Greely, ADOLPHUS WASHINGTON

Greely, ADOLPHUS WASHINGTON, Arctic explorer, was born at Newburyport, Massachusetts, 27th March 1844. He served as a volunteer through the war of 1861-65, and shortly after its conclusion entered the regular army as lieutenant, and in 1868 was placed on the signal service. In 1881 he was selected to conduct the American expedition to the head of Smith Sound, for the purpose of carrying on observations in pursuance of the international scheme arranged at Hamburg in 1879. He and the survivors of his party were rescued in June 1883, when at the point of perishing from starvation, after spending three winters in the Arctic north. Their sufferings were so extreme that some of the party had even been reduced to eating the bodies of the dead. Lieutenant Lockwood of this expedition travelled to within 396 miles of the geographical pole, the farthest point north hitherto reached. In 1887 Greely was appointed chief of the signal service, at the same time being gazetted brigadier-general. In 1886 he published Three Years of Arctic Service. See also W. S. Schley, The Rescue of Greely (1885).