SAILOR JACK IN ACTION.
The city of New Orleans surrendered to Flag-officer Farragut, who held
it under his guns until General Butler came up with his soldiers to take
it off his hands; and then he kept on up the river with a portion of his
victorious fleet to effect a junction with the Mississippi squadron at
Vicksburg, while the remainder of his vessels, one of which was the
_Harriet Lane_, sailed away to hoist the flag of the Union over the port
of Galveston, and break up the blockade running that was going on there.
This force appeared before Galveston in May, but no earnest efforts were
made to compel a surrender until October; and even then no serious
attempt was made to take and hold the city. The commanding naval officer
was content to establish a close blockade of the port, and nothing could
have suited Jack Gray better. Galveston was a noted place for blockade
runners, and it was seldom indeed that one escaped when the _Lane_
sighted and started in pursuit of her. Every capture meant prize money.
“We made the most of the money that was made off that port last summer,
but of course we didn’t get it all ourselves,” explained Jack. "If you
are cruising by yourself and make a capture while another ship is within
signalling distance of you, the law says you must divide with that ship,
although she may not have done a thing to help you take the prize; but
if you belong to a squadron, every vessel in it has a share in every
prize you make. Fortunately for us there were but four ships in our
squadron off Galveston, and every time we took a prize somebody would
sing:
“‘Here’s enough for four of us;
Thank Heaven there’s no more of us—
God save the king.’”
Things went on in this satisfactory way until General Banks took command
at New Orleans in December, and sent a regiment to assist the naval
forces at Galveston, it being a part of his duty to “direct the military
movements against the rebellion in the State of Texas.” Not more than a
third of the regiment had arrived, the rest being on its way, when the
rebel general Magruder, who had just been appointed to the chief command
in Texas, formed a bold plan for the recapture of the city, and carried
it out successfully on New Year’s morning. He had six thousand men and
several cotton-clad vessels to help him, and of course the battle could
end in but one way.
Galveston stands upon a long, narrow island in the bay, and is connected
with the mainland by a bridge two miles in length, built upon piles.
This bridge ought to have been destroyed, but it wasn’t, and when
Magruder charged across it with his six regiments, he confidently
expected to sweep away like so many cobwebs the little handful of
Federals standing at the other end; but he didn’t. Aided by a hot fire
from the _Harriet Lane_ and _Westfield_, they repulsed every charge he
made, and no doubt would have continued to do so if two of his best
vessels, the _Neptune_ and _Bayou City_, protected by cotton bales piled
twenty feet high upon their low decks, so that at a distance they looked
like common cotton transports, and manned by a regiment of
sharpshooters, had not hastened to his aid.
“We had our own way with the troops on the bridge until those two boats
came dashing down at us, and then things began to look squally,” said
Jack. “We steamed up to meet them, but it wasn’t long before we wished
we hadn’t done it. We didn’t disable them with our bow-guns as we hoped
to do, and, indeed, it was as much as a man’s life was worth to handle
the guns at all, for the sharpshooters behind the cotton bales sent
their bullets over our deck like hailstones. One time I grabbed hold of
a train tackle with four other men to help run out the No. 2 gun, and
the next I knew I was standing there alone. The four had been shot dead,
but I wasn’t touched. All this while the rebel boats were coming at us
full speed, and the next thing I knew they struck us with terrible
force, bow on, one on each side. But,” added Jack, with a chuckle of
satisfaction, “one of them got hurt worse than we did. The _Neptune_ was
disabled by the shock, and grounded in shoal water; but the men on her
were game to the last. They fought to win and shot to kill; for, no
matter which way I looked, I saw somebody drop every minute.”
“And what became of the other boat?” inquired Rodney.
“The _Bayou City_? Oh, she drifted away, but rounded-to and came at us
again, hitting us pretty near in the same place; but the second time she
didn’t drift away. She made fast to and boarded us. When I saw those
graybacks swarming over the hammock nettings, and heard that Captain
Wainwright and most of the other officers had been killed, I knew I had
to do something or go to prison; so I just took a header overboard
through the nearest port and struck out for the _Westfield_, which was a
mile or so astern, and trying to come to our aid.”
Jack was not quite correct when he said he “struck out,” after taking a
header through the port. He turned on his back and floated, for he was
afraid that if he showed any signs of life he would be discovered and
picked off by some sharpshooter. He permitted the current to whirl him
around now and then, so that he could keep his bearings and hold a
straight course for the _Westfield_, but before he had floated half a
mile, he discovered that he was making straight for as hot a place as
that from which he had just escaped. The flagship _Westfield_ had run
hard and fast aground within easy range of a battery which the rebels
had planted on the shore, and although two other gunboats came up and
tried to drag her into deep water, she was being literally cut to pieces
before Jack Gray’s eyes; and more than that, her commander was making
preparations to abandon her to her fate.
“Then I began to look wild again, and took a sheer off to give the
flagship plenty of room to blow up in,” said Jack. “Captain Renshaw, her
commandant, was a regular, and I knew well enough that he would not
leave his vessel in such shape that the rebels could fix her up and use
her against us, though I was not prepared for what happened a few
minutes later. While I was moving along with the current, not daring to
swim lest I should attract the notice of some wide-awake sharpshooter, I
saw Renshaw send off his men by the boat-load until at last there were
but two boats left alongside the _Westfield_. One of these put off
loaded to the water’s edge, but the other remained, and I knew it was
waiting for Renshaw to fire the train he had laid to the magazine; and
that made me sheer off a little farther, although I began swimming the
best I knew how in the hope that one of the boats would wait for me to
catch on behind. In a minute or two more Captain Renshaw came out, and
that was the first and last I ever saw of him. He stepped into his boat,
but before it had moved twenty feet away the flagship blew up, smashing
the two small boats into kindling-wood and sending every man in them to
kingdom come.”
No one else who was as close to the _Westfield_ as Jack Gray was at that
moment escaped with his life, and he did not come off unscathed. While
he was gazing around him in a dazed sort of way, gasping for breath and
utterly unable to realize what had happened, a piece of the
_Westfield’s_ wreck which had been blown high in air descended with
frightful velocity, and barely missing his head struck him a glancing
blow on the shoulder and shot down into the water out of sight. And it
was but one of a score of such dangerous missiles which rained upon him
during the next few seconds. They plunged into the water perilously near
to him and splashed it in his face from all directions. The most of them
were no bigger than the head they threatened to break, while others were
as large as a barn door. At first Jack thought the safest place would be
nearer the bottom of the river; but when he saw how some of the heaviest
pieces of the wreck dove out of sight when they struck the water, he
decided that he could not go deep enough to escape them, and that the
best plan would be to look upward and try to dodge them when he saw that
they were coming too close; but by the time he came to this conclusion
and turned upon his back, the storm was over and the air above him was
clear. It was the narrowest escape he had ever had, and Jack Gray had
been in some tight places.
Having satisfied himself that he was no longer in danger of being
knocked senseless by falling wreckage, Jack turned upon his face and
struck out for the nearest gunboat, or rather tried to; for his right
arm was almost useless. He could thrust it through the water in front of
him, but when he endeavored to swim with it, it dropped to his side like
a piece of lead.
“And that’s the way it felt for three or four days, although I was under
good care all the time,” continued Jack. “I was picked up after I had
floated and swum with one hand a distance of three miles, reported the
loss of my vessel, and told what little I knew about the blowing up of
the _Westfield_, and then I was glad to go into the hands of the doctor,
for I found that I was worse hurt than I thought I was. But you may be
sure I didn’t say so. If there is anything that is despised aboard ship
it is a sojer, which is the name we give to men who can work and won’t,
and so I kept on doing duty when I ought by rights to have been in my
hammock. I pulled twenty miles on the night of the 11th of January to
escape capture, and of course the exertion gave me a big set-back; but I
haven’t got to that part of my story yet.”
Jack Gray watched and waited anxiously to hear from some of his
shipmates, but not a word did he get from anybody; and this led him to
believe that he was the only one of the _Harriet Lane’s_ crew who
escaped death or capture. The direct results of the fight were that the
rebels, with very small loss to themselves, captured the _Lane_, caused
the destruction of the flagship of the squadron, secured possession of
two coal barges that were lying at the wharf and nearly four hundred
prisoners; but “the indirect results were still more important.” The
whole State of Texas came back under their flag, and blockade running
went on as though it had never been interfered with at all. It was done
principally by small schooners like Captain Beardsley’s _Hattie_, which
took out cotton and brought back medicines, guns, ammunition, and cloth
that was afterward made into uniforms for the Confederate soldiers. And
the worst of it was that it was kept up to the end of the war. Of course
word was sent to New Orleans at once, and Commodore Bell came down with
a small fleet to shut up the port; but he brought no soldiers with him
to hold the city, for General Banks couldn’t spare a single regiment. He
had made up his mind to capture Port Hudson, and needed all the men he
could get.
Among the vessels that came down with Commodore Bell was the _Hatteras_,
the slowest old tub in the fleet, and much to his disgust Jack Gray was
ordered aboard of her. The badge he wore on his arm showed that he had
been a quartermaster on board the _Lane_, but he was transferred without
any rating at all, it being optional with Captain Blake, the commander
of the _Hatteras_, whether he would continue him as a quartermaster or
put him before the mast. Jack had already served four months beyond the
year for which he enlisted, but he made no complaint, although he had
firmly resisted all efforts on the part of the _Lane’s_ officers to
induce him to re-enlist for three years or during the war.
“I might have had a commission as well as not,” said Jack, “for there
wasn’t a watch officer aboard the _Lane_ who could have passed a better
examination than I could. Indeed, I hadn’t been aboard of her
twenty-four hours before I found that I knew more about a ship than most
of the men who commanded me. But as often as I thought of staying in the
service, something told me I had better get out; and that was the reason
why I refused to re-enlist or accept a commission.”
The fact was that, so long as the speedy _Lane_ was capturing a valuable
blockade runner or two every week, and money was coming into his pockets
faster than he could have earned it in any other business, Jack Gray was
quite willing to remain a quartermaster, and so he said nothing to
Captain Wainwright concerning the honorable discharge that rightfully
belonged to him; but now the case was different, and Jack wanted to go
home and see how his mother and Marcy were getting on. He had been
ordered aboard a vessel that couldn’t catch a mud-turtle in a stern
chase, and consequently there was no more excitement or prize money for
him. The paymaster who ought to have paid him off and given him his
discharge had been captured with all his money and books, and Jack knew
that his accounts would have to be settled in Washington; and there was
so much red tape in Washington that there was no telling whether or not
they would ever be settled. After thinking the matter over, Jack wrote a
letter to Commodore Bell, telling him how the matter stood and asking
for his discharge, and gave it into the hands of the captain of the
_Hatteras_ to be forwarded. The first result was about what he thought
it would be. He had to pull off his petty officer’s badge and go before
the mast. He was also assigned to an oar in the first cutter, and that
was one of the best things that ever happened to Jack Gray.
Nowhere else in the world is life such a burden as aboard a vessel lying
on a station with nothing but routine work to do. Jack found it so and
chafed and fretted under it, but not for long. One day, about an hour
after the dinner pennant had been hauled down, the lounging, lazy crew
of the _Hatteras_ were startled by the cry of “Sail ho!” from the
lookout. Signal was at once made to the _Brooklyn_, Commodore Bell’s
flagship, and the answer that came back was an order for the _Hatteras_
to run out and see who and what the visitor was. Of course the crew were
glad to be afloat once more, and some of them began talking about prize
money; but others declared that if the stranger had any speed at all and
desired to keep out of the way, the _Hatteras_ would never get nearer to
her than she was at that moment. But the sequel proved that the stranger
did not want to keep out of the way, although at first she acted like
it. She rounded to and turned her head out to sea as if she were fleeing
from pursuit; but all the while the war ship came nearer and nearer to
her, until the officer at the masthead made out that the chase was a
large steamer under sail. This fact was duly communicated to the
flagship by signal, and then the old _Hatteras_ seemed to wake up and
try to show a little speed; but Captain Blake became suspicious and
ordered his ship cleared for action, with everything in readiness for a
determined attack or a vigorous defense.
The pursuit continued for twenty miles, and finally night set in with no
moon but plenty of starlight. Jack Gray, who had stood at one of the
broadside guns until he was tired, had just given utterance to the hope
that the chase would improve the opportunity to run out of sight or else
come about and give them battle, just as she pleased, when an officer at
the masthead sent down the startling information that the stranger had
rounded-to and was coming back. Beyond a doubt that meant that something
was going to happen. She hove in sight almost immediately, and in less
time than it takes to tell it stopped her engines within a hundred
yards, the captain of the blockader ringing his stopping bell at the
same instant.
“What ship is that?” shouted the Union commander, from his place on the
bridge.
“Her Britannic Majesty’s steamer _Vixen_!” was the reply. “What ship is
that?”
“This is the United States ship _Hatteras_,” answered Captain Blake. “I
will send a boat aboard of you.”
“When we heard this conversation,” said Jack, “we made up our minds that
we had been chasing an English ship. Mind you, I don’t say a friendly
ship, for England never was and never will be friendly to the United
States. She would be glad to see us broken up to-morrow, and is doing
all she dares to help the rebels along. Of course it was our captain’s
duty to find out whether or not the other captain had told him the
truth, and the only way he could do it was by sending an officer off to
examine his papers. He had the first cutter called away, and, as that
was the boat to which I belonged, I lost no time in taking off my
side-arms and tumbling into her. And that was all that saved me from
falling into Semmes’ power a second time.”
Jack then went on to say that, as soon as the officer had taken his
place in the stern-sheets, the cutter was shoved off from the _Hatteras_
and pulled around her stern; but just as she began swinging around with
her bow toward the supposed English ship a most exciting and unexpected
thing happened. A voice came from the latter’s deck, so clear and strong
that the cutter’s crew could hear every word:
“This is the Confederate steamer _Alabama_!” And before the astonished
blue-jackets had time to realize that they had been trapped the roar of
a broadside rent the air, and shells and solid shot went crashing into
the wooden walls of the doomed _Hatteras_. Semmes afterward took great
credit to himself because he did not strike the Federal ship in
disguise, but gave her “fair warning.” How long was it after he gave
warning that he fired his broadside into her? Not two seconds. He took
all the advantage he could, and yet there was no one who protested
louder or had more to say about trickery and cowardice when the Federal
officers took advantage of him. He made a great fuss because Captain
Winslow protected the machinery and boilers of the _Kearsarge_ with
chains, as Admiral Farragut protected _his_ vessels when he ran past the
forts at New Orleans.
The roar of the Confederate steamer’s guns had scarcely ceased before an
answering broadside came from the Union war ship. Without the loss of a
moment both vessels were put under steam and the action became a running
fight, the blue-jackets standing bravely to their guns and giving their
powerful antagonist as good as she sent. The cutter’s crew tried in vain
to return to their vessel. They rowed hard, but every turn of her huge
paddle-wheels left them farther behind, and finally they gave up in
despair and laid on their oars and watched the conflict. It was
desperate but short. In just thirteen minutes from the time it began the
_Hatteras_ hoisted a white light at her masthead and fired an off-gun to
show that she had been beaten.
“Fortune of war,” sighed the officer who was sitting in the cutter’s
stern-sheets beside the coxswain. “But I tell you, men, I hate to see
our old ship surrendered to that pirate. Back, port; give way,
starboard! We haven’t surrendered, and we want to get away from here
before they catch sight of us.”
No cutter’s crew ever pulled harder than Jack Gray and his shipmates
pulled in obedience to this order. Jack forgot that he had a crippled
arm, and when the cutter came about and pointed her head toward the
shore more than twenty miles away, he rowed as strong an oar as he ever
did in his life. He listened anxiously for the hail that would tell him
the cutter had been discovered, but heard none; but he saw and reported
something that sent an exultant thrill through the heart of every one of
his companions.
“Mr. Porter,” said he, in tones which intense excitement rendered husky.
“Our old tub has been surrendered, but she’ll never do the rebels any
good. She’s sinking, sir.”
“Thank Heaven!” murmured the officer, whirling around as if he had been
shot.
He couldn’t see anything through the darkness except the white light
that the blockader had hoisted at her masthead in token of surrender,
and which was swaying about in a way that would have been unaccountable
to a landsman; but the blue-jackets knew she was going to the bottom.
She went rapidly, too, for Captain Blake afterward reported that in two
minutes from the time he left her the _Hatteras_ disappeared, bow first.
Then Jack thought that Mr. Porter would order the cutter back to assist
in picking up the crew, but he didn’t do it. They would have reached the
sinking vessel too late to be of any service, and besides Mr. Porter
thought it his duty to report to the Flag-officer at once, believing
that if the _Brooklyn_ were promptly warned she could capture or sink
the _Alabama_ before she had time to get very far away. But the fleet
had already been warned by the sound of the guns that the _Hatteras_ had
encountered an armed enemy of some description, and several steamers
were hastening to the rescue; scattering widely in the pursuit, to cover
as much space as possible and increase their chances of falling in with
the enemy. The cutter passed these vessels at so great a distance that
she could not attract the attention of any of them, and it was not until
they had pulled all the way to Galveston, and boarded one of the
blockading fleet which remained behind, that the particulars of the
fight became known. None of the pursuing steamers ever saw the
_Alabama_, which sailed away for the coast of Yucatan; but as one of
them was returning to her anchorage the next morning, baffled and beaten
in the chase, she fell in with the sunken _Hatteras_, whose royal masts
were just above water. The night pennant floating from one of them told
the melancholy story; but if Jack Gray and his shipmates had not escaped
just as they did, it might have been a long time before Commodore Bell
would have known that the dreaded _Alabama_ had been in his immediate
vicinity. But her day was coming. The first time she met a Union war
ship that was anywhere near her match she was sent to the bottom.
Once more Jack was without a vessel, and had no clothes “to bless
himself with” except those he stood in; but that didn’t trouble him half
as much as did the discharge he was anxious to get. He and the rest of
the cutter’s men were sent aboard the flagship when she returned to her
anchorage, and that suited him, for it gave him a fair chance to gain
the commodore’s ear—a task he set himself to accomplish as soon as the
excitement had somewhat died away. But the Flag-officer was a regular,
and like all regulars he moved in ruts of opinion so deep that a yoke of
oxen could not have pulled him out. He couldn’t give Jack a discharge,
he said, because he didn’t know when or where he enlisted, for how long,
or anything about it. He couldn’t give him any money, either, for his
name was not borne on the paymaster’s books. He could give him a paper
stating that he had done service in the Union navy and let him go home,
and that was all he could do for him.
“And that’s the kind of a discharge I got,” said Jack with a laugh. “But
it proved to be good enough and strong enough to take me through the
provost guards in New Orleans and get me a pass to come up here. I have
not drawn a cent from Uncle Sam, so he owes me a year’s wages and
better, as well as a lot of prize money. The commodore dispatched a
vessel to New Orleans with his report of the loss of the _Hatteras_, and
I was permitted to take passage on her.”
“How did you feel when you found yourself in a strange city with no
money in your pocket and no friends to go to?” inquired Ned Griffin.
“I didn’t think much about it, because I never let a little thing like
that worry me,” said Jack with another laugh. “I did not by any means
intend to go hungry, or sleep on the Levee, if my pockets were empty.
There were several of our vessels in the river, and I knew I could ship
whenever I felt like it; but I had made up my mind that I would not go
afloat again until I had said ‘hello!’ to my relatives up here in
Mooreville.”
The first boat that left the dispatch steamer took Jack ashore and
landed him on the Levee among some river craft that belonged to the
quartermaster’s department of Banks’ army. Being a deep-water man he did
not bestow more than a passing glance upon them, but turned his face
toward the docks above at which a large fleet of sea-going vessels was
moored; and as he walked he kept a bright lookout for two things—a
sailorman who could tell him what had happened in the world since he
left it (being on the blockade Jack thought was almost as bad as being
out of the world), and a soldier who could direct him to the office of
the provost marshal. As he stepped from the Levee to the nearest dock
his gaze became riveted upon a rakish looking fore-and-aft schooner that
lay there discharging a miscellaneous cargo. She looked familiar to him.
She was painted white with a green stripe at her water-line, and bore
the name “_Hyperion_, Portland,” on her stern; but Jack Gray was
positive that he had known and sailed on her when she was painted black
with a red stripe at the water-line, and went by a very different name.
He dodged up the after gang-plank to the deck and took another look. He
had had charge of that deck more than once. Everything on and about it
was familiar to him, not excepting the face of the lank Yankee skipper,
whose head and shoulders at that moment emerged from the companion-way.
Jack turned about and approached him with a comical smile on his
countenance.
“Want a pilot this trip, Captain Frazier?” said he.
“No, I don’t,” was the surly reply. He looked searchingly into Jack’s
face, but could not remember that he had ever seen him before.
“No offence, I hope,” continued the latter. “But I served you so well
before that I think you might give me a lift when you see me stranded
here without a shot in the locker. I took the _West Wind_ through Oregon
Inlet when——”
“Mr. Gray—Jack!” said the captain, in an excited whisper. “Sh! Not
another word out of you; not a whimper. Come below with me.”
Shaking all over with suppressed merriment Jack Gray followed the
skipper down the stairs and into the cabin, the door of which was
quickly but softly closed and locked.
“Sit down,” continued the captain. “And if you care a cent for me don’t
speak above your breath. Where have you been? That uniform says you
belong to the navy.”
“I did, but I don’t belong now,” replied Jack. “Shortly after I made
that trip with you I shipped for a year, but have been kept over my
time. I have been on the blockade, and have helped capture many a fine
craft like this one.”
“Sh! Don’t speak so loud,” whispered Captain Frazier, for it was he.
“But you couldn’t do harm to this craft now, for she is engaged in
honest business.”
“No private ventures stowed away among her cargo?” said Jack.
“Nary venture. There’s no need of it, for I make money hand over fist in
an honest way. I am a cotton trader. Got a permit and everything all
square. And cotton will be worth a dollar a pound by the time I get back
to New York.”
“What do you pay for it here?”
“That depends on the man I am dealing with. If he is a Union man I give
him from seven to ten cents in greenbacks, which will buy eighty per
cent. more stuff than Confederate scrip. If he is a good rebel, or if he
is surrounded by rebel neighbors who are keeping an eye on his
movements, I give him ten cents in rebel money.”
“Where do you get rebel money?” asked Jack.
“Anywhere—everywhere. I can get all I want for thirty cents on a dollar,
and have bought some as low as twenty. It will be lower than that in
less than a month. But, mind you, no one around here knows that I have
been a blockade runner. And I am not at the head of this business. My
Boston owners are doing it all and I am simply their agent. But are you
really aground?”
“I never told a straighter story in my life,” answered Jack, who went on
to describe how he happened to be in that condition. When his hasty
narrative was finished Captain Frazier said:
“There’s always room aboard my schooner for such a sailorman as I know
you to be, and if you want to sign with me as my chief officer I shall
be glad to have you. And you must let me advance you money enough to
provide for your immediate wants.”
When Jack reached this part of his story Rodney knew where that blue
suit came from.