Have you read
Fatal Passage: The Story of John Rae by Ken McGoogan? (Brief wiki account:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_Passage.) The author credits Rae with discovering the location of John Franklin's remains, and has a low opinion of McClure. From page 261: "McClure conceived a sinister plan to rid himself of his thirty sickest men..." [by sending them on death marches via two sledge parties]. He and his men were discovered instead by a party from the
Resolute. "McClure, who had abandoned the
Investigator under protest, and contrived to destroy most of the journals his officers had kept, later argued that sledging across the pack ice to the
Resolute constituted a 'completion' of the Northwest Passage."
No, I haven't read "Fatal Passage", but Rae gets quite a few pages in "The Arctic Grail".
There are also a number of comments on McClure's treatment of his men in "The Arctic Grail".
McClure appears to have been a man of extremes. Sometimes he took great risks, sometimes he was cautious. Sometimes he was very harsh on his men, sometimes he was kind to them. This was the British Navy (life on a British military ship was often very harsh).
He also was concerned with his place in history--he had found a link which completed the Northwest Passage, even if it wasn't practical and he was unable to sail it himself (due to ice). Rae later found a better variation.
Remember too, they were exploring the unknown in crushable wooden sailing ships in an unpredictable and dangerous area with very limited communications*, limited hope of rescue, and no idea of where the others were. (At one point, one of his sledging parties was within 60 miles of a sledging party from another ship.) Their decisions should be judged upon what they knew at the time of the decision, not what we know now**. Sometimes abandoning the weak means that some rather than none survive. In this case, McClure was overruled (getting the men from the
Investigator to the
Resolute took 17 days of sledging) and he ultimately lost only five men over the five years away from the UK--probably a good record even in good conditions.
* Communications consisted of leaving notes in cairns along the shore in the hopes that others would find them. It was noted in "The Arctic Grail" that had he left more notes, he would likely have been rescued sooner.
** He had taken some big risks with his ship and crew, but chose a safer harbor for his second winter. Had he chosen to spend the winter out in open (frozen) water, he likely would have been able to sail the passage and return in two years. Hindsight is cheap.
Doug
