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

by Peter G. Tsouras

  “Don’t blaspheme, John. I’m afraid that damn Yankee is actually close to finding divine evidence.”

  “We still have our friend in the Foreign Office. Let us just hope that the rams are ready for their sea trials before Russell is forced to act.”19

  MILITARY TELEGRAPH OFFICE, WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON, D.C., 2:36 PM, AUGUST 8, 1863

  Sharpe sent an urgent telegram to John Babcock, his deputy in the Army of the Potomac. He was to send Sergeant Cline to Washington immediately.

  Lincoln may have given him the charter to put order into the intelligence operations of the government, but Sharpe knew that he would have to win the goodwill of powerful cabinet officers if he were to have any chance of success. Seward would be no problem. A fellow New Yorker and friend of the family, he would see Sharpe’s appointment as the advancement of a protégé. He was also practical enough to see the effects of a central control. Sharpe paused to think for a moment as to what he would call his new office. Secret Service had already been given a bad name by Allan Pinkerton and McClellan and had become even more odious under Stanton’s private henchman, Lafayette Baker. Sharpe turned over various alternatives in his mind, to include the name of his bureau in the Army of the Potomac—the Bureau of Military Information (BMI). But his new office would have more than military interests and be encompassing all the government’s interests in intelligence. Nothing seemed to fit.

  The first step was to find allies in the War Department. He did not consider Ripley as he had burned his bridges with him about as dramatically as Cortés had done in Mexico. Besides, if Ripley did not have the look of a man whose days were numbered, Sharpe was no judge of things.

  He found Dana in his office late that afternoon and broached his plans to him. Dana was a shrewd man and listened intently. He had assumed many of the duties of intelligence at the War Department, but they were secondary duties, and he had not the time to give them the proper organization and attention they deserved. It was after seven when they finally finished brainstorming the new organization. Dana said as he got up to put on his coat, “Well, Sharpe, what will you call this centralized intelligence agency of yours?”

  “Hell if I know. Nothing comes.”

  “How about the Federal Bureau of Information?”

  “Sounds too much like law enforcement. The parts are all there; it’s just a matter of putting them together.”

  On their way to dinner it struck him and he snapped his fingers. “That’s it, Dana, the Central Information Bureau! Just enough of a name to be functional without attracting too much intention.”20

  “There, that’s settled. Now for some airy business.” Sharpe handed a clerk another telegram to send. It was addressed to Professor Thaddaeus Lowe, Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, and read:

  RETURN IMMEDIATELY WASHINGTON TO COMMAND

  NEW BALLOON CORPS STOP COLONEL’S COMMISSION

  AWAITS STOP REPORT TO ME STOP GEORGE SHARPE,

  BVT BRIG GENERAL, CHIEF, CENTRAL INFORMATION

  BUREAU STOP.21

  LAFAYETTE SQUARE, WASHINGTON, D.C., 10:05 AM, AUGUST 10, 1863

  Sergeant Cline caught the train near Army headquarters and was in Washington the next day. He reported to Sharpe’s home on Lafayette Square. Cline was a hard man to surprise, but the Colonel had his head spinning as he laid out the problem and the sergeant’s role in solving it. First Cline found himself transferred to Sharpe’s new organization. Next he had a transportation voucher for the night train to Indianapolis and was armed with a letter of introduction to meet with Colonel Carrington. Sharpe felt that Carrington needed someone to replace Stidger, an actor who could command the stage. He had Lincoln’s verbal orders to take the strongest measures to scotch the Copperheads. Stidger’s death was proof of that. The need for action was immediate.

  At the same time Sharpe had to organize and staff his bureau. He was starting from scratch. The effort it had taken to create the intelligence organization for the Army of the Potomac shrank in comparison to this. His first act was to acquire a competent deputy, and he asked for the assignment of civilian James L. McPhail, the provost for Maryland. From his Baltimore headquarters, McPhail had quickly gathered the strings of espionage directed at Richmond. He had eagerly shared everything he learned with Sharpe, a rare characteristic in the intelligence business. Sharpe was a frequent visitor to Baltimore to coordinate and exchange information. It was apparent that McPhail was the rare professional in a sea of amateurs. McPhail had come down to Washington the day that he received the summons of a War Department telegram.

  Sharpe, for want of office space and the time to look for it in a crowded city, had started shop in his own rented home on Lafayette Square. A few carefully selected military clerks had taken over the front parlor as an office. He took McPhail into the library and shut the sliding doors. “Jim, we have the labors of Hercules before us. This has never been tried before—a single national intelligence effort.”

  “When do we start?”

  “You already have by being here. You are my deputy, and I am going to work you near to death.”

  McPhail grinned.

  “This is how I see the President’s intent—to bring order to all these separate teams that are pulling each in its own direction, and this is where he is quite clear, he wants someone who will present him the equivalent of a thoroughly researched lawyer’s brief on any particular subject. He said Gettysburg taught him how dangerous it was that everybody seemed to have a finger in the pie when it came to finding out what General Lee was up to, including himself. Neither he nor Stanton had the time to do this well. He was also aware that in only the most haphazard manner, if at all, does one Union Army learn anything of use from another army.

  “In practical terms, this is how I see our job. We must be the clearinghouse for all intelligence on the rebels. I do not mean to take over the staff work of the armies in the field, but they will provide us what they learn so we can build an overall picture to inform the President and Secretary Stanton. The President told me his inclination was to set up a separate agency that would report only to him, but he thought it not worth the fireworks from Stanton. He told me, ‘You need Stanton as an ally, not an enemy.’ For that reason I cannot touch Lafayette Baker’s National Detective Police. Baker and his NDP are Stanton’s pets.”

  McPhail said, “I wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole, George. Baker and his crew are a stench in the nostrils of honest men. Stanton protects them because they are his willing tools in any dirty thing he wants done.”

  Sharpe was emphatic. “If we took over Baker’s crew, that stench would infect us as well. I mean the Bureau to be within the law, Jim. I shudder to think of how Baker has trampled on the law to abuse just about anyone he wants without writ or judge to stop him. I am a practical man, and in crisis I believe that the old adage ‘Never let your conscience stop you from doing what’s right’ is sometimes necessary. The President himself has skirted the constitutionality of some of his actions, but they have been forced on him by necessity to protect the Constitution itself from destruction. That is the real world, not the ivory tower of civil libertarians who would see the Constitution burn up in front of their eyes rather than accommodate it to the fact that the roof is on fire. We shall stand on the right side of the law, but we will also follow Mr. Lincoln’s policy of ‘bending it here and there’ where necessary.22

  “Baker trumpets how well he has cleaned up rebel spies in Washington, but you know as well as I do, they continue to flourish here. What Baker excels at is shaking down merchants who supply the South.”

  McPhail commented, “Well, we will need our own organization to counter the enemy’s espionage. How will you get around Baker?”

  “Simple,” Sharpe said. “I have an independent budget thanks to the President. Don’t ask me where he gets it. We shall just set up our own organization to catch spies. Quietly. Let Baker make all the noise he wants to about catching Belle Boyd.23 We will work rings around him. But watch him cl
ose, Jim; he’s a dangerous man.”24

  Their attention at that moment was drawn to the noise of the doors sliding open and the young soldier standing there. He was one of the studious young men clerking diligently in the outer office. In the two days since Sharpe had acquired the services of Cpl. Michael Wilmoth, the young Hoosier had shown a remarkable talent for order-of-battle analysis. He had already committed Lee’s order of battle to memory. “Sir, Professor Lowe is here.”25

  “Show him in.” Almost immediately the tall, lanky form of Thaddeus Lowe appeared. “Professor!” Sharpe exclaimed and rushed over to shake his hand. “Thank God, you’ve come. Here, let me introduce you to Jim McPhail.” The two shook hands as Sharpe waved them to sit. He sketched for McPhail’s benefit the travesty of Lowe’s treatment and the disappearance of the Balloon Corps. Lowe’s strong jaw tightened in the retelling. He was the foremost aeronaut in the United States, a gifted scientist, and a man of great energy who had the will and ability to get things done, none of which had been proof against military martinets.26

  “I tell you, George,” Lowe said, “that the only reason I have come is as a favor to you.” He looked at McPhail. “Colonel Sharpe was one of the few men I met who appreciated the value of my balloons. It was a pleasure to work with him, and I would have been a damn sight happier had I worked for him, instead of that officious.…” His voiced trailed off.

  Wilmoth had appeared again and handed Sharpe a folder. Sharpe said, “And we’re going to do things right this time.” He drew a finely printed parchment out of the folder and handed it to Lowe. “Long overdue, it’s your commission as colonel, signed personally by Lincoln and countersigned by Stanton.” He drew another paper from the folder. “And here are your orders assigning you as chief of the Balloon Corps. You are in charge of all the U.S. government’s efforts at aeronautics. And you work directly for me.”

  Before Lowe could reply, Sharpe went on, “Professor, you have no greater admirer than I. Your contribution during the Chancellorsville campaign made Gen. John Sedgwick’s victory at Marye’s Heights possible. I was with Hooker as he received your stream of reports within minutes of your dispatching them by telegraph from your balloons all the way down the Rapphannock at Fredericksburg.”

  Lowe’s excitement had risen to the point where it seemed he needed a tether, like his balloons, to keep him grounded. “When do I start, General?”27

  6.

  “Roll, Alabama, Roll!”

  LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND, 11:15 AM, SEPTEMBER 1, 1863

  It was a grand sight, sailing up the Mersey River with the great entrepôt of Liverpool to larboard and the smaller shipyards of Birkenhead to starboard. Lamson allowed the crew to line the decks to enjoy the sight. It was exciting, and he tried not to let it go to his head that not even a month ago he had been chasing down this very ship he now commanded. Then she was a swift blockade-runner; now she was the USS Gettysburg, and her fleetness was in the service of the United States Navy.

  Fox had pulled out all the stops to convert her in record time; the Navy Yard made it top priority, and the crews had worked in round-the-clock shifts to strengthen her hull and decks to take the huge soda bottle–shaped Dahlgren guns. Her belly had been filled with all the ammunition and other naval accoutrements of war as well as the stores and the best of hard anthracite coal to see her on her way. Lamson had requested and received his old crew from the Nansemond, plus the pick of seamen then in Washington and Baltimore. The voyage across the Atlantic was blessed with good weather, and the Gettysburg’s fine engines sped her in record time. Gunnery practice and battle drills had filled the days and made them short.

  Lamson was thankful that the breaks had all gone his way; he was also worried that they had all gone his way. He wondered if he had he used up all his good luck on the way to England. He was normally a young man who acted on the belief that you made your own luck through working hard, knowing your job, and being bold. If anything, his success had come as a result of boldly bending luck to his will. But he also knew her to be a fickle goddess, apt to burst a boiler at a critical moment as to throw a laurel in your path. Overlaying this premonition were his confidential orders—“At all costs you will ensure that the rams do not escape.” At all costs.…1

  The English pilot who was enjoying himself, pointing out the details of the great port, temporarily distracted his thoughts. The city was unique among great ports in having a system of enclosed docks. Liverpool was the child of the North American trade and an immigrant gateway as well. It was unlike London or New York, where the steady flow and depth of the Thames and Hudson allowed their docks to line the rivers. The city was so close to the Irish Sea that the tidal Mersey, which had a difference of thirty-three feet between high and low tide, would have left ships beached on her mudflats at low tide. Strong winds, a swift current, and twenty thousand acres of shifting sandbanks contributed to the necessity of building Liverpool’s enclosed docks, where ships could be kept permanently afloat in deep water.

  The pilot began pointing out the individual docks as they passed, each filled with masts, and connected by Wapping Dock, which allowed ships to move within most of the dock system without having to exit and reenter the system through the river. Lamson’s ears pricked up when the pilot pointed out Albert Dock, where his quarry was in the last stages of fitting out. The pilot was explaining that the Albert Dock was used for only the most valuable cargoes, such as brandy, and that its seven and a half acres was surrounded by bonded, fire- and theft-proof warehouses of brick and iron. The docks were less than twenty years old but already becoming too small. Built for sailing ships, its entrance was too small for the new side-wheelers and difficult for the large, screw-propeller ships.2

  “Captain!” Lamson turned to see Lieutenant Porter touching the brim of his cap. “The Royal Navy is coming down the river.”

  “Prepare to present full honors, Mr. Porter.”

  The crewmen who had been lounging by the railing were sent into a bustle of action by the executive officer’s shouted commands. In less than a minute the men had gone from a gaggle to neat lines on deck. As the first British ship came even with Gettysburg, Porter shouted, “Present arms!” The sailors’ hands shot to their caps, and the Marines presented arms. A keen eye would have noticed that the Spencer rifles they carried had no fittings for bayonets.

  The first British ship was the wood screw frigate HMS Liverpool, dwarfing Gettysburg at two thousand six hundred and fifty-six tons.3She was two hundred and thirty-five feet in length and fifty feet in the beam, not even three years old but already obsolete, some might say, in this new age of iron. She carried the standard armament of the Royal Navy. Pride of place was given to the breech-loading 110-pounder Armstrong gun, issued widely to the fleet in 1861; eight 8-inch rifles; four 70-pounders; eight 40-pounders; and eighteen 32-pounders.4 The Royal Navy had been so impressed with the Army’s tests of the Armstrong breech-loader that it had ordered almost two thousand guns of sizes that the manufacturer had not even designed, and later accepted them without trials. Liverpool was followed by the much smaller Albacore class wood screw gunboat HMS Goshawk with four guns. As the stern of Goshawk passed, Porter’s commands sent the crew back to work to prepare for docking.5

  Aboard the British frigate, there was no perceptible change in the normal activities of the crew as it passed Gettysburg. The officers on the bridge ostentatiously looked the other way as if the American honors were their due and not worth their notice.

  Liverpool did not neglect the minimum customary honors that were owed to any warship of a recognized state. The British naval jack was dipped in salute. The U.S. Navy never returned such customary European honors on the principle that the Stars and Stripes bowed to no other flag. It was an irritation among other navies, especially where an irritation with the Americans was preferred.

  When Porter dismissed the crew after Goshawk passed, there was a notable mutter as the men broke ranks. The snub had not gone unnoticed.6

  Atte
ntion soon shifted to the marvel of the enclosed docking system, fascinating everyone from captain to cabin boy. The pilot directed them through Queen’s Basin and from there down a short channel into King’s Dock. Lamson was pleased at how well Gettysburg handled in such tight places.

  No sooner had they docked than a civilian gentleman left his waiting carriage to wait for the gangplank to be lowered. As soon as it touched the stone pier, he dashed across it and said to the guard, “Permission to come aboard. I must speak to the captain immediately.”

  Lamson shouted from the bridge, “Permission granted. Mr. Henderson, show our visitor to the bridge.” The man who climbed to the bridge was middle aged with a well-trimmed, graying beard and the serious look of New England about him. He exuded an alert competence. He extended his hand introduced himself. “Good day, Captain. I am Thomas Haines Dudley, United States Consul in Liverpool. We had word that you had arrived and would be docking here this morning. We must speak privately.”

  Once they were in Lamson’s private cabin, Dudley came right down to business. “Captain, I have been informed of your instructions; you have arrived not a moment too soon. I am convinced that the quarry has wind of Ambassador Adams’s presentations of evidence to the Foreign Office proving that the rams have been built for the Confederacy. Not a moment to lose, not a single moment, sir. They moved Number 294 across to the Albert Dock last week and fitted the two turrets on the 28th and 29th. Half of Liverpool was there to see the biggest cranes in the port lift those great cylinders. They’ve been working feverishly ever since to rush her to completion.”7

  Lamson had looked forward to meeting the man who had sent such detailed reports on the rams, tracking their every stage of construction. He obviously had the trust of Seward and Fox. More important, he had the trust of Lincoln. Fox had explained that it was Dudley’s timely and critical support at the 1860 Republican convention that had secured Lincoln’s nomination. As a reward he had been offered the consulships in either Yokohama or Liverpool. Dudley had chosen the latter to be near expert medical care for a chronic illness. Whatever the illness was, it was not apparent in his urgent attitude now.