“Despite…a serious injury, Seeley did not absent himself. Instead he took his place in line next to his shipmates, cutlass fixed.”

By Joshua Provan

“HONOUR? Oh yes it’s an honour alright,” William Henry Harrison Seeley told a newspaperman from the St. John Daily. “But it hasn’t helped me to earn my bread and butter – though 50 pounds a year ain’t to be sneezed at.”

Speaking then with 10 years of life left in him, nestled beside the fire of his Massachusetts home on a cold winter day in 1904, Seeley was indeed fortunate not to have been one of those as he put it

“Men as has had the [Victoria Cross] an’ died in the poorhouse,” Seeley said of Britain’s highest military medal.

He looked back on his service in the Royal Navy with a mixture of fierce Yankee pride in his achievements and almost shamefaced apology for having been fighting for the British in the 1860s, a time of civil war in America.

An earlier photograph of him had been taken for the Victoria Cross book, probably around 1865, and it shows a man with a dominant chin, a pugnacious nose, intelligent piercing eyes and an impressive handlebar moustache. One can imagine the scene as he settled himself into an armchair by the fire while the reporter was served a refreshment by his wife. He filled a well-used pipe which he held in the vice like grip of a leathery hand, and the newspaperman opened a notebook. Seeley lit his pipe and began.

He had been born in Topsham, Maine on May 30, 1840 to Dayton and Lucy Seeley.

“As a lad,” most likely in the 1850s, he seemed to have worked as a longshoreman or dock labourer. A family squabble prompted him to run away to sea.

“Ye see, I was a lad aboard of th’ merchantman Salem – a British ship, she was, though built down in Maine,” he would recall. “An’ ‘twas in Boston that I shipped.”

He joined the Royal Navy after an eventful voyage during which he saved the ship’s carpenter from drowning by diving overboard after him. He eventually jumped ship from the Salem when his skipper wouldn’t let him procure firecrackers in Hong Kong to celebrate Independence Day.

Seeley’s tale of his enlistment had the ring of Huck Finn; the old man had a far-off look and a youthful light gleaming in his eyes as he told the story. After spending all his money, he said, ‘John Bull’s navy’ was his only prospect.

The ship he joined was most likely to have been the 35-gun Euryalus, which had arrived in Chinese waters in 1862 with the famed China Squadron under James Hope. The Taiping Rebellion was then in full swing, and Euryalus sent sailors ashore to contribute to a 570-man naval brigade assisting the Imperial Army’s operations against Kahding. The brigade was often deployed in support of Charles Gordon‘s Western-led Ever Victorious Army, and Seeley remembered the fated engineer’s famous temper well.

Euryalus left China for the mysterious shore of Japan later in 1862 and Seeley saw action in these waters during the bombardment of Kagoshima in 1863 – a rather disappointing affair, undertaken to punish the Daimyo of Satsuma for the murder of a British subject.

The next year Euryalus was party to touch of gunboat diplomacy in the snaking Channel of Shimonoseki, which divides the islands of Honshu and Kyushu, giving passage to the Inland Sea and Tokyo (Edo). The Daymio of Chōsū, had taken up a sumo stance to prevent foreign shipping passing through the straits. The independent lords of Japan were busy taking sides in the emerging power struggle between the factions supporting the Shogun and the Emperor, and the resulting fallout was increasingly dragging the Europeans into the picture.

Seeley was 24 years old during the Sept. 5, 1864 bombardment of Shimonoseki and just short of two years in service. He had almost certainly been wounded once already – either in China or at Kagoshima – and seen a fair share of action in between. However even in light of this he was inclined to keep his head down.

The engagement at Shimonoseki lasted an hour, as the international fleet, of British, French, Dutch, and even an American ship, battered the shoreline. On Euryalus, Seeley watched as a 110-pounder breech-loading Armstrong gun, positioned on a pivot in the bows, engaged the Japanese forts at 4,800 yards. When the fleet found the range, the officers could plainly see the clouds of dust and debris flying from their targets with each hit. Soon, the enemy batteries were silenced, the allied fleet ceased fire.

On Sept. 6, there was a brief renewal of the artillery duel; the Japanese had repaired some of their batteries during the night and opened fire once more. Little more than a minor irritation, the guns were once again silenced.

In short order, the Marines, Marine Artillery and sailors of the naval brigade were landed to capture the enemy batteries and to blow up their ammunition stores. Seeley and his shipmates were attached to the 3^rd Company. The party splashed ashore and drove back the Japanese from the ruins of two positions guarding the mouth of a valley. Between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., the allies had dismounted all the enemy guns, broke the carriages, and thrown all the shot and shell into the sea. Apart from the sound of skirmishers duelling the enemy in the hills, nothing interrupted them. It seems likely that it was now, as the 3^rd Company engaged the enemy, that Seeley discovered a Japanese stockade at the end of the valley.

“As for findin’ where th’ rebels was it didn’t seem to me as if I did any more than some o’ the rest,” was all he said about it.

Given the whole company would have been extended in open order, he might have been only one of several who penetrated the enemy outposts to catch sight of their position. He also modestly omitted to tell the interviewer that he had been injured in the left arm. He nevertheless impressed his company commander, Lt. Edwards, by issuing a coherent and detailed report. Despite what is implied to be a serious injury, Seeley did not absent himself. Instead he took his place in line next to his shipmates, cutlass fixed.

Captain Alexander of Euryalus was prepared to storm the position and got his chance when HMS Perseus ran aground and the sailors and Marines had to stay ashore to hold the batteries. When the Royal Marine battalion under Colonel Suther came under attack, Suther and Alexander decided to strike back.

Suther selected the right of the valley for the Marines; the British sailors moved out along the ridges that crossed the rice fields to form up on the narrow roadway on the left. Once in position, Alexander ordered them forward at the double. The sailors attacked with great gusto, Edwards’ company in the lead, shooting as they went, and appearing to the diplomat Ernest Satow to be utterly out of control.

Seeing the British advancing against them, the Japanese, who had kept up a desultory fire, retired shooting as they went. Some wore black armour and others were shooting arrows. The stockade was held by about 300 men, seven light guns and protected by an eight-foot palisade.

At the head of the assault force was the colour party. One of the colour sergeants fell mortally wounded, and the second, Thomas Pride was hit in the chest, yet he refused to abandon Midshipman Bowes, who held the flag until both were ordered to the rear. Captain Alexander fell wounded in the ankle as his men overran some advanced guns. Seeley saw him fall and, though he might be confusing Alexander with Edwards who was also wounded and evacuated, said he immediately rushed to get him out of range.

“I just picked him up like I had many a bag o’ tatters down in Sagadahoc county an’ pretty soon we was out o’ harms way, me an’ the captain,” remembered Seeley. “He was a fine feller, was the captain, an’ never a thought I gave o’ th’ cross in gettin’ him way from th’ rebel bullets.”

Lt. Edwards took command and with a cheer they rushed the stockade. Seeley deposited Alexander with a stretcher party and returned to the attack. Most of the Japanese took to their heels when the Tars got within 50 yards, but 20 defenders died inside the stockade; one was killed while trying to ignite the powder magazine. Luckily, the burning fuse was found just in time and disaster was averted.

By the time the Marines arrived, the fight was over, and there was nothing to do but destroy the guns, burn the stockade and get back to the ships. The naval brigade suffered seven killed and 26 wounded during their action.

“O’ course I didn’t hang back none, but as for bein’ at th’ head of the company after the captain was wounded, there was others as knew more’n me bout bein’ boss an’ I reckon I were only a figurehead,” Seeley said.

Seeley, Bowes and Pride all received the Victoria Cross on Sept. 22, 1865 at Southsea. The commander-in-chief at Portsmouth, Admiral Sir M. Seymour, presented them personally: three prestigious medals for a campaign few people would even remember in 10 years’ time.

Seeley left the British service in 1866, and lost his medal twice between then and 1889. Once it was stolen and sent back to him anonymously from Whitehall. The second time was after his ship had put into port, and his VC, which he ruefully observed was no use for getting a berth, was stolen again in East Boston. This time he found it by chance in an old curiosity shop a year-and-a-half later.

To make sure he never lost it again he wore a small replica on his coat, doubtless keeping the real thing for special occasions such as the scant times he attended the British Veterans Association of Boston. Along with the cross, he also kept his China Medal, which was awarded to those men who served during the Taiping Rebellion and Second China War.

Seeley died in 1914 and was buried in Evergreen Cemetery, Stoughton, Massachusetts. He rests near the grave of his sister, Bessie.

The old man sitting by the fire, relit his pipe. He was to hold a special, if remarkably neglected, place in American history. Until the First World War, he remained the only American to have received the Victoria Cross, and, at the time, just the 28th man from any country to win the prized medal since its creation in 1855. Yet, looking back on his life Seeley remarked with some regret:

“Yes, sir, I’ve had my share o’ stirring times, I’ve done some things I aught – to say nothin’ o’ the things I hadn’t ought to – but when all’s said an’ done there’s nothin’ I wouldn’t do over again better’n saving old Bill Sharp carpenter o’ the Salem.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joshua Provan is an author and artist from the UK. The founder of the website Adventures In Historyland. His first book, Wild East: The British in Japan 1854-1868 is now available from Fonthill Media and Amazon.