Alternative endingI bid Judge Pain a hearty goodbye, and started for my boat, meeting one of the old man's sons who knew me. He gave me a lot more provisions which gave me a good supply; sufficient to last me and my two men to Tampa—which I reached some ten days later, without any more great risks that I previously had met with.
After reaching Tampa, I left for Richmond, Virginia, and tendered my services to the Confederate States. I was appointed an acting master in the Confederate Navy by the Honorable S R Mallory, and ordered to Mobile, Alabama. On the fifth of August, 1863, when Admiral Farragut entered Mobile Bay: In that battle, the monitor Tecumseh, commanded by Captain T M Craven (the man who had captured and made a prisoner of me in Key West 1861), was struck by a torpedo and sank with all officers and crew except four men who escaped by getting out through a porthole. Two of the men were picked up by a boat sent by the fleet, and the other two swam to Fort Morgan. I was in the fight and saw Cast Craven's monitor when it went down. The battle was a hot one. I will write another paper later on the Battle of Mobile Bay. Very Respectfully, Capt A N Pacetti April 6th 1911 St Augustine Fla Second alternative endingOn the 20th day of October 1861, I was appointed as an officer by the Secretary of the Confederate States Navy Honorable Stephen R Mallory, and ordered from Richmond, Virginia, to Mobile, Alabama. I served in Mobile as an acting master in command of the Confederate States schooner war vessel Alert. I commanded my boat from 1861 to 1865, and fought in the Battle of Mobile Bay. At the end of the war, I was ordered by Flag Officer Farrand to surrender to the US Government which I did and was paroled on the 10th day of May 1865 on the Alabama River, and was then sent to Mobile.
Third alternative endingSinking of the USS Tecumseh. August 5, 1864. I was on my vessel and witnessed the sinking of the Tecumseh with commander TA Craven on board. At the beginning of the war, he took me prisoner.
Note on transcriptionCaptain Pacetty wrote this reminiscence in long hand in a series of very small lined notebooks toward the end of his life, possibly to establish his pension claim in 1909. His punctuation and capitalization is not always decipherable. There is also a typed draft that concludes with: "Signed Captain Adolphus N Pacetti by Ellen Pacetti Jones" (Ellen became Jones in 1895, Adolphus died in 1913--though she may have typed it posthumously). The alternative endings were found on sheets of paper separate from the notebooks, suggesting that he was working on different ways to sew up the story.
I have mostly used Ellen's version here with some edits—mostly breaking up run-on sentences—to improve readability. I have also used modern spelling of place names.
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