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.”