Britannia's Fist: From Civil War to World War: An Alternate History

by Peter G. Tsouras

  “Why, sir, they are interesting designs, to be sure, but are dwarfed by the Warriors. Your Passaic class monitors have, indeed, proved to be a gallant, hard-fighting class but weigh in at 1,335 tons to the Warrior’s 9,210, and only two guns to forty. I wager that none of them would fare well in an open-ocean voyage either.”

  “I’m afraid you have me, Captain. I’m just a soldier and no naval expert.”

  Wolseley had been following all this carefully. His good eye widened a bit.22

  4.

  Gallantry on Crutches

  WASHINGTON NAVY YARD, WASHINGTON, D.C., 8:00 AM, AUGUST 7, 1863

  The President’s carriage clattered through the Navy Yard’s brick gates to the precision salute of the Marine guards. Superintendent Hardwood was aware of Lincoln’s fascination for all things mechanical, and the Yard drew him like a magnet. It was an opportunity to polish the Navy’s reputation with a smart military display. He never did figure out that Lincoln simply didn’t care about that aspect.

  What Lincoln cared about was winning the war. He may have been a lawyer from the Prairie State, but he had an instinctive appreciation for the budding technologies of the new and vigorous industrial age. He found the Army and Navy departments hopelessly mired in their own red tape at the expense of innovation. It was as if both services had missed the business revolution that had accompanied the Industrial Revolution. Once he was presented with a committee report on a new naval gun. He glanced at the report that had consumed an entire tree’s worth of paper and exclaimed, “I should want a new lease of life to read this through.” He hurled it on the table. “Why can’t a committee of this kind occasionally exhibit a grain of common sense? If I send a man to buy a horse for me, I expect him to tell me his points—not how many hairs there are in his tail.”1

  The man with the common sense Lincoln had been seeking had been Capt. John A. Dahlgren, Yard superintendent at the beginning of his administration. He was an officer with an international reputation for technological innovation in naval gunnery and for deft management, and Lincoln had come to depend on him for advice in such matters and naval and military affairs in general. Finally in June he had reluctantly agreed to release now Rear Admiral Dahlgren to command the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron off Charleston.

  When Sharpe stepped out of his door that morning to walk across the square to the White House, he was surprised to be greeted by a familiar voice from the carriage parked outside. He looked up to see a stovepipe hat nodding down at him. “Good morning, Sharpe. Jump in.” It was not every day that a President picked up a colonel. “If you were expecting us to wait on ceremony, my apologies, but we need an early start thing morning.”

  As they drove away, Lincoln said, “I thought your stay in Washington might be put to good use by broadening your horizons. The Navy Yard is just such a place. It is the most fun I have. I feel like a little boy who has escaped from some evil chore whenever I can sneak away from the White House. That reminds me.”

  By the time they were riding through the Navy Yard gate Lincoln had finished his fourth story, and Sharpe was laughing. Only later would he consider how much of his policy Lincoln had passed to him through his wit. He only regained his composure after they had passed the smoking cannon foundries and stopped near the towering and cavernous wooden dry dock into which the seven hundred–ton Margaret and Jesse was being drawn. Gus Fox had driven straight to the Yard after leaving the White House to put things in motion. The skilled workers and masters of the Yard were paid overtime to work through the night. But the ship was a trim and graceful thing at seven hundred tons and slipped easily into the dry dock.

  Sharpe and Lincoln saw Gus Fox and young Lamson standing nearby, watching the ship’s progress. It was a grand sight, Sharpe thought. He could tell the President was enjoying himself as much as a boy in a toy shop watching the latest windup gadget. When Fox and Lamson saw the President, they hurried over to pay their respects. “Good to see you boys at work so early. So, Gus, what are you planning to do to this leviathan?”

  She did look a bit petite in the dry dock meant for a ship at least four times her size. “If you don’t mind, sir, I’ll let the ship’s new captain explain,” Fox said, turning the floor over to Lamson.

  The young man was not shy at all but rather bursting with such enthusiasm that he was eager to share his delight in his new command. “Sir, the first thing we are going to do is inspect her engines and weight-bearing structures, then reinforce the decks and ribbing to take the guns. We decided on three Dahlgren XI-inch guns per side and a seventh as the forward pivot gun. We’ll round it out with an 8-inch Dahlgren rifle on the aft pivot.”

  Lincoln whistled softly. “That’s a huge weight of metal. Are you sure she can bear it?”

  “Yes, sir. The Yard shipwrights have been all over her, and she is a remarkably strong ship. We are reinforcing her decks and hull with more iron bracing just to make sure. I’ve never had such firepower on the Nansemond, sir. These XI-inchers have an enormous advantage over British armament. Why, one XI-inch shell has more destructive power than three 32-pounder shot, even if they all hit close together. And it does twice the damage of two 8-inch shells with even more explosive power. It also means that I can fight the ship with fewer men.2 I won’t mind getting into a fight with these guns on the Margaret and Jesse.”

  “Now that name, Margaret and Jesse is an awkward mouthful and none too martial either. This ship needs a new name, an American name,” Lincoln suggested.

  Everyone paused in thought, until Sharpe said simply, “Gettysburg. Let her be named after Gettysburg.”

  Lincoln slapped Sharpe on the shoulder. “Capital idea! USS Gettysburg, it is!” Fox and Lamson took a minute to digest that their prize would be named after the Army’s greatest battle. But with the President having pronounced, they accepted Sharpe’s fait accompli gracefully.

  Lincoln turned to Fox, “Gus, I haven’t heard much about the new shallow-draft monitors from the Navy Department. How are they doing? I’ve heard rumors that Stimers is having problems. Does this mean another delay?”

  Alban Crocker Stimers was Fox’s protégé and project manager for this ambitious twenty-ship Casco class of follow-on monitors to the Passaic class. They were designed for operations in the shallow coastal waters and harbors where the Navy was doing most of its fighting. Immense resources in materials and skilled labor had been devoted to the project. These resources were tight and much was expected of Stimers, who had successfully pushed the Passaic class, also based on Ericsson’s design, to completion. The shallow-draft monitors were also originally an Ericsson design, but other priorities had pushed the genius Swedish designer on to new projects, leaving the project completely in Stimers’s control.

  Unfortunately, Stimers had been trying to outdesign Ericsson, and the scale and complexity of ambitious redesigns had overwhelmed the project. It had experienced delay after delay, and this had come to Lincoln’s attention. Fox himself had begun to worry, but every inquiry had drawn the same responses from Stimers—that the ships would meet the new deadlines and that Ericsson had fully approved the changes. Fox was unaware that Stimers had merely assured Ericsson that things were under control. Welles was also on his back, suspicious of Stimers, whom he described as “intoxicated, overloaded with vanity,” and “more weak than wicked.”3 Making things even worse, the larger Tippecanoe class was also late. Before Fox could answer, Lincoln said, “Gus, I think it would be a good idea to take a good look yourself.”

  Lincoln began to walk along the length of the dry dock to take a better look at the ship. Lamson followed. Sharpe and a chagrined Fox stayed behind. Fox looked after Lincoln as he walked along the dry dock. “He loves anything mechanical, you know. He has a surprisingly good nose for what works and doesn’t.” Fox said.4 “And if it weren’t for him, I don’t know how I could have blown the cobwebs out of the Navy Department’s old-fashioned bureaus. My God, they would still be happy to be accounting for every cannonball fired
in the War of 1812 if we hadn’t shaken them up enough to make the teeth rattle. Luckily, Dahlgren left the Yard in superb shape and gave us a model to bludgeon the rest of the departments with. We’d be in desperate shape if it were not for Dahlgren and the guns he’s developed over the years. I tell you, the British are jealous of his guns.”

  Sharpe said, “Captain Hancock thinks not.”

  “Hancock? How do you know Hancock?”

  “We had dinner last night at the Ebbitt Grill. He arrived late. I had just taken the last table, and invited Hancock and his guest to join me. It was a very interesting evening.”

  “The hell you say. That Limey bastard is like a Mississippi catfish—a magnificent bottom feeder. He sucks up every bit of information he can about the Navy and especially our monitors. So, tell me what he had to say.”

  Fox listened intently to Sharpe’s recounting of the evening’s conversation and said, “Dwarfed by the Warriors, did he say? Well, it’s lucky for HMS Warrior that she has not met USS Passaic. Let me tell you something, Sharpe, about the new naval warfare. A broadside ship like Warrior has to go to great effort to maneuver itself to fire on its opponent. The entire ship has to be positioned for the shot. A monitor’s revolving turret aims the guns in any direction regardless of the position of the ship. We can wrap a turret in 10 inches of good American steel while a broadside ironclad so far has rarely been able to mount more than 4.5 inches because that armor belt must run most of the length of the ship and form a casemate as on the Warrior and on our New Ironsides. The latter is the only such broadside ironclad that we built and that was in the initial competition for designs that included the Monitor. The fact that we have built no more broadside ironclads is a good indication of which we think is the more successful design. The monitors also have a low freeboard, making it difficult for a broadside ship to hit the hull at all. The broadside ship, on the other hand, is nothing but a big target.”

  Both looked down the dry dock at the sound of laughter from a crowd. Lincoln stood in the middle of a hundred Yard workers and had them in stitches. Fox smiled, “The working people and the sailors love him. He’s not afraid to talk to them and what he says makes sense. Not only that, they know he cares for them.”

  “Yes, the feeling among the troops is largely one of affection, despite the die-hard McClellan worshippers. A thousand stories of his kindnesses circulate throughout the Army. He talks to the men when he visits the Army, too. I’ve heard them laugh just like this.”

  Fox added, “He’s just the same with the seamen of the fleet. The stories of him are legion. One I can vouch for. I got it from the chief of hospitals here in Washington. After Gettysburg, he insisted on visiting every hospital in the city and Alexandria, and they were overflowing with the wounded. Not just ours but rebels, too. He said he wanted to shake every man’s hand. The surgeon protested that there were thousands of men. Lincoln said to point the way, and so help me, the surgeon stated flatly he shook every hand, even visited the rebels. Afterward, to get the feeling back in his hand he chopped a small pile of cordwood outside one hospital ward. The orderly picked up every single chip to keep as a souvenir. Now, here’s the truly remarkable thing. The surgeon swore that after he was done, Lincoln raised the ax straight out by the end of the haft and balanced it there for the longest time. His arm did not shake a bit. Never saw anything so remarkable.”5

  They could see Lincoln tip his hat and move back down the dry dock toward them.

  “Gus, I think I will take the good captain of the Gettysburg away from you for a few hours. I want him and the good colonel to see someone.”

  BRITISH EMBASSY, WASHINGTON, D.C., 11:00 AM, AUGUST 7, 1863

  Hancock walked with Wolseley through the embassy’s valiant attempt at a rose garden. He plucked a fungus-ruined bud and waved it at the one-eyed man. “Dreadful climate. We are rated a tropical post, you know? Such a country for weeds and blights. Makes you pine for the rose gardens of England. Well, the climate and blights seem to match these rude people, I must say. Perhaps it is what draws the Irish.”

  Wolseley had zero interest in roses or gardens. “I’m used to it after Burma and India. I prefer the cool Canadian summers, though, but I tell you I would much rather be campaigning in an Indian summer than bored to tears in cool Canada.”

  Hancock tossed the bud away and brushed his hands off. “I take it your opinion of the Yankees has changed since your last visit.”

  “Well, they are not a lovable people, to be sure. I like the Southerners, I must admit, though not enough to care about their Confederacy for itself. The source, indeed, of most of my good wishes arise from my dislike of the people of the United States, taking them generally, and my delight at seeing their swagger and bunkum rudely kicked out of them.”6

  “What did you think of our simple colonel of infantry at dinner last night, Wosleley? Damned well-informed if you ask me.”

  Wolseley had also been thinking about last night’s dinner companion. “Did you notice, Hancock, that he did not let slip anything of importance? His account of the battle did nothing but add to the impression that their Army has put itself in good order. Did you also notice that when you had delivered your talking points, his questions put a finger on critical points of imperial policy toward the United States.”

  “Well, I must admit, it was as if I had been speaking to Mr. Fox at their Navy Department or Mr. Dana at their War Department. His question about their monitors was too close to the bone.” Hancock may have been outclassed by Sharpe, but he knew his business.

  “The Navy does not like to publicly admit that we are worried about the American monitors. Yes, we have Warrior and Black Prince and the two smaller 6,000-ton broadside ironclads Defence and Resistance, but the Americans already have eight of their Passaic class monitors, with more building, and two large broadside ironclads similar to our Defence class. Their building program is enormous at every major port on the East Coast and on the Ohio River as well. They have twenty hulls of a powerful shallow-draft monitor, the Casco class, which should be completed this autumn. There is a Canonicus class monitor with seven ships, and a Milwaukee class with five ships, all due next year. The point is that the Americans do not have to have an open-ocean Navy; their mission will be to defend the ports, waterways, and coasts, and their smaller size and shallower drafts will be ideal for these waters.7

  “And what is abuilding in England? Three ships of the Prince Consort class and three more of the Royal Oak and Hector classes. All of them are broadside ironclads. None of them are the low-silhouette, turreted monitor types. And the Royal Oak is just a converted wooden ship with iron armor. We have only two turret ironclads building now, Royal Sovereign and Prince Albert. Do you realize the Americans have 10 inches of good armor on those turrets? All of our ships have armor belts only of 3 to 4.5 inches.8 We have learned from our Confederate contacts and from the American press that in the battles in Charleston Harbor, the turrets have been well nigh invulnerable.”

  This was all news to Wolseley. The British services had had an excellent record of cooperation compared to any other country, but knowledge of the other service was not something an officer concerned himself with. “You don’t mean the Americans have the advantage over the Royal Navy?”

  “It is not as simple as that. Our purpose-built wooden and iron-hulled ships outnumber and outclass most of their American counterparts. We would have no trouble sweeping the American Navy from the seas. But, you must understand, that in a war with the Americans we cannot simply control the seas in order to win. They could easily be self-sufficient. No, we would need to break the blockade of the Southern ports and then go after them in their own harbors. And there is where we found these swarms of turreted monitors armed with Admiral Dahlgren’s fearsome XV-inch guns.”

  “I seem to recall that the Dahlgren guns on the Monitor failed to breach the armor of the broadside ironclad Virginia,” Wolseley said.

  “True, but the Monitor carried only Dahlgren’s XI-inch
guns, not the XV-inch guns being fitted now on every new ship. The monitors at Charleston now each have one of their two guns a XV-inch. Moreover, at Hampton Roads, the Monitor only used 50 percent of the proof charge, meaning the maximum powder charge the guns were rated as being able to take. According to our sources, that deficiency has been corrected. In combat the Americans will use nearly 100 percent of the proof charge. American tests on armor similar to the Virginia’s found that not only the XV- but the XI-inch projectiles would go right through her plate.”

  Hancock led him into the shade of the garden pergola and motioned him to the bench. “Damned tricky equation a war with the Americans, trickier than they think back home. I wonder if anyone in London reads my reports.”

  Wolseley was trying to sort out the implications of Hancock’s review. “I understood that we were absolutely convinced during the Trent Affair that we could have crushed the Americans. Have the monitors upset that assumption so completely?”

  “You must remember that in December 1861, the Americans had just embarked on this ruinous war. Their Navy was small—barely ninety ships, or one-tenth the size of the Royal Navy. Their admittedly fine harbor forts were in many cases unmanned and ungunned. We would have crushed them in one blow, I believe.

  “But with the declaration of the blockade, the American Navy began to grow like Jack’s magic beans. In four months, they had doubled the number of ships; in ten months they had grown sixfold. Mr. Welles was quoted, in speaking of one of the new ships rushed to completion, that its keel had been growing in a forest three months ago. Many of these new ships were gunboats or were converted merchantmen, but the point is that they did the job. Moreover, their crews have learned their jobs. The Americans have always been good sailors and when given even odds have embarrassed the Royal Navy too many times for me to consider—not at all like fighting the French. It is the American ability to organize and produce that worries me, Wolseley.”