Fox was born at
Saugus, Massachusetts, and his parents named him after Swedish King
Gustav I, also known as Gustav (or Gustavus) Vasa. His parents, Dr. Jesse Fox and Olivia Fox (née Flint) were not
Swedish American, and may have been inspired to name their son after Gustav I by
Henry Brooke's popular play
Gustavus Vasa: The Deliveror Of His Country. He resigned from the Navy on July 30, 1856, and engaged in the manufacture of woolen materials. At the start of the
American Civil War he volunteered for service. President
Abraham Lincoln gave him a temporary appointment in the Navy and sent him in the steamer
Baltic to the relief of
Fort Sumter. Fox could not relieve the fort before
Confederate bombardment forced its surrender, but afterwards he brought away the garrison. On August 1, 1861, Lincoln appointed him
Assistant Secretary of the Navy, an office which he held until the close of the Civil War. In 1866, he was sent on a special mission to
Russia; he conveyed the congratulations of the President to
Tsar Alexander II upon his escape from assassination. His voyage was made in the
monitor , which was the first vessel of this class to cross the Atlantic. They were accompanied by . In 1882 he published a paper suggesting that
Samana Cay in the
Bahamas was
Guanahani, or San Salvador, the first island
Christopher Columbus reached in his discovery of the Americas. Little attention was paid to his paper until 1986, when the
National Geographic Society also concluded that Samana Cay was San Salvador. He died at
Lowell, Massachusetts, aged 62. ==Tributes and legacy==