“I’m sure the Prussians will regret the decision, Mr. President, just as we would had we bought large numbers of these new-fangled gimcracks.”
Lincoln smiled. “You mean the new-fangled gimcracks I keep telling you to order and that don’t get ordered. Colonel Berdan has renewed his request for Spencers after Gettysburg. What have you done about it?”
Ripley mumbled something about suppliers unable to meet contracts. “They are faulty weapons, too great an expense, and an interruption of standardized production. Also, they showed no noticeable improvement on the battlefield.”
Sharpe jumped in here, “I take it then you were at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, sir. You must have some firsthand knowledge to sustain that statement.”
“No, sir, but on good authority, I have heard that…”
“Well, I was on both fields, sir, and your ‘good authority’ is nothing of the sort. At Chancellorsville, Berdan’s men taught the Stonewall Brigade about the meaning of the word ‘retreat.’ At Little Top on the field at Gettysburg, barely one hundred sharpshooters did the duty of a full regiment and carpeted its rocky slopes with the bodies of Hood’s Texas Brigade. The sharpshooters alone delayed Longstreet’s attack on the Peach Orchard by a vital forty minutes. I interviewed one of the sharpshooters who was captured in the fight and escaped. He said, ‘It is impossible for me to describe the slaughter we had made in the ranks. In all my past service it beat all I had ever seen for the number engaged and for short a time. They were piled in heaps and across each other.’ That forty minutes saved the day, Colonel.”11
Ripley was squirming. He would not give up, though, and countered, “Even if we issued the entire Army of the Potomac with Sharps, we could never supply the ammunition to feed it. The expense would be enormous.”
“That conclusion might seem sound for someone who lives in an office,” Sharpe paused to emphasize his next sentence, “and for someone who has not heard the whistle of bullets.” Ripley flushed. He may have been a military bureaucrat, but he knew a soldier’s insult when he heard it. Lincoln recalled someone’s definition of a gentleman as someone who never unknowingly gives offense.
Sharpe continued, “Consider, Colonel, that if the entire Army of the Potomac had been issued with the Sharps before Gettysburg, Lee would never have escaped.” Lincoln grew suddenly intent. “We would have shot him completely to pieces. Nothing would have remained to escape across the Potomac. With Lee destroyed, the rebellion would have lost its main prop and soon collapsed. I think it worth the trouble of supplying sufficient ammunition for results like that. After all, we are not talking about a sustained effort of years. How many battles do you think we would have to fight with a seven-to-one firepower advantage over the enemy?
“And it is a completely one-sided advantage. The rebels have no capacity whatsoever to match us with such weapons or ammunition. They must rely upon the British for Enfields, and even the British cannot supply them with breech-loading weapons of the quality and number we are now capable of producing.”12
BALTIMORE AND OHIO RAILROAD STATION, WASHINGTON, D.C., 12:30 PM, AUGUST 8, 1863
The carriage drew up to the main entrance of the train station just north of Capitol Hill and two men got out. They had been deep in conversation all the way from the British embassy. “I cannot tell you, Hancock, how useful this visit has been to me.” From under the large front portico, an ordinary-looking man was paying attention to the two.
“I am glad to have been of service. Perhaps you will have more luck than I had in convincing someone at home of the importance of what is going on here. Lord knows, my reports to the Admiralty seem to drop like a stone in a well. The ambassador does not seem much interested in these ‘strictly military affairs,’ as he calls them. I don’t believe that I’m saying this, Wolseley, but hopefully, it might have some effect going through Army channels.”
Wolseley appreciated the twinge in Hancock’s thoroughly Royal Navy nature. “Rest assured that I will be writing to important people at home. General Grant has an open mind and will find all of this of great interest. Now he has the ear of the government.” He meant Hope Grant, of course, the most capable of the British generals and his patron, not the American Ulysses S. Grant, then much in the news.
As they continued their conversation on a vacant part of the train platform, Hancock commented that Wolseley was lucky to be taking the train directly through New York to Canada to enjoy the cool summer.
Wolseley paused. “No, I think I will take a detour through Maine. After all, the good governor has praised the railroad network to the heavens. The least I can do is examine it. I expect the weather there is as pleasant as in Canada. And I hear Portland is a scenic stop. Its harbor forts are as much recommended to the visitor by the governor as well. Good-bye, Hancock.”13
As he settled into his seat, the ordinary-looking man took a seat nearby.
WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON, D.C., 12:50 PM, AUGUST 8, 1863
Charles Dana cursed as he read the just deciphered telegram from Colonel Carrington in Indianapolis. “Damn! And double damn! This is a real loss.” He gazed out of the window at Seventeenth Street and saw Lincoln’s carriage waiting in front of the Ordnance Bureau across the street.
Dana ran from the building to meet Lincoln and Sharpe as they emerged through the Winder Building’s double doors. “Mr. President!” Heads on the street turned. A crowd surrounded Lincoln before he reached the carriage. The swarms of contractors and office seekers who were converging on Lincoln like a free lunch engulfed the single detective attending him. Dana plunged into the crowd and with Sharpe’s help was able to push Lincoln back to the carriage and mount a rear guard as he climbed in. The driver cracked the whip, and they escaped with all the alacrity of so many of Lincoln’s generals when pursued by Lee and Jackson.
“Why, Dana, I might have made my escape without a pitched battle if you hadn’t been so all-fired excited to get my attention.”
“Stidger is dead. I just received the telegram from Colonel Carrington saying they had identified another body at the site of the looted arms warehouse in Indianapolis. It was Stidger, shot right through the belly and his face stomped in.”
Lincoln turned to Sharpe. “Well, Sharpe, it looks like you have your first problem.”14
As they rode back to the White House, Lincoln smiled and said, “And now I’m giving you your second problem. Get me my balloons back.”15
WASHINGTON NAVY YARD, WASHINGTON, D.C., 2:15 PM, AUGUST 8, 1863
Lamson opened the package delivered by courier from the Navy Department. There was a note from Fox on top. “Lamson, I thought you would find these reports on the rams useful. They have been supplied through the State Department from our consul in Liverpool, Thomas Dudley. These documents are to be considered private and confidential. You will find a secure place to store them.” Lamson took the documents to an office in the superintendent’s headquarters where he could be alone and began to read.
The two rams were contracted for construction by James Dun-woody Bulloch, the chief Confederate agent in Great Britain, the man responsible for building the CSS Alabama and the other Confederate raiders. Their builder was the firm of Laird Brothers; they were financed through the offices of the Fraser, Trenholm & Company, the trading company that handled all financial matters for the Confederacy in Europe and was itself a provider of considerable credit. Fraser, Trenholm & Company could afford it. They owned a fleet of fifty blockade-runners that did a large part in keeping the Confederacy alive and charged a half percent fee for its banking services. Bulloch had constructed an elaborate cover story to prove that the ships had been ordered by French interests and were to be sold to Egypt as the El Toussan and El Monassir. The rams were being constructed at the Birkenhead Ironworks, opposite Liver pool on the Mersey River, at a cost of ninety-three thousand pounds.
The two ships were referred to as Numbers 294 and 295. The CSS Alabama’s number had been 292. The intended names were the CSS North Carolina
and the CSS Mississippi. Lamson paused at this point. Like all sailors he was a bit superstitious about ships and the sea. As long as these ships had simply been referred to by the faceless name of “rams” they had not truly been real. Now that he read the names each would bear, he sensed the individuality and power that was growing in each ship. They became as real as his Nansemond and the other decks he had trod. Now they were alive.
He devoured the details of their construction. At 1,850 tons they were almost twice the size of the U.S. Passaic class monitors. The most striking feature was that they were modeled on the turreted monitors. They were on the cutting edge, with two turrets, one on the bow and the other amidships. Only the USS Roanoke, recently assigned to the defense of Hampton Roads with the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, had double turrets. Each of the ram turrets was armed with twin 9-inch Armstrong rifles that could fire a 250-pound projectile. The most remarkable weapon, and the one that seized the imagination, was the 7-foot solid iron ram affixed to the prow.16
Each turret was wrapped in 10 inches of armor. The hull was teak over iron to a depth of 5.5 inches of wood. Overlaying that were 4.5 inches of iron armor plate on the hull and 3.5 inches on the prow. The deck was designed to ride only 6 inches above the water when fully loaded. The ships’ dimensions were 224.5 feet in length by 42.5 in the beam. The draught was 16 feet and maximum speed was ten knots. Each would have a crew of 150 and enough stores for three months at sea.17
Lamson sat back in the chair to think. He would not like to go up against such a ship when it was fully armed and prepared for war even with the converted Gettysburg, which was less than half the size of the rams and unarmored. His only advantage would be speed; the rams could not outrun him. Luckily, his mission would confront the rams as they departed British waters when they were completely unarmed and with only enough crew to get them to their destination. He expected that, if they were anything like the American monitors, they would not handle well in open water, much less in rough seas.
Lamson rocked his chair back, his hand behind his head. One of the rams, the hull of the North Carolina, had already been launched and floated across the Mersey for outfitting at Liverpool’s Albert Dock. It was a race for time, and he wondered if the hands at the Washington Navy Yard could work faster than those at the Albert Dock. The Yard men had to work much faster to give him the time he needed to cross the sea and find out what was happening at Liverpool. Unforgiving time was making his odds an extreme long shot. He thought to himself, Long shot, hell; these odds would be a long shot with a limb in between.
OFFICES OF FRASER, TRENHOLM & COMPANY, LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND, 7:36 PM, AUGUST 8, 1863
Very careful planning was what James Bulloch excelled at. He had slipped the sharks out of British ports that were savaging Union commerce on the high seas—famous ships all – the CSS Florida, Shenandoah, and above all Alabama.
He had so far avoided every snare set by the Yankees to cripple his shipbuilding, but they were getting better all the time. He was sitting across from George Trenholm, the director of Fraser, Trenholm & Company. The company’s connections within the British government had been critical in providing the initial introductions to Bulloch that had allowed him to operate with what amounted to an almost official blind eye. And when a blind eye did not suffice, sympathetic officials and judges could be depended upon to interpret claims or direct rulings in the Confederacy’s favor.
Such was the case when Ambassador Adams had pressured the British government to seize the Alexandra, another of Bulloch’s commerce raiders that was about to slip British waters. It had taken the threat that the U.S. Congress was willing to pass a privateering bill in retaliation to convince Russell to seize the ship. Bulloch immediately saw that the seizure was challenged in court. The judge instructed the jury that it should return a verdict for the defendants if it thought there was no intent to arm the ship in British waters. It took the jury moments to decide accordingly. Not only had the ship escaped, the British government had been discouraged from any precipitous action on the status of the two rams abuilding on the Mersey.
Such sympathy had been the reason the Alabama had escaped as well, but it did not come from the bench. In July 1862, U.S. Consul Dudley had amassed such evidence of the Confederate ownership of the Enrica, the Alabama’s cover name, and its imminent escape that British barrister Sir Robert Collier was able to write a series of damning opinions that should have provoked immediate attention at the Foreign Office. At this point, Russell’s undersecretary at the Foreign Office, Austin David Layard, member of Parliament (MP), intervened to delay action. Russell agreed with the Treasury’s recommendation that the letters be submitted to the Law Officers of the Crown. Layard sent them to the senior Law Officer, who he knew had suffered a mental breakdown and was going mad. They languished for five days at his home before being forwarded. A new letter with even more damning evidence from Collier arrived, and Layard cleverly forwarded it to the office of the next senior Law Officer on a Saturday, when his office was closed, instead of to his home.
In the meantime, Layard warned Bulloch through another party that the ship could not safely remain at its berth for another forty-eight hours. Bulloch acted quickly and boldly. Any departure of a ship from Liverpool Harbor required the notification and permission of the Crown’s collector of customs. There was one exception, and Bulloch sailed the Enrica right through it. A newly built ship on its trial run was exempt from this requirement. Under that pretext, the ship left Liverpool with the owner of Laird Brothers and his little daughter on board along with a large party of guests to provide the cover. Once out of the harbor, Bulloch announced that he intended to put the ship through night sailing trials and sent the guests ashore by an accompanying tug. He directed the captain to meet him at Moelfre Bay down the coast the next day. The order to seize the Enrica arrived the very day that Bulloch took to sea. He had made it by the skin of his teeth.18
The returned tug was to pick up a good part of the intended crew, but the women attached to the seamen had refused to let their men go without the customary first month’s advance pay. This commotion attracted the interest of a customs official, who elicited from the crowd that they were on the way to join the “gunboat.” The customs officer mailed a report and sent the tug on its way, and this was a full day after the order to seize the Enrica had arrived in Liverpool.
The episode had not put Bulloch off his plans but made him even more aware of how tenuous his position was. His very success in unleashing increasing pain on the United States had only served to increase the danger for him. Adams and Dudley had redoubled their efforts this time to ensure the rams never left British waters. Although a secretive man, Bulloch had shared much with his paymaster, George Trenholm. There was little that Trenholm had not done to further Bulloch’s mission, and he was ready to do even more at this crisis. Not only did his sympathies lay with the Confederacy, his firm had paid out almost two hundred thousand pounds to finance the rams. Bulloch had concealed one subterfuge within another. Initially he had personally contracted with Laird Brothers for the two rams with no reference or connection to the Confederacy. When American pressure over the rams mounted, Bulloch further clouded their ownership by selling them nominally to the French shipbuilder Bravay and Company—with the advice and assistance of a Queen’s counsel no less. Bravay, in turn, made a secret deal to resell the ships to Bulloch for a commission. Laird Brothers did everything to assist in this deception.
Now Trenholm was getting nervous and wanted reassurance from Bulloch. “We cannot expect a jury to pull another rabbit out of a hat on the excuse that these ships are not meant for war. For God’s sake, John, these things are monitors with double turrets. Even the most sympathetic jury that can be found wouldn’t have the face to say these are not warships.”
“George, do not worry. It won’t come to that.”
“I tell you if it does, all of Europe, not to mention the Americans, will see it as an openly belligerent act. My God,
that could trigger a war.”
“Now would that truly be a bad thing if we take a broad view, George? The Union is crushed by the British Empire. It would serve everyone’s interests, would it not? The South achieves its independence. Your country removes the greatest rival on the horizon and makes and secures the alliance of a grateful Confederacy that will keep any Union thoughts of revenge under control. Britain will have access to the Southern market unhindered by tariffs that have previously only suited Northern business interests. The future profits for Fraser, Trenholm & Company would be enormous. Think about it, George.”
Trenholm did and decidedly did not like the thought. “Listen to me, John. It is not that most people in this country who matter, including those in government, would not like to see these things accomplished. And they would not shrink from war if there were no other choice. What they do mind is being manipulated by foreigners into it. We are a perverse people in that regard.”
Bulloch realized he had touched far too soft a spot and sought to deflect Trenholm’s distress. “I said not to worry, George. It will never come to that. My government would only wish the assistance of Great Britain if it were the result of great deliberation on a matter of imperial policy.”
Trenholm was still nervous. “But there is still great danger. Dudley’s men are sniffing around all the time. We cannot expect Russell to forever claim the mounting evidence Dudley digs up is only hearsay.”
“Now George, I think Russell’s basic sympathies for the Confederacy and his desire to see the bloodshed stopped will encourage him to see all evidence as hearsay unless it comes in written with the finger of God himself.”
Britannia's Fist: From Civil War to World War: An Alternate History Page 12