Hundreds of Washington’s most famous citizens began the morning of Feb. 28, 1844, with a lavish pleasure cruise that ended gruesomely, in a horrific tableau of blood-splattered gowns, severed heads, limbs and molten metal. The disaster that was the USS Princeton’s debut came about as ambition and fame converged to kill Secretary of State Abel Upshur and decapitate Secretary of the Navy Thomas Gilmer — and somehow won the president a new bride.
