Bitter Waters: America’s Forgotten Naval Mission to the Dead Sea

325 Pages·2011·3.85 MB·English

by  David Haward Bain

ALSO BY DAVID HAWARD BAIN
The Old Iron Road
Empire Express
Whose Woods These Are
Sitting in Darkness
Aftershocks
The College on the Hill

Copyright
First published in hardcover in the United States in 2011 by The Overlook Press,
Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc.
141 Wooster Street
New York, NY 10012
www.overlookpress.com
For bulk and special sales, please contact [email protected]
Copyright © 2011 by David Haward Bain All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now
known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher,
except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a
review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.
PICTURE CREDITS
Title page: facing map of the Dead Sea from Harper’s Magazine,
January 1855 (Author collection).
With the exception of illustrations credited in captions, all others presented
here are from the 1849 edition of Lynch’s Narrative (Author collection).
ISBN: 978-1-59020-997-4
For Ellen Levine
for decades of friendship
and counsel
Contents
ALSO BY DAVID HAWARD BAIN
Copyright
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION
PRELUDE: ACRE, PALESTINE
PART ONE
ONE From Virginia to Heartache
TWO Lighthouses in the Sky
THREE Ambition Within the Ashes
FOUR New York to Palestine
PART TWO
FIVE Mediterranean to Galilee
SIX The Descent of the Jordan to the Ford of Sek’a
SEVEN The Descent of the Jordan Past Jericho
PART THREE
EIGHT The Western Shore to Engedi
NINE Looking Backward at a Pillar of Salt
TEN Exploring the Fortress of Masada
ELEVEN The Eastern Shore of Moab
TWELVE From the River Zerka to Ain Feshka
PART FOUR
THIRTEEN From Mar Saba and Jerusalem to the Jordan’s Source
FOURTEEN Aftermath: 1848–1865
NOTES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX
List of Illustrations
Dead Sea Map
Matthew Fontaine Maury, USN. (Library of Congress)
William Francis Lynch, USN, CSN. (Museum of the Confederacy)
John Young Mason, Secretary of the Navy. (Library of Congress)
Palestine at the time of the Lynch Expedition, as published in the competing
journal by Edward P. Montague, 1852. (Author collection)
USS Supply, commissioned in 1846 and in service during the Mexican War,
transported the Lynch Expedition to the Holy Land.
Henry Bedlow, from a portrait taken late in life, decades after serving as a medic
and poet in residence with the Lynch Expedition. (Author collection)
Henry James Anderson, longtime Columbia University professor and trustee,
was 49 when he served as physician and scientist on the Lynch Expedition.
(Author collection)
Near Acre at the mouth of the Belus River on the Mediterranean, the Americans
erected two tents and hoisted the flag.
’Akil Aga el Hasseé, “a great border sheikh of the Arabs.”
Sherif Hazza of Mecca, thirty-third lineal descendent of the Prophet.
Caissons drawn by camels bore the Supply’s metal lifeboats from the sea to
Tiberias.
Tiberias, on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee.
The explorers’ camp at the ruined bridge of Semakh, on the Jordan.
The two lifeboats rowing down the Jordan. “The character of the whole scene of
this dreary waste,” wrote Lynch, “was wild and impressive.”
Gatefold map showing the sinuous Jordan River, as published by Lynch.
From a sketch made below the ford of Seka: Sherif Masa’ad, Emir Nassir, and
the sheikh of the Beni Suk’r.
View of pilgrims at the baptismal site on the Jordan, considerably more sedate
than the wild tumult that almost trampled the explorers.
Northwest shore of the Dead Sea, after a sketch by Lieutenant Dale.
Dead Sea Map, 1848.
The camp at Engedi, western shore.
Masada was much as it appeared to Dale and Bedlow when it was photographed
several decades later. (Matson Collection, Library of Congress)
Fanciful view of “the Pillar of Salt,” a natural formation on the southern shore of
Usdum.
Mustafa, the Arab cook hired at Beirut. Note the Americans’ mounted
blunderbuss, their heaviest weaponry.
Ancient Hebrew fortress of Masada, from Lieutenant Dale’s sketch, showing the
explorers’ boats with sails raised.
Warrior of the Ta’amirah tribe, guides of the southwestern shore.
Lisan, the Dead Sea Peninsula on the eastern shore, several decades after the
expedition. (Matson Collection, Library of Congress)
Jum’ah, of the tribe El Hasseé, accompanied the explorers.
Abd’ Allah, the Christian sheikh of Mezra’a, “mild even to meekness.”
Three of the Christian Arabs at the Kerak fortress above the eastern shore.
Kerak, the Crusader Castle in Moab, as photographed decades after the Lynch
party’s visit. (Matson Collection, Library of Congress)
Wady Mojeb, the River Arnon of the Old Testament, from Dale’s sketch.
At the Mar Saba convent, the Greek Archbishop posed for the Americans.
Decades after his adventure, Bedlow memorialized an Arab woman seen at
Judea, in his illustrated book of romantic poems.
Bedlow’s fancy, as imagined for his poems of Palestine.
Tomb of Absalom, near Jerusalem.
Tombs in the Valley of Jehosephat.
At Nazareth, a Greek Catholic priest posed for Dale’s sketchbook.
At a fountain in Nazareth, the pious Americans paid homage.
The source of the Jordan, sketched by Dale with Prince Ali in foreground.
Great Sheikh of the Anazée tribe.
Ruins of Ba’albek.
Acknowledgments
I AM INDEBTED TO MY LONGTIME AGENT AND FRIEND, ELLEN LEVINE, to whom this
book is warmly dedicated. Thanks, too, to her great staff. Deep thanks to Peter
Mayer of The Overlook Press; Aaron Schlechter, for his support and elegant
editing; Rob Crawford, for his skillful navigation through the publishing
process; Jennifer Rappaport, for her copyediting; all the others at The Overlook
Press.
My profound thanks to Eve Ness, extraordinary reader and editor, for her
professional and personal help, given most generously. Katherine and John
Duffy offered invaluable advice and support on yet another book by their son-in-
law, who will always be grateful for their careful reading; Mary Smyth Duffy,
who died before I began writing this book, was present as it was first envisioned
long ago and was its great champion; Mimi and David M. Bain buoyed me with
their enthusiasm and boundless curiosity; Lisa, Christopher, and Terry Bain read
various stages and were always supportive, as were Marc Santiago and the late
William Schwarz, brothers-in-law and faithful readers. Thanks, too, for the
support of my Middlebury College colleagues Brett Millier, James Ralph, Paul
Monod, Robert Schine, Ron Liebowitz, and John McCardell, as well as thumbs-
up from Christopher Shaw, Michael Collier, Robert Cohen, and Jay Parini, often
from nearby tables at Carol’s Hungry Mind Café, Middlebury, Vermont.
So many librarians, curators, directors, and staff helped me with the research
for this book, in large and small ways, that I fear I cannot list them individually,
but my gratitude goes out to the staffs of Davis Library at Middlebury College,