1-149-650 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Charles Wilkes, American naval officer and explorer, 1872. Wilkes (1798-1877) led a US government expedition that explored the northwest coast of North America and part of the coast of Antarctica, later named Wilkes Land, and circumnavigated the globe. In 1861, as commander of the 'San Jacinto' during the American Civil War, he stopped the British mail steamer 'Trent'. This incident, the Trent affair, nearly involved the Union in a war with Britain. Wilkes was court-martialed in 1864. Engraving from John Gilmary Shea's A Child's History of the United States, Hess and McDavitt, (New York, 1872).