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User:Jay D. Easy/sandbox/James Markham Ambler

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James Markham Ambler
Born
James Markham Marshall Ambler

(1848-12-30)December 30, 1848
Markham, Virginia, U.S.
DiedOctober 30, 1881(1881-10-30) (aged 32)
Yakutia, Siberia, Russian Empire
EducationWashington College, Lexington
Alma materUniversity of Maryland
EmployerPortsmouth Naval Hospital
Military career
Allegiance United States
BranchUnited States Navy
Service years1874–1881
RankPassed assistant surgeon
CorpsNavy Medical Corps
ExpeditionJeannette expedition
AwardsGold Jeannette Medal (1890)
MemorialsJeannette Monument

James Markham Marshall Ambler (December 30, 1848 – October 30, 1881) was an American naval surgeon of the United States Navy who served as medical officer on the ill-fated Jeannette expedition to the North Pole by way of the Bering Strait from 1879 to 1881, commanded by George W. De Long.

Biography

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Early life

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James Markham Marshall Ambler was born in Markham, Fauquier County, Virginia, on December 30, 1848, the son of Richard Cary Ambler (1810–1877), a physician,[1] and Susan Marshall (1812–1896), daughter of James Markham Marshall, a veteran of the American Revolutionary War, judge of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia, and younger brother of John Marshall, fourth Chief Justice of the United States.

During the American Civil War, at the age of 16, Ambler served as a volunteer in the 12th Virginia Cavalry Regiment.

Career

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He studied a premedicine curriculum at Washington College, from 1865 to 1867, and then entered the University of Maryland to study medicine. After acquiring a medical degree in 1870, he practiced in Baltimore until his appointment as an assistant surgeon in the United States Navy in April 1874.

He initially served on the practice ship Mayflower. During the next three years, he was assigned to the gunboat Kansas, on the North Atlantic Station, and the frigate Minnesota, a stationary training ship at the New York Navy Yard. From 1877 into 1879, Ambler was stationed at the Portsmouth Naval Hospital, near Norfolk, Virginia.

Jeannette expedition

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In 1879, Ambler joined the crew of the Arctic exploration steamer Jeannette as its medical officer, which sailed from San Francisco in July 1879, to begin what would become a nearly two-year long expedition into the icepack north of Siberia. His medical skills were critical for maintaining the health of his shipmates during their long entrapment in the ice, and during their arduous journey over the rugged ice and frigid seas after the ship sank in June 1881.

Ambler's foremost patient was Lieutenant John Wilson Danenhower, whose silence regarding a syphilis infection a couple of years prior to the expedition led to eye inflammation, rendering him ineffective and unfit for duty.[2] Ambler operated on him 15 times under primitive conditions, yet the patient survived the painful surgeries and the ensuing hardships.

Ambler was a member of expedition commander George W. De Long's boat crew, which landed at the northern end of the desolate Lena River Delta in September 1881. During the weeks that followed, he treated his companions' frostbite and tried to maintain their strength as they slowly starved. Ambler was apparently one of the last three members of the group to succumb to hunger and exposure, sometime shortly after October 30, 1881.

References

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Footnotes

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  1. ^ Kelly 1920, p. 24.
  2. ^ Sides 2015, pp. 177–179.

Bibliography

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  • Ambler, J. M. (1917). The private journal of James Markham Ambler, M.D.. Washington: GPO. OCLC 18802935.
  • Danenhower, J. W. (1882). Lieutenant Danenhower's narrative of the Jeannette. Boston: James R. Osgood & Co. OCLC 3109240.
  • De Long, G. W. (1884). The voyage of the Jeannette: the ship and ice journals of George W. De Long. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. OCLC 4285879.
  • Ellsberg, E. (1960). Hell on ice: the saga of the Jeannette. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company. OCLC 486495.
  • Guttridge, G. F. (1986). Icebound: the Jeannette expedition's quest for the North Pole. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 9780870213304.
  • Kelly, H. A. (1920). Ambler, James Markham Marshall. Baltimore: Norman, Remington Co. p. 24. OCLC 1184384. {{cite encyclopedia}}: |work= ignored (help)
  • Melville, G. W. (1885). In the Lena Delta: a narrative of the search. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. OCLC 1047461218.
  • Robinson, M. F. (2006). The coldest crucible: Arctic exploration and American culture. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226721842.
  • Sides, H. (2015). In the kingdom of ice: the grand and terrible polar voyage of the USS Jeannette. London: Oneworld. ISBN 9781780745213.
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