GEORGE M. TOTTEN, LCDR, USN

George Totten '66

Date of birth: March 19, 1847

Age: 41

Naval Academy Register

George Mansfield Totten was admitted to the Naval Academy from New Jersey on September 27, 1862 at age 15 years 6 months.

Naval Academy Photo Album

Prior to the publication of the Lucky Bag in 1894, most portraits of officers and midshipmen of the Naval Academy were captured in yearly photo albums. The album for 1866 is available in the collections of the Naval Academy's Digital Collections.

Special thank you to historian Kathy Franz for identifying this resource and then extracting several dozen photographs for this site.

Prior to the publication of the Lucky Bag in 1894, most portraits of officers and midshipmen of the Naval Academy were captured in yearly photo albums. The album for 1866 is available in the collections of the Naval Academy's Digital Collections.

Special thank you to historian Kathy Franz for identifying this resource and then extracting several dozen photographs for this site.

Loss

Unable to find any details about George's loss, except that it occurred on May 27, 1888 aboard the steamship Tallapoosa (1863) while that ship was in port Montevideo, Uruguay. He was the ship's executive officer; Tallapoosa was the flagship of the South American squadron, and had been in Montevideo since December 1887. (The 1888 Annual Report of the Secretary of the Navy includes ship movement details but does not mention any officers or crew.)

George was buried in Montevideo the following day, May 28. (Researcher Kathy Franz received a response from the cemetery, but it does not have a cause of death either.)

Other Information

From researcher Kathy Franz:

Per the Salt Lake Tribune, July 15, 1888:

The death of Lieutenant Commander George M. Totten, executive officer of the United States steamer “Tallapoosa” at Montevideo, Uruguay, on May 27th, was a shock to his brother officers and his family. He was a promising officer, and stood high in the estimation of his fellows for his good judgment, skill and tact. He was only forty-one years of age, but had had more experience than many others of his age. The affection for him was attested by the unusual respect shown to an officer of his rank, as his funeral was not only attended by Rear-Admiral Braine and his staff and the officers of the “Alliance,” but by the officers of the Brazilian war vessels in the harbor and of the Spanish gunboat “Infanta Isabel,” the United States Consul, the British Consul, and a number of representative residents of the American and English colonies.

His father, who had the same name, was a midshipman as of May 5, 1831, passed midshipman on June 15, 1837, and lieutenant on September 8, 1841. He was a Navy lieutenant in command of the Water Witch from the autumn of 1847 until December 1848. During the war with Mexico, Commodore Matthew C. Perry chose the Water Witch to explore the area and transport him or the marines to the coast or up the rivers.

From an email from Jennifer Bryan, Ph.D., Head of Special Collections & Archives/Archivist at the Naval Academy's Nimitz library:

I have been unable to find information on the cause of George M. Totten's death. According to the Tallapoosa records, he died on May 27; he was buried on May 28.
Information gleaned from the Tallapoosa's financial records gives the only additional details I could find. Totten was at the Grand Hotel in Buenos Aires from May 8 where he was "undergoing medical treatment on shore" from Passed Assistant Surgeon W. A. McClurg. The medical supplies requisitioned, presumably for Totten's treatment, were 1 bottle of brandy, 2 oz chloroform, 1 dram citrate of caffeine, 1 oz. absorbent cotton, 2 oz. liniment chloroform, 2 bottles extract of beef. Totten was then transferred to Montevideo on May 13--transportation included the hire of a carriage from the hotel to the steamer.

Date of birth from his 1887 application for a passport, which gives a physical description:

stature, 5 feet 8.5 inches
forehead, medium
eyes, gray
nose, straight
mouth, medium
chin, long
hair, dark
complexion, fair
face, oval

Obituary

From The New York Tribune on May 29, 1888:

Lieutenant-Commander Totten was born in the District of Columbia. He entered the Naval Academy In 1862. His first sea service after leaving the Academy was on the Ossipee, of the North Pacific Squadron, to which vessel he was attached from 1867 to 1869. He became an ensign In 1868, a master In 1869 and a lieutenant in 1870. From 1870 to 1871 he was attached to the Colorado, the flag ship of the Asiatic Fleet In 1873 and 1874 he was stationed at the Hydrographic Office in Washington. From 1871 to 1877 he was attached to the Swatara, of the North Atlantic Squadron. His next sea service was as first lieutenant of the Tennessee, flagship of the North Atlantic Squadron, which he Joined In 1879. In [garbled] he was made executive officer of the Tallapoosa, which was sent in that year to the South Atlantic Station. Mr. Totten was an able officer, whose genial manners made friends for him everywhere.

Career

From the Naval History and Heritage Command:

Midshipman, 29 September, 1862. Graduated June 1866. Ensign, 12 March, 1868. Master, 26 March, 1869. Lieutenant, 21 March,1870. Lieutenant Commander, 26 January, 1885. Died 27 May, 1888.

It seems he was a member of the US Naval Institute as of 1874.

Note

There was a LT "George M. Totten" who appears in searches as a designer of a surfboat used for the invasion of Veracruz in 1847. This is a different man.

Navy Directories & Officer Registers

The "Register of Commissioned and Warrant Officers of the United States Navy and Marine Corps" was published annually from 1815 through at least the 1970s; it provided rank, command or station, and occasionally billet until the beginning of World War II when command/station was no longer included. Scanned copies were reviewed and data entered from the mid-1840s through 1922, when more-frequent Navy Directories were available.

The Navy Directory was a publication that provided information on the command, billet, and rank of every active and retired naval officer. Single editions have been found online from January 1915 and March 1918, and then from three to six editions per year from 1923 through 1940; the final edition is from April 1941.

The entries in both series of documents are sometimes cryptic and confusing. They are often inconsistent, even within an edition, with the name of commands; this is especially true for aviation squadrons in the 1920s and early 1930s.

Alumni listed at the same command may or may not have had significant interactions; they could have shared a stateroom or workspace, stood many hours of watch together… or, especially at the larger commands, they might not have known each other at all. The information provides the opportunity to draw connections that are otherwise invisible, though, and gives a fuller view of the professional experiences of these alumni in Memorial Hall.