Charles Fleury Bien-aimé Guilloû (July 14, 1813 – January 2, 1899) was an American military physician. He served on a major exploring expedition that included both scientific discoveries and controversy, and two historic diplomatic missions. He ran a hospital in the Hawaiian Islands, before returning to the US.
Life
Charles Fleury Bien-aimé Guilloû was born in Philadelphia on July 26, 1813. His father was Victor Gabriel Guilloû (1776–1841), who had escaped from the French Revolution and fought in the Haitian Revolution. His father introduced him to Marquis de Lafayette when he visited the US in 1824. Guilloû attended a military academy and then graduated from the University of Pennsylvania medical school in 1836. During 1836, he visited his father, who had moved to Cuba to start a sugar plantation after running a dance academy in Philadelphia.
Exploration
On February 9, 1837, Guilloû was appointed assistant surgeon for the in the United States Navy. It was one of the ships sent on the United States Exploring Expedition commanded by Charles Wilkes, although it was 1838 before the squadron could depart. After a dispute with Cadwalader Ringgold, he was transferred to the . He befriended young midshipman William Reynolds, whose journals provide a non-official version of the events of the voyage. In December 1839, the squadron headed farther south, and in January 1840 provided the first sighting of the continent of Antarctica by a US Navy ship. Guilloû provided a sketch when the Peacock was stuck in the ice. They returned to Sydney for repairs, before resuming exploration.
Wilkes' imperious manner included dismissing many of the officers, leading to further low morale. Guilloû attended to sailors injured by frequent floggings. In September 1841 the squadron arrived in Honolulu in the Hawaiian Islands to spend the winter. The three-year planned time of the voyage was over, and several members requested to leave. Wilkes insisted on reading all journals and letters. When Guilloû removed some pages from his journal, saying they were of a personal nature, Wilkes suspended Guilloû and prepared charges for various offenses. After the Peacock was lost in July 1841 while exploring the Pacific Northwest, Guilloû was shuttled between various ships, officially under arrest.
On his return in 1842, Guilloû helped organize the Navy's Bureau of Medicine and Surgery under William P. C. Barton. He was sentenced to dismissal at the court-martial trials in 1843 related to the Wilkes expedition, but President John Tyler reduced the sentence to a year suspension. Guilloû filed seven charges against Wilkes, including questioning his claim to have "discovered" Antarctica. Wilkes was found guilty of only one: illegal punishment. Wilkes was sentenced to a public reprimand.
Diplomacy
After being reinstated, Guilloû served on the , under Commodore James Biddle. In June 1845 the ship was sent to Guangzhou (then known as Canton), on a diplomatic mission with the first treaty between the US and China. It then visited Japan. When returning via Honolulu, at the outbreak of the Mexican–American War, the Columbus was recalled to Monterey, California and the ranch of William A. Richardson. Guilloû met John Sutter, and spoke French with the Swiss native on July 4, 1847; a year later the discovery of gold near Sutter's mill sparked the California Gold Rush. On August 28, 1847, he was promoted to the rank of full Navy Surgeon. The Columbus returned to Hampton Roads in March 1848.
Guilloû was then assigned to the which took another diplomatic trip, this one to Europe. On July 30, 1849, while at Gaeta, the multilingual Guilloû acted as interpreter for a visit to the palace of King Ferdinand II by local diplomat John Rowan. They also met Cardinal Giacomo Antonelli, who was secretary of state for the Papal States. On July 31 they visited Pope Pius IX, and invited him and Ferdinand to visit the ship, with Guilloû again interpreting.
On August 1, Ferdinand and Pius had their formal visit to the Constitution. Pius began to feel ill, and Guilloû treated him for seasickness. The grateful pope delivered rosaries to the Catholics on the ship; Guilloû received inscribed prayerbooks and a medallion, along with a plenary indulgence. The visit, however, proved to be a diplomatic embarrassment for the US, which was officially neutral in the Italian revolutions that were happening at the time. A visit to a navy ship was considered equivalent to stepping on "US territory", which had never been done before by a pope. Captain John Gwinn died before he could be formally reprimanded.