Silas Bent (naval officer)

Silas Bent III (1820–1887) was a naval officer in the U.S. Navy prior to the American Civil War. Silas Bent sailed both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and was recognized by the Navy for his contributions to oceanography which were published by the Navy. At the outset of the American Civil War, Silas Bent resigned his commission, as his sympathy was for the Southern cause.

This article is about the US naval officer. For the Missouri Supreme Court judge, see Silas Bent (judge). For the US journalist, see Silas Bent.
Silas Bent III
Silas Bent ca1870
Born(1820-10-10)October 10, 1820
St. Louis, Missouri
DiedAugust 26, 1887(1887-08-26) (aged 66)
Shelter Island,
Long Island, New York
AllegianceUnited States
Service/branchU.S. Navy
Years of service1836-1861
RankLieutenant
UnitHydrographic Division of the Coast Survey
Battles/warsNagasaki, Japan, rescue mission
AwardsCommendation for published hydrographic surveys of Japanese waters
Relations
  • Ann Elizabeth Tyler (wife)
  • Mary Lawrence Bent (child)
  • Lucy (Bent) McKinley (child)
  • Silas Bent IV (child)

Early life and family

Silas Bent III was born on 10 October 1820 in St. Louis, Missouri, a son of a judge of the Missouri Supreme Court, also called Silas, with deep family roots in Massachusetts Bay Colony[1][2] He married Ann Elizabeth Tyler of Louisville, Kentucky on 5 November 1857 and they had three children Mary Lawrence Bent, Lucy (Bent) McKinley, and Silas Bent IV, who was a journalist.[3]

U.S. Naval service

Bent was appointed midshipman at age 16 and served in the U.S. Navy for the next 25 years, during which he became well versed in the science of oceanography. He crossed the Atlantic Ocean five times, the Pacific Ocean twice, rounded Cape Horn four times and the Cape of Good Hope once.

Rescuing Americans at Nagasaki

He was serving in Preble in 1849 when that brig sailed into Nagasaki, Japan, to secure the release of 18 shipwrecked American sailors imprisoned by the Japanese. He was flag lieutenant in Mississippi, Commodore Matthew C. Perry's flagship during the expedition to Japan between 1852 and 1854.

Hydrographic surveys

He made hydrographic surveys of Japanese waters. The results of his survey were published by the government in 1857 in Sailing Directions and Nautical Remarks: by Officers of the Late U.S. Naval Expedition to Japan.

Resigned due to Southern sympathies

In 1860, Lt. Bent was detailed to the Hydrographic Division of the Coast Survey, but resigned from the Navy on 25 April 1861 at the outbreak of the American Civil War, apparently because of Southern sympathies.

Final years

He returned to St. Louis upon resigning from the Navy and took up the management of his wife's estate. Lt. Bent died on 26 August 1887 at Shelter Island, Long Island, New York, and was buried in Louisville, Kentucky.

Honored in ship naming

The USNS Silas Bent (T-AGS-26), an oceanographic survey ship, was named in his honor in March 1964.

See also

References
  1. Grinnell, George Bird (1923). "Bent's Old Fort And Its Builders". Kansas State Historical Society Collections (Reprinted ed.). Topeka: Kansas State Historical Society. 15: 1–2. hdl:2027/njp.32101079825426.
  2. Bent, Allen (1900). The Bent family in America. Boston: David Clapp & Son. pp. 58–59.
  3. Edmund Rice (1638) Association, 2010. Descendants of Edmund Rice: The First Nine Generations. (CD-ROM)Edmund Rice (1638) Association
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