ition of
1882 visited by me and found in good condition. Cache on Littleton Island.
Boat at Isabella. U.S.S. 'Yantic' on way to Littleton Island with orders
not to enter the ice. I will endeavor to communicate with these vessels at
once.... Everything in the power of man will be done to rescue the
(Greely's) brave men."

This discovery changed Greely's plans again. It was hopeless to attempt
hauling the ten or twelve thousand pounds of material believed to be at
Cape Sabine, to the site of the winter camp, now almost done, so Greely
determined to desert that station and make for Cape Sabine, taking with
him all the provisions and material he could drag. In a few days his party
was again on the march across the frozen sea.

How inscrutable and imperative are the ways of fate! Looking backward now
on the pitiful story of the Greely party, we see that the second relief
expedition, intended to succor and to rescue these gallant men, was in
fact the cause of their overwhelming disaster--and this not wholly because
of errors committed in its direction, though they were many. When Greely
abandoned the station at Fort Conger, he could have pressed straight to
the southward without halt, and perhaps escaped with all his party--he
could, indeed, have started earlier in the summer, and made escape for all
certain. But he relied on the relief expedition, and held his ground until
the last possible moment. Even after reaching Cape Sabine he might have
taken to the boats and made his way southward to safety, for he says
himself that open water was in sight; but the cheering news brought by
Rice of a supply of provisions, and the promise left by Garlington, that
all that men could do would be done for his rescue, led him to halt his
journey at Cape Sabine, and go into winter quarters in the firm conviction
that already another vessel was on the way to aid him. He did not know
that Garlington had left but few provisions out of his great store, that
the "Yantic" had fled without landing an ounce of food, and that the
authorities at Washington had concluded that nothing more could be done
that season--although whalers frequently entered the waters where Greely
lay trapped, at a later date than that which saw the "Yantic's"
precipitate retreat. Had he known these things, he says himself, "I should
certainly have turned my back to Cape Sabine and starvation, to face a
possible death on the perilous voyage along shore to the southward."