General Court-Martial Navy Department. Orders No. 41. Washington, June 12, 1888. Trial of Captain Thomas O. Selfridge, U.S. Navy USS Omaha on the Asiatic Station. Charge. "Neglect of duty"(Leading to loss of life)Target-shelling Ikeshima Island Japan
Washington, D.C. Navy Department, 1888. First Edition. Soft Cover. Very Good. Item #029749
11 pages. The court was convened under Rear Admiral James E. Jouett, U.S.N. The incident questioned took place while Selfridge was in command of the USS Omaha,"…then attached to and forming part of the United States Naval Force on the Asiatic Station…ordered the crew of said vessel to be exercised, on the fourth day of March, eighteen hundred and eighty-seven, in target practice with great guns…caused a target to be located and erected in waters adjacent to, and within about fifty years of, the island of Ike-sima (Ikeshima) Japan, and did proceed with said target practice…omitting to make application for such permission (of the Empire of Japan to do so)…in disregard of the requirements of the comity of nations…" The target practice ended in the deaths of several Japanese residents of the island, due to unexploded ordnance which had not been reclaimed by the Navy; the findings of the court-martial were disapproved and Selfridge was released from arrest. Captain Thomas O. Selfridge, Jr. USN (1836 - 1924) A long-serving Navy officer, whose "…career was in many ways emblematic of the U.S. Navy itself in the last half of the nineteenth century. Distinguishing himself during the Civil War on both land and water and serving both on blockade duty and in the "brown water navy" operating against the heart of the Confederacy, Selfridge took a prominent part in the first combat against an ironclad warship and survived the sinking of three of his own vessels. During his remaining thirty-three years in uniform after the war, he helped develop the weapons and supporting shore establishment pivotal to the American naval renaissance of the 1880s and 1890s. His memoirs remain one of the important sources for the U.S. Navy during this period." (Malcolm Muir In the ANB) Approx. 5" x 8"size; plain side-sewn cream paper self-covers; in very good condition.
Price: $125.00