Iron Ships, Iron Men

by Christopher Nicole

  Jones gave a brief laugh. ‘The Federals’ concept of an iron-clad, by God. Now we may have an adversary worthy of our mettle, Mr Bascom. Take your station, and open fire as you bear. We must test this fellow out, before we tackle theMinnesota.’

  ‘Aye-aye,’ Rod said, and slid down the ladder.

  ‘That’s a turtle, that is,’ said one of the gunners, and raised a laugh. But they were once more apprehensive, faced with the unexpected.

  ‘She weren’t there yesterday,’ someone complained.

  ‘She must have come in during the night,’ Rod told them. ‘She’s nothing to be afraid of, boys. We’ll just brush her aside.’

  He wished he was as confident as he tried to appear. There was something sinister, almost supernatural, in both the shape of the Federal gunship and the way she had mysteriously appeared. But she was nothing more than a floating gun platform, even less seaworthy, at least in appearance, than theVirginia; it was impossible to believe she could really prove an obstacle.

  Then he saw, through the bow port, the odd vessel directly ahead, and quite close. ‘Open fire,’ he commanded.

  The bow gun roared, and the shot plunged into the water, scattering spray right over the Federal ship. There was no reply, but Rod’s heart gave a sudden lurch as he saw the turret which contained the guns start to rotate. A moveable turret, long a subject of discussion in naval circles, was not something he had expected to see in this primitive a vessel.

  TheVirginiaimmediately began to turn, to allow her broadside guns to bear on the enemy. The ships continued to approach each other, and Rod was now able even to read the name of the Federal ship, USSMonitor. Then his broadside guns spoke together; the water around theMonitorbecame a mass of plumes, and several of the balls actually hit the half-submerged target — but they all merely bounced off. By now the turret was rotating freely, and theMonitorhad stopped to give an accurate return of fire. TheVirginia became a sounding board of clangs and thumps, to no avail, while her gundeck became an inferno of noise and heat and smoke.

  The exchange lasted for some time, virtually at point-blank range, while Rod noted that where his guns took a quarter of an hour to reload, those on the Federal ship were firing again in half that time. But it was apparent that neither ship could harm the other, so he finally climbed to the bridge. This is pointless, Mr Jones,’ he said. ‘We cannot damage her, and she cannot damage us. And frankly, sir, another hour and we will be out of ammunition.’

  ‘Hm,’ Jones said. ‘Very well, Mr Bascom. We’ll complete the job we came to do, and destroy theMinnesota. Our balls will certainly be effective against her, and we will let that sea monster do what she wishes in the meantime. Pilot ...’

  ‘The sandbank ...’ the pilot protested. ‘You will take us within range, or by heaven Til throw you overboard and let you swim ashore,’ Jones threatened. ‘If you can.’ He certainly did not lack any fighting spirit, Rod thought, and could indeed have been a descendant of the famous John Paul Jones ... had that hearty Scot ever conducted any liaison long enough to become a father.

  The pilot hunched his shoulders and moved closer to the helmsman. TheVirginia turned away from the Federal gunboat, and distant cheers came from the shore, where a considerable Federal force was gathered to watch the outcome of this unique encounter; they supposed the Confederate ironclad was running away.

  Slowly, moving at hardly more than two knots because of the damage to her funnel, theVirginiaapproached theMinnesota in a wide circle, while the Federal frigate immediately began blazing away with every gun she could bring to bear. ‘Oh, come now,’ Jones complained. ‘We must be able to get closer than this.’

  ‘I dare not, Mr Jones. I ...’ there was a rasping sound from beneath them, and the ironclad came to a halt. ‘Oh, my God,’ the pilot wailed. ‘We’re aground. We’re done. I warned you, Mr Jones. I ...’

  Jones opened his speaking tube. ‘Full astern,’ he snapped. ‘Everything you have.’ The engine growled, and the screw turned, water bubbled — Rod knew the feeling well. He looked astern, at theMonitor, which had followed them, equally slowly, so as not to interfere with the fire of theMinnesota. But clearly neither ship was going to mortally wound theVirginia; she could only mortally wound herself.

  As she was now doing. The engines strained, and after what seemed an eternity, she slowly eased backwards off the mud, but the report from below was not reassuring. ‘She’s making water, Lieutenant Jones,’ the engineer said urgently.

  ‘Detail some of your men to man the pumps, Mr Bascom,’ Jones said. ‘Now, pilot, take me up to theMinnesota.’

  ‘I dare not, sir. There is nothing but mud. You’ll be stranded for sure.’

  Jones chewed his lip, smashed his fist into his palm, glared at Rod as he returned from having the pumps started. ‘This scoundrel refuses to obey orders.’

  ‘He could be right, sir,’ Rod said. He had also been into the engine room, and knew they had started several seams and might have a battle just to stay afloat. ‘We could mount another attack on theMonitor. Defeating her would seem to be more important than sinking theMinnesota, right now.’

  ‘How do we defeat a ship we cannot harm?’ Jones growled savagely.

  ‘Could we not ram her? She does not seem to have much more speed than ourselves.’

  ‘We could try,’ Jones said, thoughtfully. ‘Our misfortune is that the spur of our ram was torn off yesterday when we struck theCumberland.’

  ‘It’s still worth a try,’ Rod argued. The alternatives were too bitter to accept, at this moment. He returned to the gun deck, and kept up a steady fire, consuming the last of his powder as theVirginiaslowly turned and made for theMonitor again. But everything had changed, since yesterday. Yesterday, the ironclad had been a ponderous but unstoppable monster, moving inexorably towards her targets. Today she was like a huge bear, being baited and chased, first one way and then the other, and now bleeding from the teeth of the dogs around her.

  The two ships gradually approached each other, the Federals firing their big guns and apparently quite happy to come to close quarters. Then Jones shouted down his tube for all the power the ancient boiler would deliver, and theVirginiaquickened her speed. The Federals immediately realised what she was after, and hastily also increased speed and tried to turn away. None the less, theVirginia struck her, only a glancing blow but with a tremendous crash of iron, which exerted enormous pressure on the wooden hull and opened up yet more seams to cause even more water to come gushing into the already damaged ship.

  Rod returned to the bridge; theMonitor appeared unharmed, although she had drawn away. ‘That was bad luck,’ Jones complained. ‘Had we our spur I swear we would have holed him. Now he won’t let us get so near again. Mr Bascom, pounding that turret of his is accomplishing damn all. Shift your aim to the control tower, and we’ll see if we can’t do him a mischief there.’

  ‘Aye-aye,’ Rod acknowledged, and went back to his guns, to redirect the fire, at last with satisfactory results. Soon one of the balls struck the control tower at the bow of theMonitor, and the Federal ship lost way and direction, and drifted helplessly; they later learned that her commander, Lieutenant Worden, had been wounded at that moment. But soon she was under way again, and firing.

  Rod had to join Jones on the bridge again, his face sombre, his voice hoarse. ‘We have scarcely any shot left, sir,’ he reported. ‘And are only just holding our own with the pumps.’

  ‘And the tide’s falling every minute,’ the pilot put in, gloomily.

  Jones stared at theMonitor, which had resumed firing, for several seconds, then sighed, and shrugged. ‘We cannot risk either sinking, or being stranded, and we are accomplishing nothing. Bring her about, pilot. We’ll stand back for Norfolk.’

  Slowly, sadly, the batteredVirginia steamed back towards the Elizabeth River, and safety, her guns silent. ‘Well,’ someone said, ‘we sank two of the bastards.’

  There was no smile this time. Everyone knew that their mission had failed; w
ith theMonitor to protect them, the Federal fleet would remain in command of the Chesapeake. Far from having been saved, the Confederate States had suffered an irreparable, and perhaps mortal, defeat.

  Chapter Nine:New Orleans — 1862

  ‘ROD BASCOM, by God,’ said Captain Lunis, and shook hands. ‘It is good to see you again. And you a famous man, now. What brings you to Natchez?’

  ‘I have a furlough,’ Rod explained.

  ‘You mean theSumter is back this side of the Atlantic?’

  ‘No, theSumter is in Gibraltar.’ Rod had to make an effort to keep his tone light. Because there too had come inevitable disaster. Semmes had, as arranged, put into Cadiz, not only in search of his missing men, but also to coal after a successful voyage across the Atlantic, during which he had taken several more prizes. But the Spaniards, under pressure both from the Federal Government and from the international shipping companies, outraged at the increase in their insurance premiums occasioned by the depredations of the Confederate raider, had this time refused to bunker him. He had thus gone to Gibraltar, where the British, less willing to accept Federal pressure than the Spaniards, were willing to sell him coal, but because of his uncertain legal standing, only at two or three times the going price, and where, while the haggling had proceeded, Federal cruisers had learned of his presence and promptly moved to Tangier to blockade him in the British port. Despairing of ever again taking his ship to sea, Semmes had abandoned her to be sold, and with the majority of his officers and men sought passage to England and thence back across the Atlantic, seeking new ways of serving the Confederacy.

  But the end of the successful cruise of theSumter, although certainly attributable to the immense power and resources commanded by the Federal Government, both at home and overseas, was nothing compared with the defeat suffered by the Confederate cause in Hampton Roads. It seemed hard that a two day battle, which had involved the sinking of two good Federal ships, with severe damage to a third, which had brought about more than two hundred Federal casualties, to less than thirty Confederate, could be termed a defeat — but there was no doubt that was what it had been. TheVirginia had failed in her mission. Obviously that failure could be put down to the hasty and haphazard manner in which she had been devised and created — in which Rod had himself played a part — the already fire-weakened hull on which they had attempted to build an ironclad, and the lack of proper sea trials. But all of these misfortunes were symptomatic of the problems facing the Confederacy as a whole — she would lose this war through inadequate preparation and lack of material, through being forced to improvise last-minute defences to meet the octopus-like strangulation of the Union armed forces.

  No one yet had the details of how theMonitorhad been designed and built, in a matter of three months, apparently, by a Swedish engineer, John Ericsson. Ericsson had only been commissioned to build an ironclad when the Federal Government had actually learned that the Confederates were converting theMerrimackwhich, for all Buchanan’s attempts at secrecy, they had seemingly done back in November. Thus Ericsson had had the barest of time to construct his floating gun platform, but with all the resources of the North placed at his disposal, he had been able to do it. And if his brainchild had not been able to sink or even seriously damage theVirginia, it had yet gained the day simply because theVirginia had been forced to withdraw from the fight. Perhaps only the Confederates, and only a few of them, knew that their ironclad would never fight again; to repair the hull would mean slipping her, and that would mean, up the Elizabeth River, with no equipment available other than human muscles, completely dismantling the enormously heavy gun-house before the hull could be slipped. There did not seem the time or the men, and above all there was not the heart, to accomplish that task when McClellan was already disembarking his army on the Peninsula — he had, in fact, commenced on 10 March, the day after the historic encounter between the two ironclads. No one yet knew what would be the outcome of the contest between the two armies, now locked in battle as the Confederates concentrated in front of their capital, although certainly it would not now be decided by any action at sea. More important, everyone knew that the eagerly awaited deliverance from the Federal blockade had not happened, and would not now happen ... until and unless the ocean-going ironclads Mallory had ordered arrived from England.

  ‘You’ve been a full year on service, Rod,’ Frank Buchanan had said. ‘And now you don’t even have theSumter to rejoin. Take a furlough. Go home to your wife. I’ll get word to you the moment I have a posting for you.’ He had given one of his grim smiles. ‘That means the moment I have a ship fit to go to sea.’

  So here he was, once more looking at the broad, swift-flowing waters of the greatest of rivers, once more watching Lunis handling his ship with all of his old expertise, once more on his way to the peace of New Orleans. Odd, he thought, a year ago he would not have considered New Orleans a peaceful place; in normal times, with its brawling riverboatmen and its duelling Creoles, it was perhaps the least peaceful city in the United States. But these were not normal times, and only the Mississippi seemed far removed from the tumults and alarums of the war.

  Not that it was, apparently. ‘Oh, the Feds are doing their best further north,’ Lunis told him. ‘They have an army up there which is trying to work its way down the river, but so long as General Johnston holds on to Kentucky and the Cumberland Gap, they ain’t going to get too far. I reckon Albert Johnston is the best we have.’

  Rod couldn’t argue with that judgement. Johnston certainly seemed the most aggressive of the Confederate generals as well as the most competent, whatever the reputation Thomas Jackson, the famous Stonewall, might have earned for himself by his masterly defensive tactics in the east. As for Robert Lee, whom President Davis had recently appointed to command all the forces defending Richmond, he was a totally untried officer, known only for having been in command of the Federal troops who had arrested John Brown in the famous incident at Harper’s Ferry in 1859. Not that any of the Federal generals had a great deal more experience of commanding armies in the field, with the exception of their overall supremo, Winfield Scott, who had led the war against Mexico. But Scott was an old man now, and President Lincoln seemed to have total faith in McClellan. It was a war of novices, feeling their way towards victory — or defeat.

  But could not the same be said, even more emphatically, of the sea? Except that there it was a war of novice builders and theoreticians, as well; army officers could at least read up on previous wars and campaigns, and for all the increased fire power they possessed, their problems were essentially those which had faced Napoleon. In no previous war had both sides produced an ironclad man-of-war.

  It was a scenario he was happy to turn his back on, for the moment. His enthusiasm had waned with the depression of failure. He needed time to regain his equilibrium, and his confidence. Even with Claudine? Well, perhaps she would have changed, now that he was returning as something of a hero — why he could not imagine — and after a year’s absence. It might even be possible, he thought, as he saw the rooftops of New Orleans rising above the trees, to make a fresh start to his marriage, and set about creating a family. And even to play at happiness.

  ‘Oh, Mis Claudine mus’ be goin’ be too happy to see you, Mr Rodney,’ Adam told him. As there had been no room for personal servants on boardSumter, Adam had been forced to resume his old job as deckhand when Rod had sailed away. ‘And you goin’ be too happy to see her.’

  ‘I hope you’re right,’ Rod said, frowning as the city came into full sight round the bend of the river. For New Orleans was being placed in a state of defence; earthworks were being thrown up on the seaward side of the town, guns were being emplaced, and there were several small warships in the port. Towering above them, still only half completed, was the ironcladLouisiana, created to be a sister ship of theVirginia. But there was little work proceeding on her.

  ‘What’s this, Lunis?’ he asked the captain.

  ‘You haven’t heard? Word
came to the Governor that the Feds are planning an attack on New Orleans. Mean to sew up the bottom end of the Mississippi, I guess, as they can’t make any progress up the top. Well, they sure won’t make any progress down here, either, you can bet on that. The British couldn’t take New Orleans in 1814, with a veteran army. No bluebelly conscripts are going to take it now. Man, you want to see the defences we’ve thrown up. Here is nothing. We have two forts commanding the delta, that’s St Philip and Jackson, between them they mount one hundred and fifteen guns, and below them the entire river is blocked by booms. Then theLouisianahas been converted into a floating battery, and we’ve twelve of those gunboats you see there, raring to go ... we just want the bluebellies totry, so we can fill the Gulf of Mexico with their corpses.’

  Rod was amazed at how warlike the little man had become in the year he had been away. But he hoped he was right about the New Orleans defences. Even so ... he had come here hoping for a rest; now he didn’t see how he could avoid volunteering his services. But that could wait for at least a couple of days. One of Wilbur Grahame’s bateaux was actually in the city, as he had hoped and expected, and he was soon being paddled across the bayous to the levee, where as ever horses were available. He mounted one and rode down to the plantation house, no longer hurrying. It was such a treat to walk his horse along the dams between the fields of hugely waving cane, to look at the trees, and the factory, to watch the roof of the house rising above them all. To enjoy the prosperity of peace.

  The dogs barked, and slaves hurried forward to take his bridle and relieve him of his carpet bag. ‘Welcome home, Mr Rodney, oh, welcome home,’ said Jacob the butler, and yet again Rod had to reflect that these people seemed quite unaware that a few hundred miles away men were fighting, and dying, over the question of whether they should be free or not.