Pike & Cutlass: Hero Tales of Our NavyGibbs, George
History
Pike & Cutlass: Hero Tales of Our Navy
Gibbs, George
United States -- History, Naval
There was a hoarse cry of “man overboard.” Seaman Robert Sweeny, who saw
the accident, running out along the boom, plunged in without delay, just
as the man came up the second time. Bernadou, then a cadet-midshipman,
heard the cry, and rushing to the gangway, saw the terrible struggle
of Sweeny with the drowning man as the tide swept them out towards the
sea. Bernadou tossed off his coat, and was overboard in an instant.
Christoverson, in his fierce struggle, carried Sweeny down with him, the
latter only breaking away to be carried down again.
Bernadou by this time was within reach, and catching the drowning man from
behind, managed to relieve Sweeny until a line was thrown to them, and
they were finally hauled aboard in an exhausted condition. For this act
both Bernadou and the sailor received the recommendations of their captain
and the thanks of William H. Hunt, then the secretary of the navy.
ONLY NAVAL OFFICER KILLED IN THE WAR
Worth Bagley’s career at the Naval Academy was a triumph of the heart
rather than of the mind. While he loved the service and hoped some day to
fill a useful place in it, he found more to attract him in football and
athletics than in calculus and least squares. But no man who ever entered
was more beloved than he, and no man had better friends in the service and
out of it. He was turned back twice, but entered, in 1891, the class of
’95, in which year he was graduated. He was a member of the “Five B’s,”
composed of Bennett, Barnes, Bagley, Breckinridge, and Baldwin, men who
were close friends while they were at the Academy.
But football was Bagley’s ruling passion. During this time, too, the
great series of games between West Point and Annapolis, between the army
and navy, over which the entire United Service went mad, were played,
and Bagley was on the victorious team of ’93, and was named for the
“All-America” team.
Bagley roomed during the four years’ course with his chum Breckinridge,
who was washed off another torpedo-boat, the “Cushing,” and drowned, as
he was trying to get into Havana a few days before the blowing up of the
“Maine.”
“Worthless” Bagley (as his intimates called him) and Breckinridge were
never left much to themselves in their quarters, for their room was always
crowded during recreation-hours with cadets skylarking or asking advice
or assistance. There was another intimate and classmate of Bagley, D.
R. Merritt, who was killed in the “Maine” disaster a few days after the
drowning of Breckinridge.
ROOSEVELT SAVED BAGLEY FOR THE NAVY
When Bagley came up for graduation at the end of the four-years’ course
the doctors thought they discovered an irregular movement of the heart,
and recommended that he be dropped. Bagley took his case to Theodore
Roosevelt, then assistant secretary of the navy.
Roosevelt, looking at him through his glasses with a quick, critical
glance, said,--
“You are Bagley, the football player, are you not?”
Bagley said he was.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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