A. W. (Adolphus Washington) Greely

Adolphus Washington Greely was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, in 1844 and entered the Union Army as a teenager during the Civil War. He was wounded in battle, stayed in the Army after the war, and built a career that combined soldiering with science, engineering, and communications work.

He is best remembered for commanding the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition to the Arctic in 1881. The mission added important geographic and scientific knowledge, but the return effort collapsed into a struggle for survival after supply failures and brutal conditions. Greely and only a handful of his men were rescued in 1884, and the story made him one of the best-known American polar explorers of his era.

Greely later rose to the rank of major general and played a major role in developing the Army Signal Corps and expanding weather and telegraph services. On his ninety-first birthday in 1935, he received the Medal of Honor in recognition of what was described as a lifetime of public service.