(This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)
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Charles Edgar Clark was born on August 10, 1843 at Bradford, Vermont, United States. He was the son of James Dayton and Mary (Sexton) Clark, the latter being the daughter of Major Hiram Sexton of Vermont, an officer in the War of 1812. On the paternal side, Clark was descended from a prominent Massachusetts colonial family.
Charles graduated from the Naval Academy in 1863.
Clark made his first voyage on board the historic frigate Constitution, when the midshipmen were transferred from Annapolis to Newport in 1861. Under the stress of war, promotion came fast. Joining the Ossipee of Farragut’s fleet, Clark commanded the forward gun division of that vessel in the furious fight on August 5, 1864, with the powerful Confederate ironclad Tennessee and her consorts in Mobile Bay, resulting in her capture and the sealing up of the important port of Mobile. He also shared in the bombardment of Fort Morgan. In 1865 he was assigned to the steamer Vanderbilt of the Pacific Squadron, and in 1867 was transferred to the Suwanee, witnessing in her the bombardment of Valparaiso by the Spanish fleet and its defeat by the batteries at Callao. The Suwanee was wrecked July 7, 1868, near the northern extremity of Vancouver Island, and Clark was left in command of a party of rescued sailors on Hope Island until taken off by the steamer New World.
Between 1869 and the beginning of the Spanish-American War, he followed the usual routine of alternating periods of sea and land service. Promoted to commander, November 15, 1881, he commanded the steamship Ranger and was in charge of the survey of the west coast of Mexico and Central America from 1883 to 1886, and ten years later was at the head of a squadron of six war vessels and two revenue cutters, which cruised in Bering Sea to enforce the regulations agreed upon by the Paris Tribunal.
Promoted captain, June 21, 1896, he was assigned, a short time before the outbreak of the war with Spain, to the command of the battleship Oregon. In the expectation that war might break out at any moment, and in doubt regarding the strength of the Spanish naval resources, the Navy Department ordered the Oregon, then in the Pacific, to join the fleet in the Atlantic with all possible dispatch. In accordance with this, Clark left San Francisco on March 19, 1898, and on May 25 reported to Admiral Sampson off the coast of Florida after a voyage through Magellan Strait, his ship arriving in first-class condition and ready to go into battle immediately.
Joining the fleet of Admiral Sampson off Santiago de Cuba, the Oregon took part in the ensuing efficient blockade of that port, in which the cruisers of the Spanish Squadron under Admiral Cervera were contained. In the battle of July 3, in which the Spanish Squadron was annihilated, the Oregon’s part was noteworthy. In the pursuit of the fleeing Spanish cruisers along the coast she outstripped all her sister ships except the fast cruiser Brooklyn, overhauling and causing the beaching of the fleetest of the enemy’s ships, the Colon, after a successive exchange of fire with the other enemy cruisers, all of which felt the accuracy and power of her guns. Clark was highly commended by naval experts for the condition and the masterly handling of his ship, and, together with his fellow battleship commanders, was promoted five numbers in his grade.
On July 7, 1898, after the removal of the Spanish menace to the American coast, Clark, still in command of the Oregon, was appointed chief of staff to Commodore J. C. Watson, who was ordered to command a special squadron of the battleships Iowa (replaced by the Massachusetts) and Oregon, the auxiliaries Yosemite, Dixie, and Yankee, three colliers, and the flagship Newark. This Eastern Squadron, or “Flying Squadron, ” as it was popularly called, was to proceed to the coast of Spain for the purpose of compelling the fleet under Admiral Camara to abandon its voyage to the Philippines and to return to Spain, where it could be easily destroyed by the more powerful American force, and the war thus brought to a close. The Eastern Squadron, however, never put to sea, as the mere threat of its departure caused the return of Camara to Spain, where he remained in idleness until the close of the war.
In the autumn of 1898 Clark was granted leave of absence to regain his impaired health, but returned to active duty in March 1899, as commandant of the League Island Navy Yard, Philadelphia, afterward becoming governor of the Naval Home near that city. He was promoted rear admiral June 16, 1902 and retired for age August 10, 1905.
As “Clark of the Oregon, " Charles Edgar Clark became one of the best-known and most admired officers of the United States Navy. He was distinguished for his outstanding service in the Navy during the American Civil War and the Spanish–American War. His voyage through Magellan Strait was considered to have been a triumph of naval discipline, engineering, and planning.
(This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of th...)
On April 8, 1869, Clark was married to Marie Louise Davis, daughter of W. T. Davis of Greenfield, Massachusetts.
