[KS] Re: Request on my source

[Robert Armstrong]

Hello List,

I am sorry if my format is incorrect or unorthadox but I ahve received 
several replies, some asking for my source on the Turtle Ships being used 
against the General Sherman.  I have copied the texts word for word 
including the spelling errors and differences in the spellings of the names.

Please note that these are copied from the original books and authors and 
this is in no way an attempt to infringe in their rights.  If I am wrong for 
copying these the way that I have, I would appreciate if one of the members 
could offer me suggestions on how to correctly do it in the future.

The Korean Repository  (1892?)
In the 7th moon of Pyeng-in year, (1866) a dark colored foreign ship with 
many ropes hanging from its masts, was sighted on the Ta Tong River.  It 
dropped anchor first at Keupsa Gate, the line between P¡¯yung-an and 
Whang-ha provinces, and there it waited.
The governor (Pak Kyoo Soo) of Pyeng Yang sent a messenger to inquire into 
the coming of this ship.  By writing characters they managed to communicate, 
and were informed that the foreigners had come to exchange goods with the 
Koreans.  They were from the land of Mi (United States), and were in all 
nineteen persons, the chief being Ch¡¯oi Ranhun and Cho Neungpong.  There 
were several orientals abroad, of abort stature and dark complexion.  These 
understood characters and so served as interpreters.
The messenger informed them that it was contrary to Korean custom to deal 
with foreigners, and that if relations were ever established it must be by 
the king, and could not be through the governor of P¡¯yung an province.  He 
then asked if they might send aboard something to eat.  They replied that 
they desired nothing but wheat-flour and eggs.  The messenger returned and 
reported to the governor.
At this juncture, without awaiting a reply, the foreigners weighed anchor 
and came up as far as Mangyungda, a hill some twelve li from Pyeng Yang.  
Above this is Crow Rapids which shuts off further progress.
The night following there were heavy rains on the mountains that form the 
watershed of the Ta Tong river, and, while none fell in Pyeng Yang, the 
river rose rapidly.  It being the 15th. of the moon there were also high 
tides.  This lifted the boat sufficiently to cross Crow Rapids, a rise of 
water said to have been seldom seen before.  The foreigners thinking this 
the ordinary depth of the river crossed the rapids, and made their boat fast 
just above Yang Jak island.
An adjutant (named Yi) now went on board with four eggs, and carrying this 
message from the governor.  ¡°You have come right up to the walls of our 
city when asked to remain outside, and have insisted on trade which is 
contrary to our laws; matters have come to such a pass now that we must hear 
from his majesty th king before we can decide,¡± and thus the officer came 
and went several times.
It was the second year of the present king, but the Tai Won Koun was then 
Lord High Executioner for Korea.  He thought this foreign ship meant a new 
invasion of Roman Catholicism, and so his reply was.  ¡°If they do not go at 
once have them killed.¡±  The day preceding this reply the river had gone 
down, and the boat was already hopelessly fast in the mud.
The governor sent his soldiers to carry out the orders.  Arms and ammunition 
were dealt out, bows and arrows were also in demand.  The Americans seeing 
the threatening attitude of the natives, seized the adjutant, who had come 
on board for a last visit, and made him prisoner.  ¡°Never mind the 
adjutant,¡± says the governor, ¡°fire on them!¡± and now the fight began.  
It lasted four days, and the whole country was covered, we are told, with 
spectators.  From the ship huge guns went off that shot ball ten li and 
roared thunder that could be heard a day¡¯s journey away.  Bits of broken 
metal were scattered through the crowd.  The one who tells the story was 
then a boy eighteen years of age and in the confusion he was struck by one 
of these fragments on the back of the hand.  It lamed him for a little.  
¡°To my surprise,¡± said he, ¡°I found I was still alive.¡±  The archers and 
soldiers, some of whom had been killed, now refused to go anywhere near the 
boat and at a distance their aim was useless, for the foreigners concealed 
behind the gunnel left them no mark.
They then tried the Tortoise Boat, a scow mounted with cannon that has a 
protective armor of sheet-iron and bull-hide.  The front part of this lifts 
when the shot is fired, and closes immediately after.  They tried several 
shots but found it impossible to pierce the ship.  Thus far The General 
Sherman had the advantage.
Then a drill sergeant Pak Ch¡¯oongwun fastened three scows together before 
the East Gate, and then piled them up with brushwood, which he sprinkled 
with sulphur and saltpeter.  Long ropes were then fastened on each side by 
which to navigate it.  It was then set fire to and let down toward the ship. 
  But the first failed, and the second, and only after a third attempt, was 
the General Sherman seen to be on fire.
The crew were smoked out and came tumbling into the water on both sides.  
Some had jars with them, which, when opened, seemed to contain a thick brown 
oil unknown to Koreans.
Drill-sergeant Pak in a small that he had ready, pushed quickly up to the 
ship¡¯s side and rescued adjutant Yi, who was still alive.
The wretched foreigners were now hacked to pieces by the furious mob.  One 
or two who reached shore carried a white flag, which they waved while they 
bowed repeatedly.  But no quarter was given, they were pinioned and cut to 
pieces, then the remains were still further mutilated, certain parts were 
cut off to be used as medicine, the rest gathered up and burned in a heap.
When the fire burned the ship, there remained the iron ribs that looked like 
posts driven into the ground.  These have since been melted down and used in 
various ways.
The two or three pieces of cannon were placed in the armory of Pyeng Yang, 
where they now are, and the chains of the ship are still seen hanging 
between the pillars of the East Gate Tower.
There is a miryuk (Buddhist image) near Crow Rapids.  The crew it seems had 
told adjutant Yi that before they left China they had consulted a sorcerer 
who said ¡°There is danger before the miryuk of a city that has stood alone 
a thousand years.¡±
After all was over the governor of Pyeng Yang had a celebration in yangwan 
summer house, with music and dancing at the same time despatching a letter 
to the capital, in which was this remarkable statement.  ¡°Drill sergeant 
Pak when he rescued adjutant Yi, took him under his arm and leaped with him 
a hundred yards across the Ta Tong from the burning ship.¡±  When the Tai 
won Koun read this, he laughed a great oriental laugh and commanded that Pak 
Ch¡¯ongwun be made and aide-de-camp in Anjoo.
Pak still lives in Kang-dong, P¡¯yung an Province.

						Jas. S. Gale


The Tragedy of Korea,   by F.A. McKenzie      Hodder and Stoughton  (1908)
	In 1866 an American schooner, the General Sherman, whose crew consisted of 
Captain Preston, three Americans, an Englishman, and nineteen Malay and 
Chinese sailors, left Tientsin for Korea.  She was loaded with guns, powder, 
and contraband articles, and was said to be despatched for the purpose of 
plundering the royal tombs at Ping-yang.  The ship entered the Tai Tong 
river, and was there ordered to stop by the local authorities.  Its visit 
roused great excitement, as it was believed to be made in connection with 
the French Catholics, against whom the Government was then in full 
opposition.  The regent of Korea, the Tai Won Kun, sent orders that the 
foreigners were not to be allowed to land, and that they were either to be 
driven back or killed.  The people of Ping-yang prepared for war.  Their 
weapons were primitive.  They had the fire-arrow or wha-jun, which was said 
to be able to shoot 800 feet and then explode with considerable force.  The 
soldiers dressed themselves in their dragon cloud armour, cloth of many 
folds reputedly impervious to bullets.  These bowmen were paraded, and some 
old style cannon brought out.  Parties of Koreans on either banks of the 
river opened fire on the ship¡¯s crew, and for four days an intermittent 
duel was maintained.  The ship¡¯s guns did considerable execution, but for 
every Korean killed there were a dozen to step into his place.  Being 
ignorant of the navigation of the river, Captain Preston ran his ship on the 
banks and was unable to float it off.
After some days¡¯ fighting, the Koreans had accomplished very little.  Their 
archers and soldiers would not approach the ship near enough to do much 
damage, and they soon refused to expose themselves to certain death from gun 
fire.  An ancient armoured float was brought into play, the tortoise boat, a 
scow mounted with cannon and protected by a covering of sheet iron and bull 
hide.  The front part of the armour lifted when the shot was fired and 
closed immediately afterwards.  Even the tortoise boat failed to injure the 
foreign ship.  The a drill-sergeant - Pak by name - made himself for ever 
famous by proposing another plan.  He fastened three scows together, piled 
them with brushwood, and sprinkled the wood with sulphur and saltpetre.  The 
scows were secured by cords, were set alight, and then sent down the river 
towards the General Sherman.  One failed to do any damage.  A second trio 
was prepared, but the now fearful crew of the American ship managed to keep 
it off when it approached them.  Then came a third trio of burning boats, 
and this set the General Sherman on fire.
The crew were almost suffocated by the stench and capour of the burning 
sulphur and saltpetre.  They tried in vain to put out the flames, and as the 
smoke grew thicker and thicker they were forced one by one to jump into the 
water.  They were seized by the Korean soldiers, now hurrying up in boats.  
Some of the invaders had white flags, which they waved in vain.  Most of 
them were hacked to pieces before they reached the shore.  Others were 
brought to land, where they tried by friendly smiles and soft words to win 
the goodwill of the people.  But they were not allowed many minutes to live. 
  They were pinioned and then cut down, mutilated in abominable fashion, and 
the bodies torn to bits.  Parts were taken off to be used as medicine, and 
the remainder burnt.  The General Sherman itself was consumed by flame 
rescued from the river, dragged in triumph to the south gate of the city of 
Ping-yang, and hung high as a warning to all men of the fate awaiting those 
who would dare to disturb the peace of the Land of the Morning Calm.  When I 
last visited Ping-yang, they were hanging there still.


The Rule of the Taewon¡¯gun  1864-1873     Restoration in Yi Korea
by Ching Young Choe

Sometime during the latter part of July 1866 the owner of the American 
schooner General Sherman, a merchant named W.B. Preston, arranged with 
Meadows & Co., a British firm in Tientsin, to send his schooner to Korea 
with a cargo of miscellaneous merchandise.  The officers and crew of the 
ship comprised men of various nationalities: Captain Page, American; Chief 
Mate Wilson and the owner Preston, American; George Hogarth, supercargo, 
British; and thirteen Chinese and three Malays.  An Anglican missionary, 
Robert Thomas, who had learned Korean from some Korean Catholic converts at 
Chefoo, accompanied them as interpreter.  The ship¡¯s cargo consisted mainly 
of cotton goods, tin sheets, glass, and other items.  The schooner left 
Tientsin on July 29 and stopped briefly for water at Chefoo, from where she 
set out on August 9 on her ill-starred last voyage.
On August 16 the General Sherman reached the mouth of the Taedong River and 
slowly steamed up towards the city of P¡¯yongyang, where Preston hoped to 
exchange his goods for Korean paper, rice, gold, ginseng, and leopard skins. 
  At a number of places, both the provincial and local authorities attempted 
in vain to prevent the ship from going further (even to the extent of 
offering provisions).  There was no trouble, however, until August 27, when 
the Sherman appeared off the bank of P¡¯yongyang.  That day witnessed the 
first sign of the important clash that was not well known outside Korea 
until almost the end of the Yi dynasty.
Toward the evening of August 27 six of the Sherman¡¯s crew were observed 
aboard a small blue boat going up the Taedong, then swollen with rain on its 
upper course.  They were immediately pursued by Yi Hyon-ik, the deputy 
commonder of the P¡¯yongyang military headquarters, and two other Koreans in 
a tiny junk.  The Korean boat was attacked by the blue boat, and Yi and his 
companions were captured and taken to the schooner.
The next morning the schooner moved its anchorage a short distance up the 
river, firing at random with muskets and guns.  Soon five sailors came down 
from the ship, boarded the blue boat, and started to go up the river.  Just 
about this time the populace of P¡¯yongyang, excited over the news of Yi¡¯s 
abduction, began to assemble along the bank, demanding his release.  The 
sailors announced through their interpreter that they would settle the 
matter after they entered the walled city.  The civilian crowd now started 
to throw stones at the sailors while the soldiers threatened them with bows 
and arrows and matchlocks.  The sailors managed, however, to escape from the 
hostile mob and return safely to the schooner.  Since the situation was 
becoming serious, the schooner at last decided to leave the river.  It was 
no longer navigable.  It was at this time that the first clash between the 
sailors and the Koreans took place and Yi¡¯s rescue was effected.
On August 29 the sailors again ran wild, in spite of repeated warnings from 
the Korean authorities.  Many native junks around the ship were damaged and 
some of the crowd were fatally shot.  It was reported that by the following 
day seven natives had been killed and five others wounded by the random 
firing.  Faced with this uncontrollable situation, on August 31, the 
governor of P¡¯yongan, Pak Kyu-su, determined to end the turmoil by 
destroying both the steamer and the crew.
The chief offensive weapon of the Koreans was the ¡°flaming¡± or ¡°burning¡± 
junk.  As for the Sherman¡¯s crew, they fought gallantly until they were 
left with almost no gunpowder and cartridges.  On September 2 the ship, 
which by then had run completely aground, found herself surrounded by the 
flaming junks and was at last burned.  At the very moment when she caught 
fire, the Reverend Thomas and a Chinese named Chao jumped from the prow of 
the ship and appealed for mercy, waving a piece of white cloth.  They were 
taken ashore, where they were beaten to death by irate soldiers and 
civilians.  The other crew members were either shot or burned to death in 
the ship.  During this incident the Koreans only lost one man.
Thus ending the General Sherman incident.  But the incident became an 
important diplomatic issue, and finally, in 1871, the cause of an American 
expedition.  To an extent, the ¡°private expedition¡± of Ernest Oppert 
effected the settlement of the Sherman case.



Again I would appreciate any assistance anyone can offer about the military 
status, strength and weapons of the Korean army and navy (they were the 
same) during the period of 1850-1905.

Thanking you in advance.

Robert Neff


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