Fourth Copy of Voyage of the Destroyer Surfaces by William A. Strauss Towards the end of 1997 I was extremely fortunate enough to come upon a once in a lifetime find, an original copy of Joshua Slocum's "Voyage of the Destroyer from New York to Brazil." In December 1893, less than a year and a half prior to Joshua Slocum setting sail on his famous circumnavigation, Slocum had agreed to assist in the delivery to Brazil of the 130-foot iron gunboat Destroyer, an invention of the designer of the famous Civil War ironclad Monitor, John Ericsson. The unusual design of the "destroyer system" was that the vessel contained a means of launching a submarine torpedo. The Brazilian government purchased this in the United States in order to suppress an internal revolt. After being successfully towed to Brazil the Destroyer was turned over to Brazilian sailors. They very shortly after taking possession, proceeded to sink the ship in the middle of the harbor. Slocum never got paid for all his efforts. In March 1894, Slocum steamed back to the U.S. and to report his exploits Slocum wrote and then self- published for private circulation 500 copies of "Voyage of the Destroyer from New York to Brazil" that year. At the time Slocum was struggling financially and the book was published as a printed pictorial wrapper, comparable to a modern day paperback book. The quality of the paper used was not the highest and over time became very brittle. It was probably because of the poor quality paper used that so few copies of this book survived. In Victor Slocum's biography of his father published in 1950 he claims to know of only two copies and in Walter Teller's "The Voyages of Joshua Slocum," published in 1958, he reports on only three known copies of this book. According to Teller, two of these copies have additions and corrections in Slocum's hand. The first is the copy presented 8 August 1894 to the Commonwealth State Library, where at least at the time of publication of his book it still resided and could be viewed at the State House in Boston. The other was given "compts of the author" to a Boston man, Commodore John A. Stetson. Sold and resold several times, in 1958 it was in the possession of Walter Teller. A copy inscribed for M.S. Brown, United States consul at Sydney when Slocum called there in the Spray in October 1896, was subsequently acquired by Slocum's son, Victor, but some time after the Victor's death in 1949 it went to a dealer. I was attending an economic outlook conference at the University of Michigan in November and after the conference made my annual tour of the wonderful used book shops that surround the campus. One in particular that I love going to, West Side Book Shop, always has a large selection of nautical books. After having selecting roughly ten books off the stacks, mostly on single-handed voyagers, I proceeded to the counter to pay for them. The owner, Jay Platt, couldn't help but notice the strong connection between the books that I was buying and he said that he too enjoys reading about solo sailors. I shared with him how I have a pretty extensive collection from an autographed copy of Joshua Slocum's "Sailing Alone Around the World" to books by Chichester, Knox-Johnson, and Graham. It was after I made this statement that Platt mentioned attending a antiquarian book show in Boston the previous weekend and saw that a dealer had on display for sale a copy of "Voyage of the Destroyer." He knew the dealer's name was Steven Finer, but could not find either a telephone number or address for him. The next day when I returned home to Chicago, I did a web search on the dealer's name and located his telephone number from a posted list of book dealers who had done an Antiquarian Book Fair show in Los Angeles earlier in the year. I immediately called Steve and he said that he indeed had a copy of the book and described to me the condition of the book, which was entirely intact but the paper was brittle. Finer also said that there was a dedication and many corrections made throughout the book by Slocum. He read to me over the phone the handwritten dedication and endnote signed by Slocum. Finer indicated that he had purchased the book about six years ago from another book dealer, Ken Leach, who did not have a clue about where it came from. He said that he would mail me photocopies of several of the pages for my review. I realized that as soon as he told me that the book was dedicated to the Honorable G.G. Benedict that it did not match with the previously mentioned known three copies. This was in fact a fourth copy of "Voyage of the Destroyer" I then did a web search on G.G. Benedict and I found out that G.G. Benedict was in fact George Grenville Benedict and he had served as an officer with the 12th Vermont Infantry during the Civil War. Benedict fought at Gettysburg and was a recipient of the Medal of Honor following that battle. He then went on to write several books about the Civil War and the Vermont soldiers who fought in it. Most of these books were published by the Free Press Association. After receiving the photocopies of several pages of the book from Steve Finer I compared the handwriting with some of Slocum's handwritten remarks that are in books that I already had in my collection. The writing in the "Voyage of the Destroyer" photocopy were unquestionably written by the famous Captain. I contacted Steve Finer, and agreed to purchase this book. I received it shortly after that conversation and the book was in even better shape than I imagined. The next day after having received the book I drove to a book-restorer that I use. After explaining the history of the book, I told him that I wanted the best job of restoring the book without altering it in anyway. In particular a de-acidifier will be applied to the paper in order to make it not as brittle. In order to add to the public knowledge regarding this fourth copy of "Voyage of the Destroyer," I have attempted to replicate what Teller did in his previously mentioned book. Teller marked down all the handwritten dedication and margin notes from the two other copies that had margin notes. The following represents all of the handwritten remarks by Joshua Slocum on my copy. Most of the words were clearly legible. However there were a couple of words that I had to make an educated guess to the precise word being used. The pages noted are the page numbers from the original book. These numbers are followed by page numbers in parenthesis and this indicates the page number corresponding to Teller's book. The edition of Teller's book that I used is the special anniversary edition reissued 1995. The bold words indicate the actual words in the text of the book and the italicized words represent the handwritten notes of Slocum. On the page opposite the introduction Slocum wrote: To Honorable G. G. Benedict: The story of Destroyer voyage thrown off hurridly and when I was not quite over the feeling of outrage. Is not yet sent out to the public. One copy is in the Library of the Smithsonian Institution so the Secretary informs me in a note from Professor Langly I regret the misprints but the story is there. I hope some day to trim it up and see it illustrated. Joshua Slocum New York 20 Nov 1898 Top of Page 5 (172) above title "Voyage of the Destroyer" Slocum wrote: Should the editor of the Free Press care to make any notes or even to use the whole of this. There could be no objection. It is not even copyrighted J. Slocum Everyone was looking for good omen. Slocum inserted "a" between for and good. Bring plans of the fight Slocum struck out "of" and replaced with "for" The Count was a good judge of an hotel Slocum struck out "n" from "an" and added "brand-new sailor and a" There came too, I should not forget it, a young officer of the British Royal Marine Slocum struck out "the British" At the bottom of page 6 along bottom edge and then along the left edge of page 7 Slocum wrote: Geo A Burt the agent mortally offended the owners of Destroyer by putting all ornamental men in the ship ahead. This I insisted myself and was hated for it. But my good crew hung with better courage. The "Fighting Captain" got drunk, first-thing. Page 8 (174) Having been many years out of commission she got a great overhauling on paper Slocum struck out "on paper" Page 10 (176) December 10th, 11th, 12th, and 13th are days Slocum struck out "13th" and moved "and" between 11th and 12th Page 31 (190) all get rich. Many visitors came to see her Slocum changed period after rich to ":" and made the "M" on Many lower case. After FINIS on page 37 (195) Slocum wrote: When I returned to Brazil, later, in the Spray and inquired about a balance of wages due me from the Destroyer some $600 or more: The officer I addressed said "Captain so far as we are concerned we would give you the ship and if you care to accept it we will send an officer to show you where she is - I know very well where she was, as I have already said at the bottom of the sea J.S.