One hundred and twenty years ago on the eve of Washington’s Birthday, February 21, 1822, in the village of Red Hook, New York, about 20 miles north of Hyde Park, the home of President Roosevelt, Robert Wilson Shufeldt first disturbed the quiet country village with his lusty wails. Young Shufeldt was the son of George Adam Shufeldt, a prominent lawyer, and Mary Wilson, the sister of Commander Steven Bayard Wilson, U. S. Navy. The family, headed by George Shufeldt, came to America from Holland in 1710, during the great Palatinate emigration.
Robert Shufeldt graduated from college in Vermont and on May 11, 1839, was appointed midshipman in the Navy from New York State. His first service was on board the frigate United States of the Home Squadron for preliminary training, where after six months he was ordered to the Potomac of the Brazil Squadron. The years 1842 and 1843 were spent in the brig Bainbridge and the frigate Raritan and in August, 1844, he was ordered to attend the Naval School in Philadelphia, the year before the U. S. Naval Academy was founded. There he was promoted to Passed Midshipman and the following two years was attached to the Coast Survey. On October 16, 1847, he was married to Sara Hopkins Abercrombie, the daughter of a clergyman from Philadelphia. Between 1846 and 1850 he again served on the frigate United States, cruising off the coast of Africa, and on the sloop Marion of the Mediterranean Squadron. After his return to the United States, and upon the expiration of three months’ leave, he was ordered to the surveying schooner Morris, and was chief officer on the Atlantic, a mail steamer, and the Georgia from 1848 to 1851. He was commissioned Master in February, 1853, and Lieutenant the same year.
When he arrived home unexpectedly from Europe after a report had been received that he had been lost at sea from the Atlantic, a thanksgiving service was held in the village for his safe return. Although the Atlantic had called at Queenstown, Ireland, no one there had heard the report of her loss. Even if the report had reached Ireland there was no way of denying it quickly. The mails were slow and the Atlantic cable was not in operation, so his family suffered in ignorance of his safety. Lieutenant Shufeldt resigned from the Navy in February, 1856, and entered the service of the Collins Trans-Atlantic Packet Line where he was responsible for the building of its new ships. In 1860 he was engaged in an attempt to open a transit across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec to determine the possibility of either a transpacific railroad or a canal.
After completing the .Isthmian survey he again turned to the sea and at the commencement of the Civil War was in command of the steamer Quaker City plying between New York and New Orleans. He resigned to accept an appointment from President Lincoln as Consul General in Havana, Cuba, where he performed a most difficult task to the entire satisfaction of the State Department, with, “ability and tack.”1
In 1861, Captain Charles Wilkes of the U.S.S. San Jacinto, cruising off the coast of Cuba, was kept informed by the Consul General of the presence of Messrs. Mason and Slidell, the Confederate statesmen who had escaped through the Federal blockade and were waiting in Havana for a ship to take them to Europe. It was this information which enabled the San Jacinto to intercept the English packet Trent, from which Mason and Slidell were removed. During the occupation of Mexico by the French, Shufeldt was sent by President Lincoln on a secret and dangerous mission to Mexico and passed through the French lines to meet President Juarez. As the French troops were in Vera Cruz it required great discretion on his part to avoid them and reach Mexico City where he delivered President Lincoln’s message.
1National Cyclopedia of American Biography, Vol. IV, page 293.
Consul General Shufeldt resigned in April, 1863, and rejoined the Navy, being commissioned a Commander under date of November 19, 1862, one of the few people ever to hold a commission under two departments of the government at the same time. He was at first given command of the Fort Jackson, from which he was transferred to the Conemaugh of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. He was present at the capture of Morris Island and took part in naval operations off Charleston, South Carolina, and several attacks on Fort Wagner. Toward the end of the war he was senior naval officer present in joint Army and Navy operations at Saint Marks, Florida. Between 1864 and 1868 he was in command of the Proteus of the East Gulf Squadron, the flagship Hartford of the East India Squadron, and finally the Wachusetts in Asiatic waters. It was on this last assignment that he gained such an insight into Oriental character that the Navy Department agreed to appoint him for the most important mission of his life nearly fifteen years later.
Shufeldt was sent in the U.S.S. Wachusetts by the Commander in Chief of the East India-Asiatic Station in 1867 to investigate the mystery of the American schooner General Sherman, which had visited Korea and was never seen again. The French were having trouble at that time with Korea and they had destroyed a fort and captured and burned the town of Kang-Hoa, so it seemed probable that the American steamer might have been mistaken for French and the crew killed and the vessel wrecked and burned in the Tai-Tong River in the Province of Ping Yang in September, 1866.
The particulars regarding the fate of the General Sherman were never fully ascertained. The master, who was the owner, and the mate were American citizens. Interpreters and supercargoes were English, supplied by the charterers, an English concern in Tientsin, from which port she sailed to trade in Korea. The crew consisted of Malays, Chinese, and two Portuguese when she was wrecked. It was Rear Admiral Henry H. Bell, U. S. Navy, then Commander in Chief in the Far East, who was informed that the ship and crew were burned by order of the King Regent of Korea, and who was first directed to investigate by the Navy Department. Bell recommended that 2,000 troups be sent under his command to capture Seoul, the capital, but permission was refused.
The Wachusetts left Chefoo, China, on January 21, 1867, and anchored off Meuto Island in the Sir James Hall group near the mouth of the Tai-Tong River, which changes its name to the Ping Yang 50 miles north. There appears to be some confusion from the maps in use at that time, as the Wachusetts was wrongly supposed to be in the Tai-Tong River, whereas the true Tai-Tong was the Ping Yang. The General Sherman was lost up that river from the coast.
Shufeldt, with difficulty, persuaded a native chief to take a letter to the authorities, and an official of the Province of Hae-Chow-Poo, in whose waters the Wachusetts anchored, came on board and ordered her to leave. The order was ignored. An emissary of the King then came on board and explained that there had been difficulty with the General Sherman, which the Koreans had tried to avoid, and that the captain of the schooner was responsible for what happened. Admiral Goldsborough had heard that three or four men of the crew were alive but this proved to be untrue. On the whole, Shufeldt’s report was favorable to the Koreans. He left Korea without receiving a reply to the letter which he had sent to the King.
Shufeldt returned to the United States and was assigned to duty at the Navy Yard, New York, but was changed to command the Naval Rendezvous at that city and the following year, 1870, he was promoted to Captain. He commanded the ironclad Miantonomah and was at the Portsmouth Navy Yard, New Hampshire, when the Department selected him to conduct the Naval Survey of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and the Nicaraguan route in 1870 and 1871 for an isthmian canal. It was the completeness and clarity of this report of the Isthmian Technical Mission, which was published in Senate Documents of the 1st Session of the 47th Congress, that had a great bearing on Shufeldt’s activities years later. Between the close of the isthmian survey and his appointment as Chief of the Bureau of Equipment in the Navy Department on January 30, 1874, he served on the European station as commander of the flagship Wabash and the Plymouth, and was on duty at the Naval Academy and the New York Navy Yard. In 1878 he resigned as Chief of the Bureau to assume command of the Ticonderoga, but before so doing he had completed the reorganization of the apprentice system of the Navy, an outstanding accomplishment of his four years as Chief of Bureau. In the interim he had been advanced to the grade of Commodore and had commanded the naval forces at New Orleans during election troubles in 1876.
The question of a treaty between the United States and Korea had been discussed for a good many years. In fact Congress had passed a resolution in 1845 to make a commercial treaty but nothing ever came of it. In 1871 the United States endeavored to arrange a treaty with Korea and it was the opinion of the authorities at that time that the opening of Korea should be attempted more or less in the same manner Commodore Perry had so successfully used in Japan. Under the joint charge of the American Minister to China, the Honorable F. F. Low, and Rear Admiral John Rodgers, U. S. Navy, the mission left Nagasaki, Japan, in May, 1871, accompanied by a fleet of five American vessels of war, with the necessary secretaries, interpreters, servants, Chinese writers, and messengers. It was unfortunate that upon arrival in Korea some members of the expedition were mixed up in a fight on shore in which two American sailors and twenty Koreans were wounded and many more Koreans killed. To make matters worse a fort fired on one of the American boats making a survey of the Salee (Han) river 30 miles from Seoul. The Navy demanded an apology for the actions of the Koreans in killing the Americans and made preparations to retaliate in case it was not received.
The sailors were drilled and the guns were exercised and finally troops were landed as the Koreans said that the reason the boats were fired on was because they had passed the defense barriers without permission. In landing the Navy captured and destroyed five forts, and took 50 flags and 480 pieces of ordnance. Twenty Koreans were made prisoners and in one of the battles the natives lost 350, of which half were killed. Lieutenant H. W. McKee, U. S. Navy, was wounded and three enlisted men killed and ten wounded in a later fight. In July, 1871, the squadron left and two days later anchored off Chefoo, China. To say the least, the expedition failed.
Hearing of a new dynasty being established in Korea in 1874, the United States considered the conditions for making a treaty were more favorable and Shufeldt’s experiences of 1867 in Korea were noted in the Navy Department.
In April, 1878, the British Government asked the United States to designate a U. S. naval officer to act as arbiter in a pending question between Great Britain and Liberia, over the northwest boundary. A mixed committee, composed of Liberians and British, had been formed to consider the issue. The arbiter was to act in case of disagreement. President Hayes appointed Shufeldt, who spent several months in 1878 on this matter. The Liberians presented their case and listened to counter-evidence. They wanted it submitted to arbitration but Great Britain contended that no such territory as Liberia existed and that Liberia had no case. The dispute was ultimately settled without arbitration.
In November, 1878, Commodore Shufeldt broke his flag on the U.S.S. Ticonderoga assigned to the East India Mission and sailed from the United States to make a commercial and diplomatic cruise around the world under the auspices of the State Department.
In 1879 the Ticonderoga visited Madagascar and obtained the right to establish a coaling station at Tullcar Bay, at that time considered the best harbor in that part of the Indian Ocean. It appears that while a treaty had been made with Madagascar, the country was so divided that several native chiefs considered that they were not bound by any previously made treaty. A treaty was also made with the King of Johanna Island in the Mozambique Channel, an ideal place for a coaling station, but Congress did not ratify either. While Shufeldt was at Zanzibar the Sultan Said Barghash presented him with a sword which Congress permitted him to accept.
The Ticonderoga was the first American vessel to sail up the Euphrates River and also the first steam vessel to circumnavigate the world. En route to China she visited Sierre Leone, Borneo, and arrived in Nagasaki, Japan, on April 15, 1880, from Hongkong, China.
In Asiatic waters Shufeldt was detached from the Ticonderoga and ordered to report to the American Minister in Peking for special duty which he had been persuaded to accept by the Honorable James G. Blaine, Secretary of State. It has been asserted that Mr. Blaine was so impressed with Shufeldt’s report of the Isthmian Survey of 1870 and 1871 that he obtained the consent of the Navy Department to send him to make a treaty with Korea and induced the Navy to keep the orders secret. The American Minister in China did not know of his appointment until Shufeldt informed him of it.
Shufeldt had at first endeavored to enlist the aid of Japan, presumably because Japan had made a treaty with Korea in 1876, and also because a resolution had been introduced in the Senate to make the treaty “with the aid of the friendly offices of Japan,” but the Japanese Foreign Minister, Inouye Kaoru, refused. At the request of the American Minister in Japan, the Honorable John A. Bingham, the Foreign Minister gave Shufeldt a letter to the Japanese Consul, Kuodo Masuki, at Fusan, 200 miles from Seoul, the capital. He was balked at seeing the King, as Korean officials refused to send his message. The Foreign Office of Japan had sent a letter with Shufeldt’s letter to the King but the King refused to accept Shufeldt and he returned to Japan. The Commodore suspected Japan of duplicity as it did not want the United States to have a treaty with Korea. While waiting for a reply to the letter he met U. Tsing, the Chinese Consul, who knew Li Hung Chang. Li asked Shufeldt to come to Tientsin and he accepted. The question of the American mission was discussed and Li said he would use his influence with Korea.
Li Hung Chang was Viceroy in the Tientsin area and wanted to fight Russia. He asked Shufeldt’s opinion as to the probable result of a naval battle and Shufeldt advised him not to fight. Then Li asked him to build a Chinese Navy, as Li had been very much impressed with the American ships, especially the ordnance equipment, and asked Shufeldt to have an American naval officer sent to China to teach gunnery and torpedoes. He particularly mentioned Lieutenant D. P. Man- nix, U. S. Navy, the gunnery officer of the flagship, for the position, and upon his return to the United States Shufeldt persuaded the Navy Department to send Mannix to China.
After the assurances of Li that he would aid in the arrangements for the treaty, Shufeldt returned to San Franisco, where he arrived November 8, 1880, and proceeded to Washington, D. C. In November, 1880, the Ticonderoga arrived at the expiration of her Asiatic cruise with a draft of the proposed treaty and enough information to lead Shufeldt to believe that the time was now ripe to continue negotiations. The State Department was less sanguine about Shufeldt’s abilities to attain success than was the Navy, which insisted that an endeavor be made “to reopen by peaceful measures negotiations with that government (Korea).” However, Secretary Blaine wrote to the Navy Department on March 15, 1881, recommending that Shufeldt go to Peking as Naval Attaché and on May 9, 1881, ordered Shufeldt back to Peking. He was also authorized to organize the Chinese Navy if Li Hung Chang again proposed this matter.
The Navy Department informed Shufeldt that “it is believed that the attack on the Korean forts is susceptible of explanation and you will give special consideration to this.” His naval orders and instructions were signed by the Secretary of the Navy, the Honorable Richard W. Thompson, and he sailed from San Francisco accompanied by his daughter, Mary Abercrombie Shufeldt, as his secretary, for China, where he reported to Mr. Angell, the American Minister, in Peking, on July 7, 1881, as Naval Attaché. After presenting his credentials he left to consult with Li Hung Chang at Tientsin, the summer capital.
When Shufeldt reached Tientsin it appeared to him that Li Hung Chang was not as cordial as he had been previously—his interest in the treaty had cooled. Shufeldt finally suspected his motive and his continued insistence that he visit him at his home and that Li apparently was delaying the American correspondence with the Emperor of China. Also Shufeldt sensed that Li’s enthusiasm had lagged and furthermore he discovered that Li had advised the British to make a treaty with Korea, and his task became more difficult.
Li Hung Chang wanted Shufeldt to organize the Chinese Navy, to which the United States had agreed, and Shufeldt believed that he was to command it. On this occasion Li did not mention the subject, although he spoke of his satisfaction with Lieutenant Mannix, and continued his talks about naval efficiency and his desire to have Shufeldt continue to visit Chinese war vessels in Chefoo. These visits finally aroused the envy and jealousy of foreigners in the port, who understood that Shufeldt was to take charge of the Chinese squadron of the North. When Shufeldt heard of these rumors and realized that Li was avoiding the issue, he left Chefoo, as his continued presence under such circumstances was lowering his prestige in the eyes of all concerned. Shufeldt thought that Li had changed his mind, due to the fact that, as the result of a treaty which China had signed with Russia while he was in America, the fear of war no longer bothered the Viceroy.
The treaty which Shufeldt was endeavoring to make with Korea was probably delayed somewhat, due to the question of Chinese suzerainty in Korea. In early times Japan held suzerainty over Korea, but this Korea no longer recognized. In many of Shufeldt’s interviews with officials of Korea, the question of the overlordship of China was brought up. It was through the kindness of the Emperor of China that Shufeldt was aided in making the treaty, although Li Hung Chang led him to believe that it would be only with his aid that he could accomplish the mission.
Shufeldt had kept the State Department continuously informed concerning his progress and had asked for instructions about the acknowledgment of Chinese suzerainty in the treaty as proposed by Li. For some time he received no reply. The Koreans were in a receptive mood and any undue delay would undermine the efforts of the past year. It began to worry Shufeldt. The long delay was becoming embarrassing to the American Minister, the Honorable James B. Angell, and he suggested to Shufeldt that he go home. Shufeldt remained! The assassination of President Garfield had interfered with the plans of the administration. On November 15, 1881, Shufeldt received his letter of credentials signed by President Chester A. Arthur and a letter from the President to the King of Korea. A month later, he was notified that Korea was ready to negotiate a treaty. The administration left the treaty to Shufeldt’s discretion but he was advised to “take it easy.” China now stepped in in aid of Shufeldt.
When he found that the door to Korea had been opened for him by the Emperor of China it was because the Emperor had ordered Li to forward Shufeldt’s letter to Korea. Li was only a subordinate of the Emperor and not the important individual he was endeavoring to persuade the Commodore that he was. As for the delay in answering his telegram to America, it was explained that the Department’s attitude was probably due to the publication of a very frank letter he wrote to a United States Senator which through a misunderstanding had reached the press. Then, too, his sponsor, Secretary Blaine, had been succeeded by Secretary Frelinghuysen, who was not considered friendly. Nevertheless when Frelinghuysen received a message that the Koreans were ready for the treaty, he telegraphed the Legation in Peking, “Congratulate Shufeldt.”
The U.S.S. Swatara, Commander P. H. Cooper, U. S. Navy, commanding, with Commodore Shufeldt as recently appointed Special Envoy to Korea on board, and three Chinese vessels, under command of Admiral Ting, sailed from Chefoo, China, on May 8, 1882. On the twelfth, the squadron anchored in the Salee (Han) River, a little below Roze Island and 30 miles from Seoul. The Japanese gunboat Banjo was at the anchorage and the Japanese Admiral evidently believed that he would be allowed to take part in the ceremonies but did not do so. Shufeldt thought that Japan had regretted her failure to aid him previously. The American Special Envoy met the Korean Commission headed by Shin Chen, President of the Royal Cabinet, delivered President Arthur’s letter, and visited Yin Chuen 6 miles inland where the formalities surrounding the treaty were to be concluded. The treaty was signed on May 22, 1882, and at the moment of signing the Swatara fired a salute of 21 guns which could be seen and heard from the pavilion erected for the occasion in sight of Chemulpo and in full view of the anchorage.
Upon completion of the ceremonies, Commodore Shufeldt received a friendly letter from the King to President Arthur which he sent to the State Department. It was intended that a cousin of the Queen of Korea who had been appointed to conduct the negotiations for Korea would be present, but he was too ill to appear.
“The most important work of the American Navy in the Far East during the one-third of a century which elapsed between our Civil War and the Spanish American War was concerned with the opening of Korea.”2 The “treaty was wholly the result of Shufeldt’s initiative, pertinacity, and genuine diplomatic skill; it was the great achievement of his career.”3
The treaty negotiated by Commodore Shufeldt was the first commercial treaty which Korea signed with any of the Western Powers. It was more comprehensive than previous American treaties with eastern nations as it established “diplomatic relations, extraterritoriality and privileges” of Americans to trade and reside in Korea in open ports. The success of Commodore Shufeldt set a precedent for other powers and shortly thereafter Great Britain and Germany followed by Italy, Russia, and France, were able to induce the Koreans to sign treaties based on that concluded by the United States as a model.
Commodore Shufeldt was exhausted after his strenuous contact with Oriental diplomacy and remained in Asia to recuperate before leaving for home. He had hoped to be made Commander in Chief of the Far Eastern Squadron but the Navy Department did not desire to change the command. On arrival in San Francisco on July 29, 1882, Shufeldt remained several months in the hospital regaining his health and traveling in California. Meantime the King and Queen of Korea accepted the credentials of the new American Minister, Mr. Lucius H. Foote, and the treaty with Korea, of which there were three English and three Chinese copies, was ratified by the Senate January, 1883.
2Diplomatic Negotiations of American Naval Officers, Paullin, 1912.
3Dictionary of American Biography, Vol. XVII.
The Navy Department appointed Shufeldt President of the Naval Advisory Board, the predecessor of the present Navy General Board. This gave him the opportunity to accomplish some research work which eventually resulted in the authorization of the cruisers Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, and Dolphin, that now live in our naval history as the “White Squadron”—the first modern ships of the Navy. He was also the Superintendent of the U. S. Naval Observatory and was advanced to the grade of Rear Admiral on May 7, 1883.
With 45 years of government service behind him, all but six of which were in the Navy, Admiral Shufeldt retired by operation of law in 1884, at the age of 62. After his retirement he accepted the invitation of the King and Queen to visit Korea as a guest of the Nation. The Viceroy of China, Li Hung Chang, who also held, among others, the important posts of “Senior Guardian of the Heir Apparent,” “Grand Secretary of the Emperor,” “Commander in Chief of Eighteen Provinces,” “Commissioner of the Coast Defenses,” and “Chief of the Chinese Navy,” again tried to induce Shufeldt to build a navy for China, but without success.
Rear Admiral Robert W. Shufeldt, U. S. Navy, served his country nobly, loyally, and well, in many diversified duties, and was an outstanding naval officer. Korea knew that sooner or later a treaty would be made with the “barbarians” of the world and Shufeldt’s tact in the General Sherman case made him the logical representative to parley with its envoys. Such thoughts were probably mulled over and in ways best known to the Koreans they used their oriental ingenuity in estimating the situation and met Shufeldt’s wishes when he made the first advances toward the conclusion of a treaty. The accomplishment of the treaty is a monument to his memory and adds to the prestige of the United States Navy and the vision of the Secretary of State, Mr. James G. Blaine, who realized the outstanding qualifications of Commodore Shufeldt and selected him. Certainly it is most gratifying to the Navy to have had one of its officers appointed at the request of another nation to arbitrate in a boundary dispute. It speaks volumes for his integrity and reputation, which must have influenced three Presidents, Lincoln, Hayes, and Arthur, in trusting him with extraordinary diplomatic powers.
Rear Admiral Shufeldt, a “man of huge frame,” died of pneumonia in Washington on November 7, 1895, and is buried in the National Cemetery at Arlington, Virginia. His headstone, among other qualifications, might well bear the inscription, “An officer, a gentleman, and a diplomat.”