Cadwalader Ringgold
Born	(1802-08-20)August 20, 1802 Washington County, Maryland
Died	April 29, 1867(1867-04-29) (aged 64) New York City
Place of burial	Green Mount Cemetery,Baltimore
Allegiance	United States of America
Branch	United States Navy
Years of service	1819–1864
Rank	Rear admiral
Commands	USS Weasel USS Porpoise USS Sabine
Battles / wars	American Civil War

Cadwalader Ringgold (August 20, 1802 – April 29, 1867) was an officer in theUnited States Navy who served in theUnited States Exploring Expedition, later headed an expedition to the Northwest and, after initially retiring, returned to service during theCivil War.

Cadwalader Ringgold was born August 20, 1802, inWashington County, Maryland, at Fountain Rock, the 18,000-acre (7,300 ha) family estate.His mother was Maria Cadwalader (1776–1811), daughter ofJohn Cadwalader (1742–1786), who was a general during theAmerican Revolutionary War. Some sources spell his first name with two "l"s.^[1]His father wasSamuel Ringgold, a Maryland politician who later served in the U.S. House of Representatives. He had an older brother,Samuel Ringgold, an army officer called "the father of modern artillery" and who died in theBattle of Palo Alto. Cadwalader was the sixth of 11 children, the youngest child of his mother, who then died. His father remarried and had five more children by his second wife.

Ringgold entered the U.S. Navy in 1819 and commanded theschoonerUSS Weasel in action againstWest Indiespirates during the late 1820s. He became a lieutenant on May 17, 1828,^[2] and that year served onVandalia in the Pacific Ocean. He served on theAdams in theMediterranean.

During 1838–42, he was third in command of theUnited States Exploring Expedition in the Pacific, commandingPorpoise from 1840 at the invitation of the head of the project,Charles Wilkes.^[3] He carried out surveys ofAntarctica, the South American coast, theTuamotu Islands,Tonga,New Zealand and the Northwest Pacific coast of North America.^[3]

When the expedition visitedFiji, they capturedVendoni, a chief on the islands who had inspired some Fijians to capture and eat 11 crewmen on a ship seven years before.^[4] Soon afterward, Fijians on the island ofMalolo ambushed and killed two popular officers of the expedition, and the Americans took revenge. Wilkes's ship grounded on the north side of the island, but Ringgold led 80 men from the south side. Women and children were spared, but about 87 Fijians were killed before the rest surrendered. Two villages were destroyed.^[5]

The expedition visited California that summer. On August 19, 1841, Ringgold led a 60-man party exploringSan Francisco Bay watershed for 20 days. The party got about as far asColusa, California. Ringgold, who returned to New York shortly after the rest of the expedition, had been gone three years and 11 months at sea. He and his crew had sailed 95,000 miles (153,000 km) and lost only two men.^[5]

Ringgold was promoted to commander on July 16, 1849, and began the definitive survey of the San Francisco Bay region, suddenly important because of thediscovery of gold in the area. The survey began in August 1849, with Ringgold commanding the chartered brigCol. Fremont.^[5]

After the California surveys, Ringgold helped Navy officials choose a location for a dockyard for the Navy's Pacific station. It later became theMare Island Navy Yard. He publishedA Series of Charts with Sailing Directions in 1851.^[3]Together with CommodoreMatthew Perry and others, Ringgold served in August 1852 on the Board of Examination for midshipmen of theU.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis.^[5]

It may have been around this time that Ringgold acquired abust ofWhig politicianHenry Clay, presumably out of admiration.^[6]

In 1853 he took command of the five ships in theNorth Pacific Exploring and Surveying Expedition, also known as the "Rodgers-Ringgold Expedition", with theVincennes as his flagship, but while on the expedition, in July 1854, he contractedmalaria and was sent home, according to at least one source.^[5]Nathaniel Philbrick, in his bookSea of Glory about the U.S. Exploring Expedition, writes that in the later expedition Ringgold "began to act strangely" once in China, keeping his ships in port and "ceaselessly repairing his vessels". Commodore Perry, on his own expedition, sailed in and convened an official panel which relieved Ringgold from command of the expedition and sent him home. Philbrick quotes Perry as declaring Ringgold "insane."^[7]John Rodgers was given full command of the expedition and completed it.

A board of naval doctors convened by Perry declared Ringgold unfit for active service, and he was put on the reserve list on September 13, 1855. Ringgold recovered within weeks, and soon petitioned Congress for his return. Unsuccessful there, he appealed to a Court of Inquiry, and eventually succeeded in returning to the active list on January 23, 1858, (retroactive to April 2, 1856), a campaign of more than two years.^[5]

For the next several years, he was in Washington, D.C., working on the North Pacific Exploring and Surveying Expedition charts, some of which were used by the US Navy in World War II (charts from the United States Exploring Expedition were also used in that war).^[5]

Ringgold returned to the fleet with the rank of captain during the Civil War. While in command of the frigateSabine on November 1, 1861, he effected the rescue of a battalion of 400Marines from Maryland whose transport steamer,Governor, was sinking during a severe storm nearPort Royal, South Carolina.^[5]

In February 1862, he was a part of the search and rescue of the ship of the lineVermont which had lost her rudder in a storm. For these rescues, Ringgold received commendations from the Maryland Legislature and the U.S. Congress, along with a gold medal from the Life Saving Benevolent Association.^[5]

Promoted tocommodore on July 16, 1862, he was sent (still on theSabine), to cruise theAzores,Cape Verde Islands, the coast ofBrazil and then back to New York in a fruitless search for the Confederate raiderCSS Alabama from November 1862 to February 1863. In mid-1863, Ringgold's assignment was to search (again unsuccessfully) in the vicinity of Bermuda and then the New England coast for the barkCSS Tacony, another Confederate raider.^[5]

For reasons of age, he was retired on August 20, 1864, and placed on therear admiral (retired) list in 1866 (a promotion that was given to all commanders of squadrons). In retirement, he lived at 18 East Eighteenth Street (at Union Square) in New York City. Ringgold, who had never married, died ofapoplexy (stroke) in New York on April 29, 1867.^[5]

Days later, as the Marine band played the "Dead March" fromSaul, 400 Marines and carriages in the funeral cortege proceeded from Ringgold's residence down Broadway toTrinity Church. In attendance were AdmiralsFarragut,Bell, andStringham, along with a number of generals. Ringgold's remains were taken by train toGreen Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, where he lies next to the grave of his brother, MajorSamuel Ringgold.^[5]

Two ships have been named in his honor:USS Ringgold (DD-89) andUSS Ringgold (DD-500).

Ringgold Street in San Francisco, California is named after him.^[8] However, the street in question is spelled as 'Ringold'.

Another namesake was the writerRing Lardner. Rear AdmiralJames Lawrence Lardner was a friend of Ringgold's. He named a son "Ringgold Wilmer Lardner", and James' brother gave exactly the same name to his son after the newborn's cousin. Ring Lardner disliked his name and shortened it but "lost the battle" when his son,Ring Lardner Jr. was named after him.^[9]

Charles Wilkes the commander of theUnited States Exploring Expedition named theRinggold Isles ofFiji after him in 1840.^[10]

v t e Cadwalader family tree
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John Cadwalader (1677–1734) Martha Jones (1679–1747) Thomas Cadwalader (1708–1779) Hannah Lambert Elizabeth Lloyd (1742–1776) John Cadwalader (1742–1786) Williamina Bond (1753–1837) Lambert Cadwalader (1742–1823) Mary McCall (1764–1848) Archibald McCall (1767–1843) Elizabeth Cadwalader (1774–1824) Maria Cadwalader (1776–1811) Samuel Ringgold (1770–1829) Thomas Cadwalader (1779–1841) Thomas McCall Cadwalader (1795–1873) Maria Charlotte Gouverneur (1801–1867) George Archibald McCall (1802–1868) Samuel Ringgold (1796–1846) Cadwalader Ringgold (1802–1867) John Cadwalader (1805–1879) George Cadwalader (1806–1879) John Lambert Cadwalader (1836–1914) Mary Binney Cadwalader (1829–1861) William Henry Rawle (1823–1889) Emily Cadwalader (1834–1892) Frederic Rhinelander Jones (1846–1918) Mary Cadwalader Rawle (1850–1923) Beatrix Cadwalader Jones (1872–1959) Max Farrand (1869–1945)
Notes: "Cadwalader Family Papers"(PDF).Collection 1454.Historical Society of Pennsylvania. 2007. RetrievedMarch 10, 2011.

• Biographical article about Cadwalader RinggoldArchived 2012-04-06 at theWayback Machine, by Alan Fraser Houston (subscription required)
•  This article incorporates text from thepublic domainDictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be foundhere.

• 1802 births
• 1867 deaths
• Cadwalader family
• Union Navy officers
• United States Navy admirals
• People of Maryland in the American Civil War
• People of the United States Exploring Expedition
• People from Washington County, Maryland
• Burials at Green Mount Cemetery

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