Greely Arctic Expedition | The Longest Winter | 3

By the fall of 1883, Lieutenant Adolphus Greely and his team had abandoned the safety of their fort on the shores of Lady Franklin Bay and begun a treacherous journey roughly 250 miles south down Ellesmere Island’s coast to Cape Sabine. There, Greely hoped a relief ship would be waiting for them. Failing that, he expected there to be caches of supplies that had been left to help his team survive the winter. But after weeks of navigating through dangerous ice floes, the men arrived at their destination only to face the crushing realization that they would have to endure another long Arctic winter with only minimal food and shelter. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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• 0:00Lindsay Graham?

  Audible subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts.

• 0:17Lindsay Graham?

  Imagine it's early in the morning on August 12, 1883. You're the leader of an Arctic expedition, and you've just woken up on the shore of a small cove where you and your men camp for the night, nearly 1,000 miles north of the Arctic Circle. Three days ago, you left the fort you called home for two years to embark on a 250-mile journey south. You're headed to a place called Cape Sabine, where you hope to meet up with a relief ship that will provide you with much-needed supplies. You sit up and put on your glasses. The other men are all still asleep, and as your eyes focus, you spot your primary vessel, a 30-foot steamboat named Lady Greeley, and feel a jolt of alarm. The Lady Greeley should be floating

• 1:00Lindsay Graham?

  just offshore, ready to carry the men south. Instead, it's run aground on the ice that hugs the shoreline. The steamboat weighs five tons. It'll take the men hours to free it. Furious, you leap to your feet and charge down to the boat. You pound on the side of the hull. Sergeant Cross, damn you, get out here! After a moment, Cross fights his way out from under a canvas tarp and stands at the cockpit yawning. He looks around. "Ah, damn it. What did I say to you repeatedly? Don't allow the Lady Greeley to run aground." "I'm sorry, sir. I must not have noticed the tide going out. When it comes back in, it'll free the boat, and we can be on our way." "We can't afford to wait for the tide. We need to move the boat now."

• 1:44Lindsay Graham?

  "But, sir, it's too heavy." "Let me make this clear to you, Cross. We only have 40 days of rations. We have to make it to Cape Sabine before the Polar Knight returns. Every minute we waste here is a minute we're not moving south, and that is your fault." "I apologize, sir." Cross climbs down from the deck of the boat and stands at attention before you on the shore. You smell alcohol on his breath. "Wait a minute. None of the rum we're carrying was left on the Lady Greeley last night. What did you do? Break into the fuel alcohol?" Cross's demeanor changes, and he becomes belligerent. "Well, I wouldn't act so high and mighty if I were you. We wouldn't be in this mess if you hadn't ordered us to abandon the fort. You're a damn fool." Fury passes through you. You put your hand on your revolver.

• 2:29Lindsay Graham?

  "You shut your mouth this second, or I'll put a bullet through you." Cross falls silent, glaring at you with bloodshot eyes. You notice that your men have awoken and now crowd around you, watching the confrontation. So you take a deep breath and nod to one of the men closest to you. "All right, you're in charge of the Lady Greeley from now on. The rest of you, don't take your eyes off Sergeant Cross. He cannot be allowed to get into any more of our fuel alcohol."

• 2:57Lindsay Graham?

  The men nod, and you walk away from Cross, up the shoreline, and take a moment to collect yourself. For years, you dreamed of this expedition and the glory it would bring, but now you just want to make it back home to your wife and daughters. And to do that, you need to get this boat back in the water and make it south to that relief ship. You pray it's waiting for you, because you have no idea what you'll do if it's not.

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• 4:42Lindsay Graham?

  From Audible Originals, I'm Lindsay Graham, and this is American History Tellers: Our History, Your Story.

• 5:03Lindsay Graham?

  In the summer of 1883, after two years on Elsmer Island, far above the Arctic Circle, Lieutenant Adolphus Greeley ordered his men to leave the safety of their longhouse at Fort Conger. For the previous two summers, their scheduled relief ships had failed to arrive, and Greeley had strict orders. He and his men were to abandon their mission and make their way south. So in their 30-foot steamboat, the Lady Greeley, along with three smaller boats, they aimed to travel 250 miles south down Elsmer Island's coast to Cape Sabine. There, Greeley hoped a relief ship would be waiting for them. But the ship he was counting on, the Proteus, had sunk after being crushed in the ice pack only two weeks

• 5:44Lindsay Graham?

  earlier. So now Greeley was leading his men into the unknown, and their expedition, which had begun as a success, would soon end in tragedy. This is episode three of our three-part series on the Greeley Arctic Expedition: The Longest Winter.

• 6:02Lindsay Graham?

  On August 12, 1883, the men of Lieutenant Adolphus Greeley's expedition were forced to spend several hours dislodging their primary vessel, the Lady Greeley, from the ice where it had run aground. Working together, they eventually succeeded in getting the heavy steamboat back in the water, but they lost precious time. Once they were back aboard their boats, they continued pushing south, down a narrow channel that separated Elsmer Island from Greenland. They'd succeeded in making it approximately 80 miles south, but they still had 170 miles to go until they reached Cape Sabine. And now, they encountered a nearly insurmountable problem. The rest of the channel was completely packed with

• 6:42Lindsay Graham?

  ice. Greeley estimated that one especially gigantic ice floe was over a mile wide and towered nearly 60 feet above the water. And then, while they were trying to determine if there was any way through, a storm picked up, and it began to snow. Greeley ordered the men to camp for the night. They set up on the ice that remained frozen along the shore and did not drift, and used the sails from their boats as makeshift shelters. It was a cold and miserable night, and by the next morning, almost everyone felt gloomy and pessimistic. More and more, it seemed like a mistake to have left the secure shelter of Fort Conger. But they had to keep moving, so Greeley sent Sergeant David Brainerd out

• 7:23Lindsay Graham?

  to search for a way around the mammoth ice floe. A few hours later, Brainerd came back, confirming that there was no way to avoid it. But he had seen a crack in the floe that he estimated was 10 to 15 feet wide. Most importantly, he had seen light coming through it, which suggested that the crack went all the way through the ice and out the other side. Greeley had to decide the best course of action. He guessed that the passageway extended about 300 feet. It would be risky to take their boats through it. If the two sides of the floe came together while they were inside, they could all be crushed to death. But after consulting with Brainerd and the expedition's second-in-command Lieutenant James Lockwood, Greeley decided it was worth the risk. The men hooked their three smaller

• 8:07Lindsay Graham?

  boats up to each other with a tow line, and then attached the line to the Lady Greeley. The steam-powered vessel would act as a tugboat, towing all the boats through as quickly as possible. So as they approached the entrance to the passage, Greeley nervously ordered the ship forward. Inside the passage, the air temperature dropped. The men stared up in silence at the towering ancient ice all around them, their faces bathed in eerie blue-green light. But as terrified as he was, Greeley was also awestruck. He later wrote in his journal, "The narrow cleft afforded perhaps the most wonderful passage ever traversed by any voyagers." And at long last, they emerged on the other side of the floe. For

• 8:50Lindsay Graham?

  a moment, everyone was exuberant. But their optimism didn't last. Within only a few hours, another storm kicked up. Huge waves crashed against their boats. Snow blew into the men's faces as the temperature dropped to 20 degrees below zero. Their progress slowed to a crawl, and over the next two days, they covered only four miles. On August 15, they were forced to take shelter on shore, stopping their progress once again. So worried that their pace had become dangerously slow, Greeley came up with an idea which he first discussed with Sergeant David Brainerd, who commanded the enlisted men. Greeley proposed that instead of continuing to fight their way through the ice pack channel, that they abandon their

• 9:32Lindsay Graham?

  steamship, the Lady Greeley. Without it, they could haul their smaller boats onto the surface of a large ice floe and ride it as it floated south all the way to Cape Sabine. In his diary, Brainerd wrote that Greeley's idea sounded like madness. But Greeley became convinced that rafting on an ice floe was their best option. He discussed it with the other officers, but few thought it was a good idea, with many of the men questioning Greeley's judgment, fearing he would lead them to their deaths. So eventually, several of the men decided to act.

• 10:07Lindsay Graham?

  Imagine it's August 15th, 1883, somewhere on the coast of Elsmer Island. You're nestled down in your sleeping bag onboard one of your expedition's wooden whaling boats, trying to get some sleep. You're a sergeant with this expedition overseeing the enlisted men, and you know tomorrow will be a long, hard day, so you'll need every ounce of your strength. But as tired as you are, you can't fall asleep. There's too much noise. The ice creaks and moans, and you can hear two men whispering. Can't make out what they're saying, but they sound agitated. And after a moment, one of the men calls out for you. "Hey, Sergeant, hey." You recognize the voice as belonging to Dr. Octave Pauvy, the expedition's doctor.

• 10:51Lindsay Graham?

  So you crawl out of your sleeping bag and make your way over to where he and Lieutenant Frederick Kizlingberry are sitting in another of the whaleboats. "What do you want, Doctor?" "I want to talk to you about Lieutenant Greeley. What do you think about this notion he's proposed, that we ride an ice floe south?" "Honestly, I don't think it's a good idea. If you have the mercy of the wind and the currents..." "Well, I agree. In fact, Kizlingberry and I both think it's downright insane. It might even make Greeley unfit to command." "That's a strong accusation, Doc." "Perhaps so, but there are other signs he might have lost his mind. He's behaving erratically. We all saw him threaten to shoot Sergeant Cross the other day." "Well, I'll concede he's under a great deal of stress. We all are. Unfit to lead." "I don't know about that." "Listen, Sergeant, we have it all worked out.

• 11:36Lindsay Graham?

  If I declare Greeley insane, Lieutenant Kizlingberry will become the expedition leader. He's agreed to the plan and has promised to lead us back to Fort Conger, where we can safely ride out the winter." You look at Kizlingberry, and he nods, but you can't believe what you're hearing. "Doctor, you're talking about mutiny. I'm talking about saving our lives, and you know it. Look, you command the enlisted men. They'll support whatever you decide. And if you back our plan, we might all survive." "Oh, I don't know about this. Let me ask you this. Do you think there will be a relief ship waiting for us at Cape Sabine?" "No, I don't." "Then join us." You don't know what to do. You want to go back to Fort Conger, but you take great pride in being a good, obedient soldier.

• 12:20Lindsay Graham?

  You can't fathom being part of a mutiny. That's exactly what this would be." Dr. Pauvy sees your hesitation and grabs your jacket collar. "Look, Sergeant, you're the key to this plan. Our fate rests on your decision. So what will it be?" You pause for a moment, truly unable to decide. Then you shake your head. "No, no, I won't be involved in any mutiny. And I don't want to hear any more of this treasonous talk. If I do, I'll resist such actions with my life. Do you understand?"

• 12:52Lindsay Graham?

  Before Dr. Pauvy can respond, you stand up and climb out of the boat. And as you hunch your shoulders against the wind, you hope you don't regret this decision.

• 13:05Lindsay Graham?

  On August 15th, just six days after setting out from Fort Conger, Dr. Pauvy and Lieutenant Kizlingberry asked Sergeant David Brainard to support their plan to declare Commander Adolphus Greeley insane. But Brainard refused, and without his support, Pauvy and Kizlingberry dropped their mutiny attempt. They remained bitter and distrustful of Greeley, but knew any attempt to remove him from his command would fail if they didn't have the enlisted men behind them. Luckily for them, Greeley ultimately decided that drifting on an ice floe was too dangerous. So for the next week, the men continued onward, fighting through the ice in their small boats. And on August 22nd, 1883, they crossed the halfway point between Fort Conger and Cape Sabine.

• 13:49Lindsay Graham?

  But only four days later, on August 26th, their progress ground to a halt again. The temperature plummeted, the water froze, and the ice closed in. Over the next two weeks, they only traveled 22 miles. And throughout all of this, Greeley overheard Kizlingberry complaining about his leadership to some of the enlisted men. True to form, Greeley reprimanded Kizlingberry for undermining his authority. But the criticism also hit home. After some reflection, Greeley admitted to himself that in leading an expedition over water, he was out of his element and had made some questionable decisions. So he called the expedition officers for a meeting, including Brainard and Dr. Pauvy, but not Kizlingberry,

• 14:31Lindsay Graham?

  who remained stripped of his command after resigning his post two years earlier. In the meeting, Greeley acknowledged that he'd made mistakes, but said he wanted to move forward as a unified group. He asked each man for their opinion on how to proceed and listened to their ideas. So for the first time in a long while, the other officers felt valued and morale improved. So on September 9th, a month after leaving their fort, the expedition's officers decided together that they needed to abandon the steam launch. Not only was there a mechanical issue with the engine, they were running short of fuel. Instead, they would convert the other lighter boats into sleds and haul them the rest of the way across the ice on foot.

• 15:12Lindsay Graham?

  With all their supplies and scientific records they had collected over two years at Fort Conger, the 25 men would have to move roughly 6,500 pounds across the frozen sea. It was slow going as they dragged the heavy boats behind them, and the first day, they barely made it two miles. Then on September 15th, as they were crossing a drifting floe that was not connected to land, the wind suddenly picked up. There was a roar, and before they knew it, the floe began to surge north in the wrong direction. For the next two weeks, they were at the mercy of the wind, cut off from land. The direction of the floe they were on was erratic. Sometimes it drifted north, then shifted back to drifting south.

• 15:54Lindsay Graham?

  And the force of the water and the wind caused the floe to break into smaller and smaller pieces. Eventually, the floe became so small that it was barely enough room to stand outside of their boats. But when dawn broke on September 29th, the winds had finally stopped. The floe now butted up against a grounded iceberg, and to their amazement, they saw two lanes of water leading to the shore of Elsmer Island. This was their chance to get off the floe and onto land. So all day, they worked to ferry their supplies to shore. That evening, they took stock. One-third of the men were sick, suffering from frostbite, dysentery, and other ailments. Cross, the engineer, had broken into the stash of rum and was drunk again. But no one cared.

• 16:38Lindsay Graham?

  Everyone was ecstatic that they were on dry land. Greeley estimated that they had overshot Cape Sabine and probably landed about 20 to 30 miles to its south. And after nearly two weeks of being blown this way and that on the ice floe, they still hadn't seen any sign of a relief ship. Reality of the situation sank in. The long polar night was less than a month away. It seemed unlikely that any relief ships were still nearby, and that meant they would be stranded for another winter with no shelter and dwindling supplies. Even the most optimistic of the men knew that their chances of survival were slim.

• 17:19Speaker 03

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• 18:04Speaker 03

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• 18:20Speaker 04

  Hi, I'm Kenya Paris.

• 18:21Speaker 05

  And I'm Malcolm Gladwell. We're back for season two of our Audible original podcast, The Unusual Suspects.

• 18:27Speaker 04

  We'll sit down with extraordinary guests from the worlds of art, film, literature, comedy, and wellness to hear from their unexpected stories of success.

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• 19:14Lindsay Graham?

  By October 1st, 1883, Lieutenant Adolphus Greeley and his 24 men were stranded in the Arctic. Their supplies were dwindling, and they were facing the approaching darkness and frigid temperatures of a third polar night. After 51 days of travel, they were roughly 270 miles south of Fort Conger where they had started. The relief ship they had been so desperate to reach was nowhere in sight, and they had no sturdy shelter and only 35 days' worth of rations. They knew from their previous two years of experience that in just a few short weeks, the sun would set and not rise again for nearly five months. The temperatures would drop to as low as negative 75 degrees, the wind would gust,

• 19:55Lindsay Graham?

  sometimes over 65 miles an hour, and the constant darkness would play tricks on their minds. But as the men huddled in the freezing wind, Greeley refused to give in to pessimism. He was determined to do everything in his power to ensure his men's survival. So first, he cut the men's rations by half, hoping it would stretch their limited food supply to 50 days. Next, he dispatched Jens Edward and Sergeant George Rice to make the 20-mile trek north to Cape Sabine to see if the relief ships had left any caches of supplies there. He also sent a team of hunters to search for any game on land or sea so they could add to their limited food supply. They found that most of the animals had retreated south for the winter, but still managed

• 20:37Lindsay Graham?

  to kill a walrus and a seal, which buoyed the men's spirits. The rest of the men labored on shore to build rock huts in an area sheltered from the wind by a glacier wall. Greeley worked alongside his men, digging rocks from the ground until his hands were bloody. The men insulated the huts with ice, inspired by Inuit homes they had seen. They used their boats as roofs for the structures and carpeted the ground inside with moss and lichen for additional insulation. Then, on October 9th, Edward and Rice returned from their trek to Cape Sabine. The two men were exhausted from their journey, their beards crusted with ice and their lips cracked and bloody, but they were wearing brand-new boots and new seal-skin clothing. The men excitedly gathered around to hear what they'd discovered.

• 21:23Lindsay Graham?

  Rice handed two letters to Greeley. One was from the leader of the first relief mission in 1882, William Beebe. The other was from the leader of the second relief mission, Lieutenant Ernest Garlandton, written only a few months earlier, in July 1883. Greeley read both letters out loud to the men. They learned that for unexplained reasons, the first relief ship had left far fewer rations than Greeley had instructed. But there were 240 rations not far from Cape Sabine, and another 250 rations on Littleton Island on the Greenland side of the Channel. And from Garlandton's letter, they learned that the Proteus, the same ship that had taken them to the Arctic over two years ago, had been commissioned as a relief ship this past spring, but had been crushed in the ice and sank, taking with it almost all of

• 22:08Lindsay Graham?

  the supplies earmarked for them. So only 500 rations of bread, some tea, sleeping bags, and canned goods remained on Cape Sabine. The second note mentioned that a support ship called the Yantik had been ordered to make it to Littleton Island but not to enter the ice pack. No promise that everything would be done to send another rescue ship as soon as possible. But Greeley knew their situation had never been more dire. A long, hard winter awaited them, and without the food and supplies they needed, some of his men would probably die. So Greeley determined that their best chance of survival was for the full company to relocate to Cape Sabine. Although they were smaller than expected, the caches there would be too heavy to move,

• 22:51Lindsay Graham?

  and if a rescue ship did come next year, it would head for Cape Sabine. It might miss them if they remained where they were. So Greeley ordered his men to leave behind the stone huts they'd spent so much time building and move north to Cape Sabine. On October 16th, 1883, after a long journey hauling all of their gear, including the crates full of their scientific records, they arrived at their destination. The men hurried to build a shelter. This time, instead of separate huts, they built one large rectangular building measuring 25 feet long by 18 feet wide. They created ceiling rafters out of oars and poles, and then turned one of their whaling boats upside down and lifted it on top. They covered that with their canvas sails to form the roof.

• 23:36Lindsay Graham?

  When they were done, Greeley dubbed their new home Camp Clay after another supporter of the expedition back home. Teams of men gathered the supplies from the caches. Greeley gave Lockwood a special assignment: to stash their crates of scientific records in a rock cairn. That way, no matter what happened to the men, the data they had worked for two years to collect would be preserved. Then, on October 25th, nine days after they arrived on Cape Sabine, the sun sank below the horizon, plunging their world into darkness. The polar night had begun, and the men hunkered down for their third Arctic winter. They ate minimal rations and did their best to preserve fuel. Now their hope for survival was that the Channel would freeze over enough for them

• 24:19Lindsay Graham?

  to cross to Littleton Island, where more caches of supplies were stashed. And if that wasn't possible, they would have to wait until a rescue ship could make it through the ice the following summer. But back in Washington, DC, efforts to organize another relief mission were hitting a roadblock. The men who had been aboard the Proteus when it sank had finally managed to meet up with the Yantik on August 31st, 1883, in Greenland. Miraculously, not a single member of the Proteus crew had died, and they all returned to the US in early October. But their failure to reach Greeley was considered a black mark on the Army. A congressional inquiry was launched into what had gone wrong. And for Secretary of War Robert Todd Lincoln, who had long believed that Arctic exploration

• 25:02Lindsay Graham?

  was a waste of time and money, this was the final straw. He wasn't sure it was worth sending another relief mission for Greeley's crew, and he commented that he didn't want to spend any more resources on already-dead men. But when word of Lincoln's attitude reached Greeley's wife Henrietta, she was furious. She was determined that the government not give up on her husband and his men. It was their duty to send a rescue ship. But by this time, she was living in her hometown of San Diego, California, taking care of her elderly father. Being so far away from the capital, she felt limited in her ability to push Secretary Lincoln into action. Still, she knew that there was someone she could turn to for advice.

• 25:45Lindsay Graham?

  Imagine it's October 1883 in San Diego, California. You're standing on the doorstep of a large Victorian home with a wraparound porch. The sun beats down on you, and as you fan yourself with your hand, you remind yourself to be grateful. Your husband is in the freezing cold of the Arctic right now, and he would give an arm and a leg to feel this warmth. The door opens, and a maid leads you into a spacious living room. Your old friend Douglas Gunn is relaxing on the couch. You've known him since you were a child. He owns the local newspaper and is one of the most politically savvy people you know. He leaps up when you enter and kisses you on the hand. Oh, so good to see you, my dear. It's been too long. How are you? How's your father? He's well, for the moment. Thank you for asking. I'm so glad to hear that. What can I do for you?

• 26:30Lindsay Graham?

  Well, I'm here to ask for your advice. As I'm sure you know, my husband has been in the Arctic for over two years now. Two different relief ships have failed to reach him, and now I'm hearing the government doesn't want to send a third. But it's their moral duty to do so. I'm outraged that they would even consider leaving them there to die. I'm sorry, I'm getting emotional. Well, no need to apologize. Please, you have every right to be upset. But how can I convince Secretary Lincoln and President Arthur to do the right thing? I feel so powerless. If I weren't all the way across the country, I'd march into their offices myself. In fact, that might be my only recourse. Return to Washington and make my case. But to leave my ailing father, it's... No, no, no, no. I don't think a cross-country journey is the best use of your time.

• 27:16Lindsay Graham?

  I have another suggestion. What's that? Well, for starters, you still have plenty of friends in Washington. Write to them and ask them to help you make your case. As you know, military and political wives can exert a lot of influence behind the scenes. I can do that. In fact, I can pick up a few ladies already who I'm sure I could rely on. And then there's me. I've got the power of the press, you know. I'll have my paper publish columns demanding that the government rescue the expedition. And I'll push other newspapers, including the ones in Washington, to do the same. If Lincoln's worried about bad press, then we'll give him some. You would do that? Of course I would. We'll make it impossible for Lincoln to forsake your husband.

• 27:57Lindsay Graham?

  You find yourself fighting back tears. You're so grateful to have an ally in this fight. You just hope that it's enough, though. The idea of your husband freezing and starving in an icy wasteland haunts your dreams, so you need to get him home.

• 28:14Lindsay Graham?

  Throughout the fall of 1883, Henrietta Greeley did everything she could to bring attention to the plight of her husband and his crew. She relentlessly pushed Secretary Lincoln and President Chester A. Arthur to organize a rescue mission. She spent her days writing letters and telegrams to every politically connected person she knew. And in addition to her efforts, her longtime family friend Douglas Gunn, owner of the San Diego Tribune, published articles calling for the expedition to be rescued. Soon, other newspapers around the country rallied to the cause too. So Henrietta urged the family members of the other men on the expedition to have hope, insisting there was good reason to believe the men were still alive and could be rescued.

• 28:54Lindsay Graham?

  And indeed, finally, in mid-December 1883, President Arthur heeded the call and convened a board to plan a rescue mission. They determined the expedition would launch no later than May 1st, 1884. But up at Camp Clay, 800 miles north of the Arctic Circle, Greeley and his men hunkered down in their hut made of ice and stone. They were living on significantly reduced rations. Hunger drove some of the men to gobble up moldy dog biscuits. They barely had enough water. Fresh water was frozen solid, and they only had enough fuel to melt some twice a day. So in early November, a team of three men ventured out into the bitter weather to search for another cache of food they hoped might be left over from an expedition in the 1870s. But it was a disaster.

• 29:39Lindsay Graham?

  One of the men nearly froze to death, and back at Camp Clay, the man became delirious with pain as his extremities turned black from frostbite. By January, several of his fingers and both his feet had fallen off. The other men weren't much better. At night, all they could talk about was food. Lieutenant James Lockwood, Greeley's second-in-command, began speaking gibberish. And on January 18th, 1884, Sergeant William Cross, who had enraged Greeley by getting drunk and drowning their steamboat, died of starvation and scurvy. After two and a half years in the Arctic, he was the expedition's first death. And all the men knew it wouldn't be its last. The only question now was whether any of them would survive at all.

• 30:30Speaker 01

  I wondered why the Mini is so small.

• 30:32Speaker 06

  The Skir or the Magnum?

• 30:35Speaker 01

  Well, I meant the iconic British car because in 1956, Britain's oil supply was suddenly cut off. Petrol rationing was brought in and the car industry was scrambling around for a vehicle that hardly used any fuel. Enter the Mini.

• 30:49Speaker 06

  Interesting, but actually not technically British Scandal series material.

• 30:53Speaker 01

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• 30:59Speaker 06

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  And I'm Alice Levine.

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  This is the story of the Suez Plot.

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  Follow British Scandal wherever you get your podcasts or listen early and ad-free on Audible.

• 31:29Lindsay Graham?

  By 1779, Benedict Arnold had sacrificed more for the revolution than almost any other man in America. One of George Washington's most effective commanders, he had nearly lost a leg in the Second Battle of Saratoga. But in return, Arnold believed he had been humiliated by Congress and cheated of his glory by lesser men, so he decided to make them pay. Hi, I'm Lindsay Graham, the host of the podcast American Scandal. We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in US history: presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, Benedict Arnold turns his back on his comrades in the Continental Army and secretly defects to the British. With the help of his wife, he plots to hand over the most important colonial fortress

• 32:13Lindsay Graham?

  to the enemy and doom the revolution he once served. Follow American Scandal wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge all episodes of American Scandal early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts.

• 32:35Lindsay Graham?

  In January 1884, the remaining men of the Greeley expedition buried Sergeant William Cross in a gunny sack near their camp. Lieutenant Adolphus Greeley and Dr. Octav Pavy had agreed not to tell the men that he had starved to death. It would be too demoralising. Instead, they told them that Cross died from a heart condition. But the men likely knew the real cause of death. They could feel themselves wasting away. They were existing on just 12 ounces of food a day, and the atmosphere inside their shelter was surreal. One man continually challenged his crewmates to go outside and fight. Another wouldn't leave his sleeping bag. Several were hallucinating or experiencing paranoid delusions.

• 33:15Lindsay Graham?

  So on February 1st, 1884, Sergeant George Rice and Jens Edward tried to cross the channel that separated them from Littleton Island, where relief ships had left another cache of food. But to their dismay, they were blocked by open water teeming with icebergs. The ice pack was not solid enough for them to cross the sound on foot, and they had to use their boats to reinforce their shelter. So the food they desperately needed was just 23 miles away, but they had no way of reaching it. Sergeant David Brainerd calculated that with their reduced rations, they could hold out until April 1st, but that was still far too early in the year for a rescue ship to make it through the ice pack. And when April came, it brought more deaths, as Sergeant Brainerd had predicted.

• 33:59Lindsay Graham?

  On April 5th, two men succumbed to starvation. Four days later, a third man died, Greeley's second-in-command Lieutenant James Lockwood. On April 29th, Jens Edward drowned while hunting a seal. With him, the expedition lost its best rifle. So it seemed almost certain that the entire expedition would soon perish, but relief was finally on the way. By May 1st, two rescue ships had departed New York and were en route to the Arctic. And to Henrietta Greeley's relief, the rescue operation was now under the command of the Navy. They were much more experienced with Arctic expeditions than the Army, but they still faced a long and dangerous journey to Cape Sabine. Meanwhile, Greeley and his remaining men tried desperately to hang on.

• 34:44Lindsay Graham?

  The roof of their hut had rotted and now leaked. Eventually, they abandoned it and set up one of their old tents a few hundred yards away on a hill. It was there that they finished the last of the official rations on May 16th. At times, some of the men were able to shoot a bird, but for the most part, they survived on tiny shrimp they caught, insects and lichen they scraped from rocks. They also resorted to consuming items like candle wax, boots, and even bird droppings. But there wasn't enough calories to sustain them, and throughout the spring, several more members of the party died, including Lieutenant Frederick Kislingberry. By June 1st, only 14 of the original 25 men were still alive.

• 35:26Lindsay Graham?

  Making matters worse, for months, the men had suspected someone of stealing food, and on June 5th, they caught Private Charles Henry stealing shrimp. Greeley wrote up a decree: The next person caught stealing would be executed. But the very next day, Henry was caught stealing shrimp again. Greeley ordered three of the men, including Sergeant Brainerd, to carry out the execution. The men drew lots to determine who would be responsible for shooting Henry, but they vowed to never reveal who pulled the trigger. On June 6th, 1884, Private Charles Henry died from a bullet wound to the chest. Dr. Octav Pavy died the next day. But then it was late enough in the year that Greeley dared to hope that a rescue ship might soon arrive.

• 36:09Lindsay Graham?

  But more weeks passed, and by the summer solstice on June 21st, 1884, there was still no sign of a ship, and only seven members of Greeley's party were still alive. At the beginning of June, Greeley had written his last letter to his wife Henrietta and his daughters. He told his family that he awaited his grave. Before long, he was so weak, he couldn't even hold a pencil, and he was starting to worry he was losing his mind, hearing things that couldn't possibly be real.

• 36:40Lindsay Graham?

  Imagine it's June 22nd, 1884, and you're lying in a tent on Cape Sabine off Elsmere Island. You're the expedition leader, but you're hungry and weak. You can barely keep your eyes open. You hear a low moaning sound in the distance. Your breath catches because it can't be. You roll your head to your side where Sergeant David Brainerd lies. You hear that? Hear what? That, that, that, doesn't that sound like a ship's whistle? Well, I hear the wind. Fear creeps through you. So many of your men suffered from delirium right before they died, perhaps this means your own death is close at hand. But then you hear it again, and it sounds so real. You turn back to Brainerd. Are you strong enough to make it to the ridge? See if there is a ship nearby?

• 37:25Lindsay Graham?

  I'm telling you, sir, there's no ship. There'll never be a ship. It's just a wind. But what if there is? I'd go myself, but I'm too weak to stand. If you're physically capable, I'm ordering you to investigate. Take Private Long with you. Brainerd grunts in acknowledgement, and then he and Private Long drag themselves through the tent and make their way outside. You're not sure how long you lie there, waiting for them to return, because you've lost all sense of time. But finally, the tent opens, and Brainerd stumbles back in, and pushes himself onto your elbows, your vision swimming. What'd you find? Is there a ship? No. We made it to the ridge, but we saw nothing but ice. I did find some tin cans outside. The wind was whistling over them. Oh, yes, that must be what I heard.

• 38:11Lindsay Graham?

  Um, where's Long? Well, he saw our distress flag had fallen down. He went to re-raise it.

• 38:19Lindsay Graham?

  You nod and close your eyes as disappointment washes over you. It sounded so much like a ship whistle. You feel yourself losing consciousness, but just before everything goes black, you hear what sounds like someone calling your name. This time, you have no doubt. It is a hallucination. You have a feeling the end is here and that you'll never wake up again.

• 38:42Lindsay Graham?

  On June 22nd, 1884, at around 8:00 PM, Lieutenant John Cowell of the United States Navy was sailing a steam launch along the shores of Cape Sabine. He had piloted it over from the Bear, one of the two Navy vessels dispatched to rescue Greeley and his men. From his boat, he spotted someone swinging a tattered distress flag. Cowell got as close to shore as he could, and he and his crew disembarked. They rushed up the ridge where they found an emaciated man with matted hair who identified himself as Private Francis Long, a member of Greeley's expedition. So Cowell left his crew to help Long back to the boat and charged off to find the rest of Greeley's men. When he discovered their tent, he sliced open one of the walls, and what he found horrified him.

• 39:27Lindsay Graham?

  By the entrance, there was a corpse, and another man with no hands or feet sat staring back at him. Cowell yelled out for Greeley, and a man with round spectacles stumbled to his knees. He confirmed he was Adolphus Greeley, but he was clear that speaking took great effort. Nevertheless, he explained that there were only seven survivors, but they had done what they had set out to do. They had beat the record, reached the most northern point on the globe, and then he collapsed, unable to continue. Cowell and doctors from the ship fed Greeley and his men small amounts of nutrient-dense food for hours. Crews then worked to retrieve the scientific records Greeley and his team had so painstakingly collected. Then they gathered and loaded the bodies of those who died, so that their families back

• 40:11Lindsay Graham?

  home could give them a proper burial. When Greeley and the other survivors were strong enough, they boarded the rescue ships and departed, so that on August 1st, 1884, the ship carrying Greeley and his remaining men arrived in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. There were now only six survivors. Corporal Joseph Ellison, who had suffered severe frostbite and lost both his feet and several fingers, had died on the passage back. But those who made it back alive were treated like heroes. A parade was held in Portsmouth in their honor, and their record for reaching the farthest northern point was heralded around the world. But soon, rumors began to circulate that Greeley and his men had engaged in cannibalism. Newspapers ran with the story, offering up salacious headlines.

• 40:56Lindsay Graham?

  And on August 14th, 1884, Lieutenant Frederick Kislingberry's family authorized a journalist to exhume his body and look for evidence of mutilation. The physicians who examined his corpse gave a sworn statement that it looked like his flesh had been cut away with a sharp object. The other bodies were then exhumed, and six of them showed signs of similar wounds. Greeley adamantly denied any knowledge of cannibalism, and after a while, the uproar subsided, and the press moved on to other stories. What appalled was cast over the expedition, overshadowing their true achievement, the meticulous collection of data about the weather and climate of the Arctic. And it was in 1888, four years after he returned home, that Greeley presented a two-volume,

• 41:40Lindsay Graham?

  1,300-page report on the mission, including all the data he and his men collected, as well as awe-inspiring photos and detailed renditions of the explorations they had completed. The information in his report set the standard for Arctic research for years to come. Greeley remained with the army for the rest of his career, eventually reaching the rank of Major General, and he and Henrietta went on to have four more children, bringing their total to six. The drive to reach the North Pole would grip explorers for decades to come. In 1909, American explorer Robert Peary claimed to be the first person to reach it, but his account is not confirmed. In 1926, Norwegian adventurer Roald Almensen finally managed to reach the top of the world by airship.

• 42:25Lindsay Graham?

  Although Adolphus Greeley failed to avoid the tragedies that befell so many other Arctic expeditions, his team's contribution to science had a lasting impact. Researchers today still rely on the data Greeley and his men collected as a way to measure how much the Arctic climate, thus the Earth's climate, has changed over the last 140 years. From Audible Originals, this is the last episode of our three-part series on the Greeley-Arctic Expedition from American History Tellers. In the next episode, I speak with Buddy Levy, bestselling author of Labyrinth of Ice: The Triumphant and Tragic Greeley Polar Expedition. We'll discuss the planning behind the expedition and the series of disastrous decisions that

• 43:04Lindsay Graham?

  turned a scientific mission into one of the most harrowing tales in polar history. American History Tellers is only possible because of listeners like you, so thank you. And don't miss an episode. Be sure to follow American History Tellers on Audible or wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can binge new seasons of American History Tellers early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts. And to find out more about me, including my other podcasts, my live show, the history tours I'm arranging, and all sorts of other things, go to historyishuman.com. That's historyishuman.com.

• 43:47Lindsay Graham?

  If you'd like to learn more about the Greeley expedition, we recommend Labyrinth of Ice by Buddy Levy, The Arctic Grail by Pierre Burden, and Ghosts of Cape Sabine by Leonard F. Gutridge. American History Tellers is produced by Audible and hosted, edited, and produced by me, Lindsay Graham for Airship. This episode is written by Austin Rackless, edited by Dorian Marina, senior producers Alida Rosansky and Andy Herman, managing producer Desi Blalock, fact-checking by Alyssa Jung Perry, audio editing by Mohamed Shazim, music by Throm, sound design by Molly Bach, executive producer for Audible Jenny Lauer Beckman, head of creative development at Audible Kate Navin, head of Audible Originals North America Marshall Louie, chief content officer Rachel Giatza. Copyright 2026 by Audible Originals LLC.

• 44:31Lindsay Graham?

  Sound recording copyright 2026 by Audible Originals LLC.

• 44:53Speaker 07

  You stepped out for your morning jog, except it's not your usual morning jog. You started listening to an epic sci-fi book on Audible. Thirty chapters later, you've accidentally run a half marathon. You've lost track of how far you've run, somewhere just past the city limits. You can't stop. You have to find out what happens next. Then it's over. The universe seems bigger. You feel different. You feel like you have no idea where you are. Audible: Stories that speak to you.