HUDSON M. GARLAND, LT, USN

Hudson Garland '55

Date of birth: December 20, 1830

Age: 30

Loss

Hudson died on February 26, 1861 in Brooklyn of pneumonia and is buried in Washington, D.C.

Other Information

Hudson Martin Garland was born in Virginia and appointed to the Naval Academy from Michigan.

He was survived by a brother (who served in the Union Army), two sisters (one of whom was married to General James Longstreet, a famous Confederate General), and his uncle, James Garland.

From researcher Kathy Franz:

Hudson acquired quite a few demerits at the Naval Academy in November 1854 for throwing bread at mess, profane swearing, singing in a loud shouting voice, disrespecting his superiors, defacing paint work in his room, and missing parade due to intoxication.
In August 1858, Hudson was on the coast survey steamer Corwin. They were trying to locate a rock in the New Haven harbor near Fort Hale which was not on the charts.
Hudson was named for his grandfather. His father was Brigadier General John Spotswood Garland.
Hudson’s brother David was a clerk in Bernalillo, New Mexico, in 1860. He lived with his sister Maria Louisa, her husband Major James Longstreet, and their sons Augustus and James. In 1866, he became a storekeeper, and in 1880 he was a quartermaster clerk in Fort Meade, Dakota Territory. Maria’s daughter Maria Louise married Jasper Esten Whelchel. Their children included Vice Admiral John Esten Whelchel (‘20) and Rear Admiral David Lee Whelchel (‘30).
Hudson was a midshipman on the Cyane who volunteered to accompany Lieutenant Isaac Strain’s Darien expedition of 1853-54. The expedition across the Darien Isthmus was to take only five days. The party of 27 became lost in the jungle for two months, and five men died before being rescued. J. T. Headley's article of the ordeal appeared in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, May 1855.

Career

From the Naval History and Heritage Command:

Midshipman, 20 November, 1848. Passed Midshipman, 12 June, 1855. Master, 16 September, 1855. Lieutenant, 17 October, 1856. Died 26 February, 1861.

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.