had not made the coffee that hall had suspected of being laced with poison ; he explained that the cook made the coffee , and that he had not kept track of how many people had touched the cup before it was brought to hall . after budington and the remainder of the crew were rescued and returned to the united states , the board of inquiry continued . budington attacked tyson 's credibility , disputing tyson 's claim that he had obstructed hall 's efforts to sail the ship further north . he also disputed reports of his drinking , saying that he " [ made ] it a practice to drink but very little " . bessels was questioned about hall 's cause of death . bessels stated that " my idea of the cause of the first attack is that he had been exposed to very low temperature during the time that he was on the sledge journey . he came back and entered a warm cabin without taking off his heavy fur clothing , and then took a warm cup of coffee . and anyone knows what the consequences of that might be . " bessels testified that hall was " taken by hemiplegia " , and his left arm and side were paralyzed , and that he had injected hall with quinine to correct his elevated temperature before he died . faced with conflicting testimony , lack of official records and journals , and no body for an autopsy , no charges were laid in connection with hall 's death . in the inquiry 's final report , the surgeons general of the army and navy wrote : " from the circumstances and symptoms detailed by him , and comparing them with the medical testimony of all the witnesses , we are conclusively of the opinion that captain hall died from natural causes , viz . , apoplexy ; and that the treatment of the case by dr. bessel [ sic ] was the best practicable under the circumstances . " controversy there has been speculation as to why budington and the men aboard the polaris did not attempt a rescue of those stranded on the ice floe . tyson was perplexed as to why the ship could not see them 8 miles ( 13 km ) distant , a group of men and supplies waving a dark colored flag in a sea of white . the day after the storm was clear and calm , and the men on the floe could see the ship was under both steam and sail . aboard the ship , first mate chester reported that he could see " provisions and stores " on a distant floe , however there were never any orders to retrieve the stores or search for the castaways . budington 's decision to beach the polaris is equally controversial . budington said that he " believed the propeller was smashed and the rudder broken " . the official report of the expedition states that the vessel should have been abandoned because " there was only coal enough to keep the fires alive for five days " . however , the same report states that the propeller and rudder were in fact discovered to be intact after the ship was run aground , and the ship 's boiler and sails were available . even if she ran out of coal , the ship was perfectly able to travel under sail alone . in defense of budington 's decision , when low tide exposed the ship 's hull , the men found that the stem had completely broken away at the six - foot mark , taking iron sheeting and planking with it . budington wrote in his journal that he " called the officer 's attention to it , who only wondered she had kept afloat so long " . regarding hall 's fate , the official investigation that followed ruled the cause of death was apoplexy ( an early term for stroke ) . some of hall 's symptoms — partial paralysis , slurred speech , delirium — certainly fit that diagnosis . indeed , the pains that hall complained about down one side of his body , which he attributed to many years ' huddling in an igloo , may have been due to a previous minor stroke . however , in 1968 , hall 's biographer chauncey c. loomis , a professor at dartmouth college , made an expedition to greenland to exhume hall 's body . because of the permafrost , hall 's body , flag shroud , clothing and coffin were remarkably well - preserved . tests on tissue samples of bone , fingernails and hair showed that hall had received large doses of arsenic in the last two weeks of his life . arsenic poisoning appears consistent with the symptoms party members reported : stomach pains , vomiting , stupor , and mania . arsenic can have a sweet taste , and hall had complained that the coffee had tasted too sweet , and had burned his stomach . it also appears that at least three of the crew , budington , meyer , and bessels , expressed relief at hall 's death and said that the expedition would be better off without him . in his book the arctic grail , pierre berton suggests that it is possible that hall accidentally dosed himself with the poison , as arsenic was common in medical kits of the time . but it is considered more probable that he was murdered by one of the other members of the expedition , possibly bessels , who was in nearly constant attendance of hall . no charges were ever filed . research resources on the polaris expedition held at the american geographical society library , uw milwaukee