Feb. 28, 1844—An explosion on the inaugural cruise of the USS Princeton on the Potomac River killed six
people (including two Cabinet members) and injured 20; unsettled American attempts at acquiring
Texas at a critical juncture; threw a monkey wrench into the use of innovative
military weaponry; and landed widowed President John Tyler (pictured) a new, young wife.
The accident came at a critical juncture for the
administration. Tyler, having become the first Vice-President to gain the
Presidency because of the death of the incumbent (William Henry Harrison), was
watching his slim hopes for winning his own term slip away.
Like Andrew Johnson
two decades later, he was a disaffected Democrat rather than a full-fledged
member of the winning party (in this case, the Whigs) to which his predecessor
belonged. He was, in effect, a man without a party, abandoned by all but one of
the original Whig Cabinet members.
That one, Daniel Webster, was now leaving after
having negotiated a treaty with Great Britain. But tensions with the British
Empire remained in place because of a dispute over ownership of the Pacific
Northwest, as well as lingering bad memories of the War of 1812.
The Princeton was designed to be a
confidence-boosting measure aimed at the greatest navy in the world: a fast, steam-driven
warship sporting the biggest gun ever mounted on a vessel to that point.
Commander Robert Field Stockton, having deafened the ears of those aboard by demonstrating
the new weapon, decided to fire the ironically named "Peacemaker" gun again for a salute to George Washington
as the ship passed the late President’s home, Mount Vernon.
Nobody knows if Stockton poured a bit more into the charge or if the crew did so on its own. But as the charge ignited, flames, heat and shrapnel burst in unexpected directions.
Nobody knows if Stockton poured a bit more into the charge or if the crew did so on its own. But as the charge ignited, flames, heat and shrapnel burst in unexpected directions.
Secretary of State Abel Parker Upshur and his just-installed successor at the Naval Department, Thomas Gilmer, died in the accident (with Gilmer gruesomely decapitated), while
Tyler himself—climbing up a ladder to witness the charge—avoided following his
predecessor into eternity before his full term in office was finished.
Among the other dead was former New York state Sen.
David Gardiner, whose 24-year-old daughter, Julia, had previously been wooed in
vain by Tyler. But Tyler’s swift action in the crisis—carrying Julia off in his
arms when she fainted, away from the death and destruction—so impressed her
that she finally yielded to his blandishments and agreed to marry him.
The nickname applied to George Washington—“Father of
His Country”—is true only in a metaphorical sense. The nation’s first President
produced no offspring. In a more literal sense, the nickname applied more
directly to Tyler, who fathered 15 children, seven with Julia after the couple
returned to his Virginia home once his term was over.
Other results of the accident were not so happy. John
C. Calhoun of South Carolina ended up with the State Department portfolio upon
Upshur’s death.
But, as H.W. Brands recounts in Heirs of the Founders: The Epic Rivalry of Henry Clay, John Calhoun and Daniel Webster, the Second Generation of American Giants, the appointment
came not at the wish of Tyler but through the manipulation of the President’s
friend, Sen. Henry Wise of Virginia, who misleadingly told Calhoun that if he
went to the White House, Tyler would be ready to name him to the post.
The appointment vastly complicated Tyler’s attempt
to annex Texas before leaving office. Once in office, Calhoun’s scolding of
Great Britain for advocating abolitionism abroad enraged Thomas Hart Benton. The influential Missouri Senator, who had been
carefully wooed to the cause by Upshur, now saw the land transaction as a
stalking horse for introducing slavery into American territories, a movement
that he (correctly) feared could splinter the Union.
The annexation treaty with Texas made it through the
House but, through Benton’s fulminations, stalled in the Senate. It would take
the support of incoming President James Knox Polk, and a joint resolution of
Congress to bring the vast territory into the Union.
As for Stockton: Though anxious to hog credit for
the Princeton when it looked like it
would bring about his dream of a steam-driven navy, he couldn’t divert blame
for it fast enough after the accident. John Ericsson, the inventor he had
persuaded to emigrate from Sweden to work on the project, was exonerated in the
post-accident inquiry, but Stockton ensured that he would not be paid by the
government for his patents and his supervision of the shipbuilding. It would
take his design of the Civil War ironclad Monitor
before Ericsson’s genius was adequately celebrated.
