Charles Wilkes

Charles Wilkes was an American naval officer and explorer who commanded the United States Exploring Expedition of 1838–1842. The expedition surveyed large areas of the Pacific and Antarctic coast and gathered extensive scientific collections.

During the American Civil War, Wilkes caused the Trent Affair by removing Confederate envoys from a British mail ship. The incident nearly provoked war between the United States and Britain before the prisoners were released.

In Nathaniel Philbrick’s Sea of Glory, Led by Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, the expedition charts islands and coastlines, explores the Antarctic margin, surveys the Columbia River and gathers vast botanical, zoological and ethnographic collections that later help form the Smithsonian Institution. In Nathaniel Philbrick’s The Private Journal of William Reynolds, Serving aboard vessels commanded by Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, he describes storms, difficult surveys, Antarctic ice, Pacific islands, naval discipline and the physical beauty of places that many Americans had never seen described in such detail.