98 
On the Ist October, 1852, Gilliss left Santiago on his 
return homeward, and in the following month arrived in the 
United States, after an absence of three years and a quarter. 
During the four years next ensuing, he was engaged 
under orders from the Navy Department in reducing the 
observations, and the preparation of his narrative, and of the 
work on Chile. In September, 1855, however, a great blow 
fell upon him. The Naval Retiring Board, under orders to 
report to the Secretary of the Navy the names of all officers 
who were in their judgment incapable of performing all their 
duties both ashore and afloat, in order that they be placed 
upon the “reserved list” with furlough pay, reported the 
names of 201 out of the 712 officers in the several grades 
prescribed by law. Of these 201 names, 49 were stricken 
from the rolls, and the remainder placed upon the reserved 
list. Strange as it may seem, Gilliss’s name was among the 
number, the reason assigned—indeed the only one assign- 
able — being, that twenty years had elapsed since his last 
sea service. 
Gilliss felt this imputation keenly. His first volume only 
had appeared, and the Secretary promptly notified him that 
he would be retained on the same duty of preparing the 
remaining five for publication, and without diminution of 
his salary. Still a stigma was affixed, as he thought, and 
he fancied that disgrace, or at least humiliation, attached to 
his new position. He had fulfilled the first duty of an officer 
for all these years by implicitly obeying orders. No one of 
these orders had ever been solicited by him, excepting that 
for the charge of the expedition to Chile. Some of them had 
Se indeed been adverse to his known wishes, and in a published 
: letter sent to those learned societies which had enrolled 
among: their gaarolineny he earnestly, yet with remarka- 
: ess and courtesy of ge, set forth the injustice 
