While countless grandfathers have fought in wars, Charlie Morgan’s grandfather actually started one.
Morgan knew his grandfather, Charles “Gunner” Morgan, had been a big deal in the U.S. Navy. He didn’t know how big until decades after his grandfather’s death in 1959.
“I was only 7 when he moved in with us, and 9 when he died, and he wasn’t big on talking about the things he did,” Morgan told the Keys Weekly on July 20 while in Key West to sign copies of the book he wrote about his grandfather, “the man who started the Spanish-American War.”
“I had his scrapbook, filled with hundreds of newspaper clippings, but then, years later, I discovered, in the bottom of his old sea chest, more documents, two of which were signed by American presidents,” Charlie Morgan said.
The eye-opening research that followed revealed the significance of Gunner Morgan’s Navy career and took his grandson from New Orleans to Key West, and across the Florida Straits to Havana, Cuba.
The same research led to Morgan’s book, “Captain of the Tides: Gunner Morgan,” written with Jacque Hillman, who summarizes it well:
“In 1882, Charles ‘Gunner’ Morgan, 17, shipped out from New Orleans as a 3rd class apprentice seaman, Navy No. 817. Becoming a Navy team baseball player, he knew the ‘greats’ in American baseball. In 1898, he led the Navy dive team that recovered American sailors’ bodies from the USS Maine disaster, reported to President Theodore Roosevelt (then assistant secretary of the Navy), and became ‘The Man Who Started the Spanish-American War.’
“…He was among the first enlisted men promoted to officer. He taught the Japanese how to fire the big guns in the Russo-Japanese War. He survived working in Thomas Edison’s Navy lab at Key West.
“Yet, he found time for love. He met Vivian, the sugar king of Havana’s daughter, married and pregnant — both situations temporary. She became his soul’s safe harbor.
“In later years, he helped build the Florida East Coast Railway to Key West. As Maritime Inspector, he surveyed and developed the South American airports creating Pan Am Airways.
“An American patriot, he lived for the moment that the sunset’s green fire on the sea’s horizon promised the dawn to come. Always he returned to the sea.
“Board the ships, climb the rigging, shoot the guns, when America came to rule the seas. Discover the 93 years that defined Gunner Morgan.
“His grandson, Charles D. Morgan, discovered his grandfather’s old sea chest, and hidden in its base, stacks of documents and letters, that led the author on a lifetime journey to reveal his grandfather’s legacy to America.
“‘Captain of the Tides: Gunner Morgan’ is that legacy, retold as an historical novel, a riveting story of a young Navy seaman whose heroism captured the loyalty of Americans.”
