Harper's Round Table, December 1, 1896

by Various

"You will certainly have to tell us about that," this fourth man laughed, seeing that the Commander was waiting for a question; "for I have always understood that Apalachicola, being an out-of-the-way place, was one of the few Southern towns that escaped without a scratch in the war. I never heard of any battle there."

"No, there was no battle there," the Commander replied, "and you would hardly hear of the action, because there were so few engaged in it. In fact, I was the only one on the Federal side, and there were no Confederates. When I was a boy there I fell out of a pine-tree and broke my thigh; so it was my own action, and one that I still have reason to remember."

This was the Commander's modest way of describing an accident that brought out all the manliness he had in him, and made him an officer in the United States navy, and he seldom gives any other account of it; but some of the grown-up boys of Apalachicola tell the story in a very different way—the same "boys," some of them, who used to set out in parties of three or four and chase young Jack Radway and make life miserable for him.

Jack had a strange habit, when he was between fifteen and sixteen (this is the way they tell the story in Apalachicola), of going down to the wharf and sitting by the half-hour on the end of a spile, looking out over the bay. That was in 1862. His name was not Jack Radway, but that is a fairly good sort of name, and on account of the Commander's modesty it will have to answer for the present. While he sat in this way it was necessary for him to keep the corner of one eye on the wharf and the adjacent street, watching for enemies. Oddly enough, every white boy in the town was Jack's enemy, generous as he was, and brave and good-hearted; and when one came alone, or even two, if they were not too big, he was always ready to stay and defend himself. But when three or four came together he was forced to retire to his father's big brick warehouse, across the street. They would not follow him there, because it was well known that the rifle standing beside the desk was always kept loaded.

This enmity with the other boys, for no fault of his own, was Jack's great sorrow. A year or two before he had been a favorite with all the boys and girls, and now he was hungry for a single friend of his own age. The reason of it was that his father was the only Union man in Apalachicola. Every white man, woman, and child in the town sympathized with the Confederacy, except John Radway and his wife and their son Jack. The elder Radway had thought it over when the trouble began, and had made up his mind that his allegiance belonged to the old government that his grandfather had fought for.

Near the mouth of the river lay the United States gunboat Alleghany, guarding the harbor, with the stars and stripes floating bravely at her stern.

"Look at that flag," Jack's father told him. "Your great-grandfather fought for it, and I want you always to honor it. It is the grandest flag in the whole world. It is my flag and yours, and you must never desert it."

By the side of Mr. Radway's house stood a tall pine-tree, much higher than the top of the house, with no limbs growing out of the trunk except at the very top, after the manner of Southern pines. Jack was a great climber, and nearly every day, when he did not go down town, he "shinned" up this tall tree to make sure that the gunboat was still in the harbor. And one day, the day of what the Commander calls "the action at Apalachicola," he lost his hold in some way, or a limb broke, and he fell from the top to the ground.

For some time he lay there unconscious, and when he came to his senses he could not get up. There was a terrible pain in his left hip, and he called for help, and his mother and some of the colored women ran out and carried him into the house, and when they laid him on a bed he fainted again from the pain.