Whatever it was - serendipity, fate, or just coincidence, I first "discovered" Charles Wilkes in North Carolina. Of course I had first learned of the Trent Affair in 11th grade history, and later had become acquainted with the great Exploring Expedition of 1838-1842 through the Smithsonian's wonderful Magnificent Voyagers exhibition. But it wasn't until unpacking books in my library in Gastonia NC - and browsing thru that exhibit's catalog, that I began to discover Charles Wilkes. The catalog said that after the Civil War, Wilkes moved to Gaston County! Why? Why on earth!

Finding the answer was a long and convoluted process. First-- questions asked. Then -- recognition: what an incredible story. As a result, you might say I decided to "put on a show." But, it wasn't quite that simple - I wasn't Judy Garland & my husband David wasn't Mickey Rooney, and we didn't have a barn. But we did have two museums, and curatorial staff willing to explore the possibilities. And we had the inspiration of a community in one of the least literate sections of our country with a direct link to the discoverer of a continent; a man who led our country's first international scientific exploring expedition; a noteworthy author; and a "popular hero"...well, there was a problem. Truly, it was a problem; you couldn't be a Civil War era Yankee and be a hero in Gaston County. Not even a discredited hero. Of course, that was part of the story too.

We discovered that there are dozens of generous and encouraging scholars, researchers, curators and collections managers with an interest in and knowledge of Charles Wilkes. From art historian to librarian, archivist, ornithologist, icythologist, military historian, botanist, mineralogist, (and many other "-ologists") to Wilkes family members, we found encouragement and useful information all through the process of researching, designing and installing "the show." (We also discovered that one could loose oneself in the study of Wilkes and Wilkes related contributions.) Thanks to the vision of funding agencies such as the Museum Loan Network and the Composers Forum, we had support when we met with staffs-at-large, with Trustees and committees, and slowly introduced Charles Wilkes to them in preparation for the exhibition, High Seas to High Shoals.

FORGOTTEN HERO

In the year 2003, the complete story of Rear Admiral Charles Wilkes was presented in special year-long exhibits at both Gaston County Museum and the Schiele. Great works of art, historic artifacts and rare scientific specimens on loan from The Smithsonian and other major American museums, helped tell the story of Wilkes from his early days gold-mining in Charlotte, sailing around the world for exploration, Civil War exploits, and final years in Gaston County.

THE GREAT EX EX

Charles' great contribution to modern science began with his love of math, science, drawing, and the sea. His love of the sea, and of discovery and navigation made him an eager candidate - some say too eager -- for command of America's first international Exploring Expedition. After a lengthy selection process and many delays, the six ships finally set sail in 1838 with Charles in command.

As other speakers have noted, during the ExEx some of the men began to resent Wilkes' methods and question his leadership. When the Expedition finally arrived home in 1842, several of its company pressed charges, and Wilkes appeared before a Court Martial. He was found guilty of one of eleven charges - "illegally punishing or causing to be punished, men in the squadron under his command," and sentenced to a public reprimand by the Secretary of the Navy. There was nothing conciliatory in Charles Wilkes. Of a meeting with the Secretary of the Navy during this period, he wrote, "I well knew it was in the power of the Secretary to give me much annoyance, but I had no idea of permitting him to act so ungentlemanly towards me. I was an officer in the Navy and was entitled to be shown all the respect my rank and services entitled me." However, it is possible to sympathize with his reaction to the proposal that the Narrative of the ExEx might be written by the Librarian of the State Department. While defending himself on the court martial charges, he also mounted a campaign to maintain intellectual control of the results of the ExEx.

We are (or should be) astounded by the accomplishments of both Wilkes as well as the "scientifics" who accompanied him. Still, we find him exasperating! We wish he were a better "hero." We wish he had done a better job, had been a better sailor, better disciplinarian, perhaps we wish he had been a better, more likeable man, say an amusing and lusty fellow like the fictional Jack Aubrey, more easy to define. However, the more one looks, the more one discovers that clearly, Wilkes was surely never easy. He was autocratic, stubborn, difficult, devout, skeptical, lonely, loving, superstitious, rational and brilliant. He seemed so sure of himself.

Like many people who believe in logic and reason, Charles Wilkes believed that logic and reason led to right decisions, and that his rightness both explained and demanded his actions. His belief didn't leave much room for negotiation. One can insist that we must judge Wilkes and other public figures solely on their public accomplishments and/or failures. If we do, we must recognize Wilkes as a major hero. However, I think it is worth considering the words of Adam Gopnik in a recent New Yorker review of a biography of Shakespeare. Gopnik writes, "Whatever our official pieties, deep down we believe in lives." We know it is those lives that structure the public actions. It is Charles Wilkes' entire life, as a public figure and as husband and father; as a mine operator; as foe of slavery - he thought it destroyed the lives of Southern whites as surely as it deprived black slaves of their freedom; and as a failed entrepreneur naively allowing himself to be "hornswaggled" by the locals in order to live (and prosper) near his son Jack, that provides a level of complexity and contradiction that teaches us that history and personal lives are indeed messy.

To discover Charles Wilkes, one must discover the toddler passed from a surrogate mother described as "a French lady of great beauty and acomplishments" to an Aunt (Anne Seton, who would eventually move to Italy and become the first American saint), to his Mammy (Mary) Reed, a Welch washerwoman, described by Wilkes as "that class of faithful servants who knew hard work and had the energy to continue it." He also described her as "extremely pretty. " Then with characteristic honesty he portrayed her in her later years being " rounded and full face, here and there with tufts of hair on warts...which gave her the appearance of a witch," which he promptly balanced by explaining what he really admired: "Her courage was undaunted and I doubt if she knew what fear was, she never showed it." It is not his father or a commanding officer or a political figure that elicits such praise, but the one superstitious, ignorant, confident, and kind person in his life whom Wilkes recalled had prophesied that he would become an admiral, before that rank even existed in the country's service.

GOLD

In the early 1840s, owners of the McComb mine in Charlotte recognized that they were running an unprofitable mining operation, and called on an "absent minded professor" James Renwick to help remedy the situation. Renwick, a professor at Columbia College in New York was a specialist in German mining techniques. Hired as a consultant on extracting gold from the crushed ore, James brought the gold mines of the North Carolina piedmont to the attention of his father William, a banker. Between 1835 and 1842 William invested in the gold-mining ventures with a number of different partners, including another New York banker, southern partners, and an Italian count.

After William's death in 1842, the Renwicks asked Charles Wilkes to run the mining operations for the Maxwell, the McComb (also called the Charlotte and/or the St. Catherine), the Catawba, and the Capps mines. Wilkes, had just returned from an epic -- but less-than universally appreciated -- around-the-world sailing expedition, and was willing to relinquish claims to his wife Jane Renwick's dowry in exchange for family control of the mines. It was during this period that Wilkes first met some of the characters whose business dealings would continue to embroil him in legal problems for the rest of his life: starting with J. Humphrey Bissell who claimed to be one of the five owners, each with deeds to one quarter of the property.

In Charlotte Charles was in and out of courts often accompanied by his son John as he consolidated and paid off claims of all the partners. At the same time Charles was writing the informative and highly readable.¹ Narrative of the Exploring Expedition, and organizing the objects and artifacts collected by the ExEx to put together in a national museum. It was a happy and busy time until the death of Charles' beloved wife, Jane in 1848.

Through the early 1850s Charles and his sons John and Edmund continued to run the mining and manufacturing operations in Charlotte. In 1854 Charles married his second wife, Mary Lynch Bolton; and in 1857 John took over full management responsibilities. As part of an 1857-58 survey of iron and coal resources for the U.S. Navy, Charles Wilkes visited the High Shoals property where he would one day make his home in nearby Gaston County.

CIVIL WAR YEARS

The secession of seven southern states in early 1861 prompted a series of informal dealings regarding the disposition of federal forts and facilities located within the Confederacy. However, before the ships at Norfolk could be removed to Baltimore, the state of Virginia joined the Confederacy - along with every ship's officer in Norfolk.

US Navy Captain Charles Wilkes, serving with Admiral DuPont's squadron, had been sent to sail the ships to safety. He arrived to find the ships being deliberately sunk into the yard's muddy bottom under "orders given by the incompetent commander, Commodore McCauley." (Knight) DuPont ordered Wilkes to burn the ships, and to blow-up the yard's stone dry-dock; but only the ship's sails and rigging caught fire, and the Virginia militia seized town, yard, and dry-dock.

On March 8, 1862 the re-floated and iron-clad Merrimack, renamed CSS Virginia, emerged from Norfolk to sink the USS Cumberland, and explode the USS Congress. But, on the next day when she tried to leave Norfolk, she encountered the USS Monitor. At the end of a day-long battle, the Monitor was unscathed, and the blockade of the harbor intact.

The Confederacy abandoned the now-useless Navy Yard; and its ordnance-making machinery was shipped by rail to Charlotte NC. There the new Confederate Navy Yard was supervised by former mining engineer and naval officer, John Wilkes - Charles Wilkes' oldest son. What can the father have thought!

Meanwhile, South Carolina's secession from the Union in December, 1860 had prompted a remarkable series of letters to John Wilkes from his friend Frank Eliot. In these, one sees the personal effect of the pending conflict distilled. Though a "rabid Lincoln man," Eliot, like so many others of the period, maintains courtesy and civility throughout his letters.

In spite of his opinion that "the troubles in the country are sickening," and that John Wilkes is "wrong," affection for his "old playmate" is at the heart of a third letter. In it Eliot employs a somewhat curious, but very powerful device: he "appoint[s]" Wilkes his surrogate in dispensing affection to Wilkes' own daughters! Thus he makes it clear that the ties of friendship will carry them into the uncertain future -- even into the next generation.

Eliot's letters were saved and are now preserved at the Library of Congress. Family letters fill in more of the picture. By May of 1861 Mary Bolton Wilkes knew that her beloved stepson John planned to remain in the Confederacy in North Carolina. In a letter to John she expresses emotions shared by thousands of families torn by divided loyalties and separated by the Civil War. "Oh! it is sad & heart rendering indeed," she writes.

As her husband Charles sets off to the African coast on active duty for the US Navy, she manages to enclose his farewell with her own letter to John. In that letter she deals with practical matters associated with the possible invasion of Washington, DC and her evacuation, and the management of vacant property. While lamenting that "it is terrible to be ... cut off from all ties of affection & connection" she makes it clear that she will carry-on quite capably. "May God bless you all & bring us together again in happier days." "We will write..." she says, and indeed, members of the Wilkes family managed to carry on correspondence all during the War.

Later, in the summer of 1861 Commander Charles Wilkes' South Atlantic squadron, cruising between the Caribbean and West Africa, learned that Confederate emissaries to Great Britain were passengers on the British mail packet the Trent.

Wilkes fired shots over the Trent, and had emissaries James Mason and John Slidell and their wives removed to the San Jacinto. There he gave up his cabin for the comfort of the ladies, while fully expecting that Mason and Slidell would be hanged.

Although many proclaimed him a hero, Wilkes would soon discover that fear of war with Great Britain had propelled the federal government and Navy Secretary Welles into repudiating his actions. Mason and Slidell were released, and Great Britain remained officially neutral. It was Abraham Lincoln's remark, "one war at a time" that most succinctly captures the essence of the event.

Perhaps predictably, Wilkes was the cause of more than just this one international incident during the Civil War. Prior to the war, he must have hated knowing that because America had refused to enter an agreement with Great Britain to allow a neutral right of search to end the slave traffic, almost the entire slave trade was under the American flag. Then, as Confederate raiders -- built in British yards -- regularly captured and sank Union merchant ships, Secretary Welles and Wilkes engaged in continuing disagreement over Wilkes' prosecution of his orders in regard to Britain's "neutrality." To be at war, and not pursue it as vigorously as he thought possible must have seemed immoral. Wilkes' letter in a New York paper, criticizing Welles, finally resulted in Wilkes' Court Martial and retirement from active duty in 1864.

HIGH SHOALS

In 1865, Charles Wilkes decided to move back to North Carolina. In spite of high hopes and great ambition -- and often acting against his son's business advice -- his entrepreneurial efforts were a failure.

Anticipating construction of a railroad across the High Shoals Iron Company property, Charles Wilkes invested in a complex series of business partnerships, based on mills, mines, lumber, and a farm spread over 14,000 acres. Partners Bridgers and Bissell saw Charles Wilkes as a source of capital to fund their return to prosperity, and Wilkes saw the iron business as a means of securing his personal fortune and support for his family. In spite of John's admonitions, in 1866 Charles leased (and tried to purchase and secure legal title to) the High Shoals Iron Works in Gaston and Lincoln counties, N.C. Charles worked closely with John's newly chartered bank to promote investing in the High Shoals Iron Works Company and with advice from a New York promoter put together a million-dollar public stock prospectus. It is somewhat ironic to note that it was Charles who, upon the occasion of their reconciliation in Washington DC, had introduced John to George Washington Riggs, an introduction that helped "reconstruct" John and launch him on a career in banking. And it was John's business involvement with of his father that precipitated a NC banking crisis that almost devastated John's personal holdings.

In 1866 Charles Wilkes, with his wife and daughters arrived at High Shoals to begin to pay off the debts he had incurred by reestablishing the iron-making operations. With millions of dollars at stake, Wilkes was no match for the duties of management or for his many scheming partners. For in October 1867, the Corporate Board of the still existing High Shoals Mining Company met to clear up a decade-long series of highly questionable internal transactions. They admitted that many records of the company since 1854 were lost or destroyed and they formally renounced the earlier sales made by A. Hoyle, as President or Bynum and Grier as trustees. They then directed W.P. Bynum, as "new" President, to sell the High Shoals Manufacturing Company to R.R. and J.L. Bridgers and their associates and assigns, and they repealed all other agreements, including those they had made with Wilkes.

Despite his careful plans and constant lobbying, detailed in his journals and diaries from 1867 through 1870, the railroads that Wilkes hoped would carry his newly produced iron goods failed to come to High Shoals. They were built elsewhere, serving his competitors and customers, but not the High Shoals enterprise. The expertise of the freedmen laborers in the technical operations of smelting though considerable, were -- unfortunately for Wilkes -- not enough to induce Northern investment in the South during Reconstruction, and not sufficient to prevail over the competition of other operations that offered economy of scale and modern technology. (Hodge)

By the end of 1870 railroads were transporting iron from the Great Lakes and the quickly rebuilt Tredegar Works in Richmond at a lower cost than Wilkes could produce it locally. Wilkes shifted High Shoals from producing finished goods, and contracted to deliver a season's worth of cast pig iron to Tredegar for reworking . Incredibly, his younger son, Edmund, misappropriated the bank draft payment from Tredegar, and Wilkes was unable to pay his debts.

Wilkes' employment of freedmen and the establishment of a Freedmen's School at High Shoals was entirely consistent with his convictions: and a contrast to his son John's enslavement, purchase and sale of blacks to run the Charlotte operations through the 1860s. Indeed it also appears entirely consistent with efforts of John's wife, Jane Renwick Smedburg Wilkes, who is remembered as the "Godmother of North Carolina Hospitals." She had helped nurse Civil War wounded, and later as an officer of the parish Church Aid Society, raised funds to establish the Charlotte Home and Hospital. It opened in 1876 -- the first civilian hospital in the state. Later she helped found Good Samaritan Hospital, one of the nation's first hospitals built for blacks. One can only imagine the conversation at the Wilkes family table in High Shoals.

From the beginning Charles Wilkes had been unable to repay his High Shoals loans. In the Wilkes family papers, preserved at the Library of Congress, one finds an array of dismaying warrants, deeds, and foreclosure threats. And in Gaston County, Deed Book #5 lists outstanding debts in 1873 in the amounts of $30,000, $4,000, $25,000 - all due in sixty days! By the end, Wilkes was able to sign over only the High Shoals house and contents to his wife and adult daughters. After the loss of the High Shoals property in 1874, a discouraged and ailing Wilkes moved back to Washington DC. There he died on February 8, 1877 at the age of 78. A pending Bill of Relief for the payment of his debts was passed by the Senate shortly thereafter.

John Wilkes and his family remained in Charlotte, rising to prominence for both business and charitable achievements. Charles' daughter's Jane and Eliza maintained lifelong ties to their home in High Shoals. The Wilkes family's enduring imprint on the region it adopted was recognized throughout the 20th century, and continues today.

According to High Shoals former mayor Patsy Yarboro, for many years and until the close of High Shoals Schools in 1998, students annually studied and wrote about the exploits and local contributions of the Admiral and his family. Meanwhile, the Wilkes family continues to regularly publish the magazine started so many years ago by Wilkes' daughters Eliza and Jane. Curators, collections managers, and archivists from the American Museum of Natural History to the Peabody Essex to the Navy Art Collection to the Library of Congress to the US Botanical Garden to the Smithsonian's Archives, Dibner Library, National Museum of American History, and National Museum of Natural History and descendants care for thousands of rare, beautiful, interesting Wilkes-related objects and artifacts.

In a final ironic note, when it was completed to Lincolnton in 1880, the Chester and Lenoir Railroad came through High Shoals. A new High Shoals [Textile] Manufacturing Company was chartered in April 1893 and its mill and dam were built on the ruins of the High Shoals Iron Company (Cope and Wellman 1961:135). Today, even that building is gone leaving only the foundations of Wilkes' house overlooking the old dam on the South Fork River.

ARCHIVAL SOURCES

Wilkes Family Papers, 1818-1947. Manuscript Collection #38. University of North Carolina-Charlotte. Charlotte, NC.

Family Papers of John and Jane Wilkes. Robinson-Spangler Room, Public Library of Charlotte/Mecklenburg County. Charlotte, NC.

Charles Wilkes Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. Washington DC.

Papers and Workbooks Related to the Collections of the US Exploring Expedition; the National Museum; the U.S. Museum of Natural History; and the Magnificent Voyagers exhibition. Smithsonian Archives. Washington DC.

UNPUBLISHED SOURCES

Black, Stanley. Wilkes' family history. Personal communication. 2003. University of North Carolina. Chapel Hill NC.

Coulter, Frank, Jr. 1980. Reaction to Freedom and Failure: Charles Wilkes and the Workers of High Shoals, North Carolina. Unpublished masters thesis. University of Maryland, College Park MD.

Yarboro, Patsy. Personal communication. 2002. High Shoals NC.

PUBLISHED SOURCES

Gopnik, Adam. "Will Power," The New Yorker. September 13, 2004. New York NY.

Hodge, James. T. "Mining Industry of the United States." One Hundred Years of Progress, Vol. II. L. Stebbins. 1872. Hartford, Conn.

Knight, Austin M, Rear Admiral USN. Pictorial History of the U.S. Navy - actual title page and date missing and unknown.

May, J. Alan and David S. Brose. "Charles Wilkes and the Early Iron Industry of the Southern Piedmont: The High Shoals Iron Manufacturing Company, 1842-1875." High Seas to High Shoals: The 2003 North Carolina Humanities Council Lectures. Ed. B.H. Brose and David S. Brose. 2003. Charlotte NC.

Wilkes, Charles. Autiobiography of Rear Admiral Charles Wilkes, U.S. Navy 1798-1877. Naval History Division, Department of the Navy. 1978. Ed. William James Morgan, David B. Tyler, Joye L. Leonhart, and Mary F. Loughlin. Washington DC.

Wilkes, Charles. Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, Volume I- V. Lea and Blanchard. 1845. Philadelphia PA.