Book Read Free

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

Page 32

by Peter G. Tsouras


  14. *Sharpe, Conversations With Abraham Lincoln, 59–60.

  15. *Ibid., 62–63.

  16. http://www.canis-publ.demon.co.uk/sofw2/ships/scorpion.html.

  17. http://www.civilwartalk.com/cwt_alt/resources/articles/acws/larid_rams.htm.

  18. Dean B. Mahin, One War at a Time: The International Dimensions of the American Civil War (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, Inc., 1999), 147–53.

  19. *Edgar C. Withersbottom, Lifeblood of the Confederacy: Fraser, Trenholm & Company’s Support of the Southern Cause (London: Collins, 1948), 322.

  20. *Charles Dana, At the Creation: A Memoir of George H. Shape (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1892), 112.

  21. *Thaddaeus Lowe, Army Aeronautics in the Great War (New York: The Century Company, 1878), 33.

  22. *Woodrow Wilson, George H. Sharpe and the Constitution in Wartime: The Struggle Between Civil Liberties and Necessity (New York: D. Appleton, 1904), 318.

  23. Maria Isabella Boyd (1844–1900), better known as “Belle Boyd,” was probably the most famous of the Confederacy’s spies. She worked behind Union lines and was finally arrested by Baker in July 1862.

  24. *James McPhail, My Service in the Great War (New York: Seldon & Company, 1888), 23. Much of the success of the CIB stemmed from the superb work of McPhail as its deputy and his unerring loyalty to Sharpe.

  25. *Thomas Shervington, The Life of Michael D. Wilmoth, Third Director of the Central Information Bureau (New York: Neale Publishing Co., 1900), 67.

  26. Evans, War of the Aeronauts, 264–87.

  27. *Lowe, Army Aeronautics in the Great War, 52.

  CHAPTER SIX: “ROLL, ALABAMA, ROLL!”

  1. *H. Emerson Harper, Voyage of Destiny: USS Gettysburg and the Beginning of the Great War (New York: The Century Company, 1903), 42.

  2. Trading Places: A History of Liverpool Docks, http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org/uk/nof/docks/index2html.

  3. J. J. Colledge, Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of All Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy From the Fifteenth Century to the Present (London: Greenhill Books, 2003), 11, 193. Tonnage is here expressed in terms of builder’s measure (bm), a unit of measurement used until 1875 and perhaps dating from the fifteenth century, determined by calculating how many tuns (casks) of wine a ship could carry. After 1873 displacement tonnage was used. In the case of Liverpool, this was 3,919 tons.

  4. In this period, smoothbore guns that fired shot were designated by the weight of the shot—e.g., 32-pounder—and rifled guns were designed by the diameter of their bore, e.g., 8-inch.

  5. Colledge, Ships of the Royal Navy, 14, 142, 193. The ninety-eight Albacore class gunboats ordered in 1855 were armed with one 68-pounder, one 32-pounder, and two 20-pounder guns.

  6. *John P. Eldridge, A Marine Aboard the Gettysburg (New York: The Century Company, 1888), 97.

  7. David Hepburn Milton, Lincoln’s Spymaster: Thomas Haines Dudley and the Liverpool Network (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2003), 91.

  8. The Cumberland Three, Songs of the Civil War: “Number 292” (compact disk) (Los Angeles: Rhino Records, 1991).

  9. *Roswell H. Lamson, Into the Maelstrom: A Memoir of the Gettysburg (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1876), 112.

  10. *Harper, Voyage of Destiny, 56–57. Maintaining that the Gettysburg was to replace the Kearsarge was part of the deception plan Fox had included in his orders to Lamson. He had coordinated this strategy with Seward, who mentioned it in a dispatch to Ambassador Adams.

  11. *James Bulloch, The Fuse of War: The CSS North Carolina (London: John Murray, 1875), 119.

  12. Dean B. Mahin, One War at a Time: The International Dimensions of the American Civil War (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, Inc., 1999), 178.

  13. Ibid., 179.

  14. *Austen David Layard, Origins of the American War: View From the Foreign Office (London: Holmes & Sons, Ltd., 1886), 229. Layard went to great lengths in this book to deflect any responsibility for the coming war from himself, Russell, and the Foreign Office.

  15. B. D. Adams, Great Britain and the American Civil War, vol. 2 (New York: Longmans, Green & Company, 1925), 143.

  16. *Lamson, Into the Maelstrom, 150–52. Despite these initial impressions, Lamson and Adams developed a lifelong friendship, proving that opposites do attract.

  17. *Edward R. Little, ed., The Diaries of Thomas Haines Dudley (New York: The George Doran Company, 1911), 93–96. *Walter B. Eddings, Seward, Adams, and Dudley: Diplomacy and Espionage Leading up to the Outbreak of War (Chicago: The World Publishing Company, 1922), 186–88.

  18. *Lamson, Into the Maelstrom, 150.

  19. *Albert Meyer, Brief Glory: James Bulloch and the Short Life of the CSS North Carolina (Richmond: James River Press, 1932), 131.

  20. *Lamson, Into the Maelstrom, 165.

  CHAPTER SEVEN: FRENCH LICK TO HALIFAX

  1. *Martin Hogan, Hooker’s Horse Marines: The Adventures of the 3rd Indiana Cavalry (Boston: James P. McPhee Company, 1882), 121–23. Hogan would stay with the CIB after the war and eventually rise to become the Director of Special Operations in the Bureau, succeeding Cline after the latter’s death in 1882.

  2. *“The Copperhead Assassin: Big Jim Smoke,” Harper’s Weekly, April 18, 1864.

  3. Kenneth Bourne, “British Preparations for War With the North, 1861– 1862,” English Historical Review 76, no. 301 (1961): 619.

  4. The Canadas (Lower Canada and Upper Canada) refer to present-day Quebec and Ontario, respectively; the Maritimes refer to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. In 1840 the British Parliament passed the Act of Union (1840) that merged Upper and Lower Canada to form the Province of United Canada.

  5. Bourne, “British Preparations,” 615.

  6. David Pam, The Royal Small Arms Factory Enfield and Its Workers (published by the author, 1998), 50–58. Between 1859 and 1864, the factory produced 365,779 rifled muskets of the 1853 pattern. Private British arms manufacturers quickly followed the mass-production model at Enfield.

  7. “The Gun—Rifled Ordnance: Armstrong,” Royal New Zealand Artillery Old Comrades’ Association, http://riv.co.nz/rnza/hist/gun/rifled3.htm.

  8. A British or Canadian cavalry troop numbered about forty men.

  9. Desmond Morton, A Military History of Canada (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Ltd., 1999), 87–88.

  10. Peter G. Tsouras, ed., The Greenhill Dictionary of Military Quotations (London: Greenhill Books, 2000) p. 339. Cromwell made the statement in September 1643 in a letter to Sir William Springe.

  11. Mark Grimsley, “Net Assessment During the Trent Affair,” http://people.cohums.ohio-state.edu/grimsley1/h582/2001/trent.htm.

  12. *William R. Plimpton, Staff Notes: The Wolseley North American Staff Lectures, 1863 (Toronto: The Defence Staff, 1914), 23–32.

  13. *Ian Alan Tomlinson, “The Crown Subsidy of 1862 and the Canadian Militia Expansion,” Imperial Defence Journal, December 1912, 45.

  14. Ian W. Toll, Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2006), 352.

  15. Regis A. Courtemanche, No Need for Glory: The British Navy in American Waters, 1860–1864 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1977), 129.

  16. Grimsley, “Net Assessment,” 5–6. “In December 1861 the Royal Navy boasted of 339 ships (324,063 tons), 61,342 men, and 5,304 guns, augmented by a naval reserve that could have been readied for maritime duties. The United States Navy, by contrast, possessed only 264 vessels (218,016 tons), 22,000 men, and 2,557 guns. More importantly, the Union Navy had only a few ships capable of joining a line of battle; most of those 264 vessels were simply hastily-converted merchantmen pressed into blockade duty and mounting only a few guns each.”

  17. Courtemanche, No Need for Glory, 163–66.

  18. Ibid., 164.

  19. Ibid., 166.

  20. J. J. Colledge, Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of All Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy From the Fifteenth Century to the Present (London: Greenhil
l Books, 2003), 188, 228, 284.

  21. Courtemanche, No Need for Glory, 56.

  22. Grimsley, “Net Assessment,” 6.

  23. *Basil Hall, The Battles for North American Waters: Recollections of a Flag Lieutenant (London: Collins, 1935, reprint of the private 1875 edition), 128–30.

  24. Toll, Six Frigates, 459.

  25. *Hall, The Battles for North American Waters, 132.

  26. Edwin Fishel, The Secret War for the Union: The Untold Story of Military Intelligence in the Civil War (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1996), 84, 292.

  27. C. Van Santvoord, The One Hundred and Twentieth Regiment, New York State Volunteers: A Narrative of Its Services in the War for the Union (Cornwallville, NY: Hope Farm Press, 1983), 235.

  28. Callaway to Rosecrans, August 22, 1863, Military Record File of Lt. Col. James E. Callaway, National Archives.

  29. Robert V. Bruce, Lincoln and the Tools of War (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1956), 254–56.

  CHAPTER EIGHT: BATTLE AT MOELFRE BAY

  1. *H. Emerson Harper, Voyage of Destiny: USS Gettysburg and the Beginning of the Great War (New York: The Century Company, 1903), 158. *Henry Porter, The Battle of Moelfre Bay (New York: D. Appleton, 1868), 130.

  2. *James Bulloch, The Fuse of War: The CSS North Carolina (London: John Murray, 1875), 142.

  3. *Roswell Hawks Lamson, Into the Maelstrom: A Memoir of the Gettysburg (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1876), 105.

  4. *Bulloch, The Fuse of War, 144.

  5. *Henry Adams, “The Case for the Gettysburg,” New York Tribune, September 19, 1863. The owner and editor of the Tribune was Horace Greeley, who encouraged Henry Adams to write what was to become the definitive defense of the actions of the Gettysburg in the seizure of the North Carolina in British waters. It was widely circulated in Europe, where its conclusions did much to sway opinion in favor of the United States. It was widely supported and praised by Russian Foreign Minister Gorchakov.

  6. *Bulloch, The Fuse of War, 148. Bulloch would be later exchanged and arrive in Richmond aboard a British warship to a hero’s welcome and parade. He would later command the first warship built with the full approval of the British government for the Confederacy, the CSS Robert E. Lee.

  7. *Adams, “The Case for the Gettysburg.” The papers were indeed a diplomatic goldmine, especially Bulloch’s reference to a “private but most reliable source” in Whitehall. Unfortunately, the war swept ahead of the publication of these documents, but they did much to affect opinion in the rest of Europe and South America.

  8. *Lamson, Into the Maelstrom, 127.

  9. Robert J. Schneller, Jr., A Quest for Glory: A Biography of Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1996), 105.

  10. J. J. Colledge, Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of All Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy From the Fifteenth Century to the Present (London: Greenhill Books, 2003), 14, 142.

  11. *Jacob P. Eldridge, A Marine Aboard the Gettysburg (New York: The Century Company, 1888), 199.

  12. Regis A. Courtemanche, No Need of Glory: The British Navy in American Waters, 1860–1864 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1977), 163.

  13. *Charles Francis Adams, Jr., The Life of Charles Francis Adams (Boston, 1890), 342.

  14. Adams to Russell, September 5, 1863, Foreign Relations of the United States (“Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs Accompanying the Annual Message of the President) (FR–63, vol. 1, 367.).

  15. *Mary K. Doering, John Bright: Member From America (New York: Regency Press, 1975), 228. *Charles Francis Adams, letter to Charles Adams, Jr., September 15, 1863, in The Papers and Correspondence of Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Concord Press, 1892), 293.

  16. *“Dreadful Battle at Moelfre Bay, Americans Attack, British Ships Lost, Suvivors Ashore,” North Wales Gazette, September 5, 1863. This article cited several references of the consideration with which the survivors were treated by the crew of the Kearsarge, their immediate landing at a small Welsh port of Amlwch, and the prompt provision of medical care provided the wounded.

  17. *Charles Francis Adams, letter to Charles Adams, Jr., 396–405. *Charles Francis Adams, “Report to the Secretary of State of the Actions of the USS Gettysburg and Kearsarge, September 4–5, 1863,” Congressional Record 5 (1863): 472–505. *Austen David Layard, Origins of the American War: View From the Foreign Office (London: Holmes & Sons, Ltd, 1886), 257. There are such significant differences in the accounts of Adams and Layard that one wonders if they were attending the same meeting. Russell’s report to the cabinet included only a summary of the conversation and omitted Adams’s more pointed comments.

  18. *Ralph W. Eddington, Winslow of the Kearsarge: Hero of Moelfre Bay (Annapolis, MD: Naval Academy Press, 1925), 232.

  19. *Lamson, Into the Maelstrom, 183.

  CHAPTER NINE: PURSUIT INTO THE UPPER BAY

  1. “New Alliance Cemented,” New York Herald, October 2, 1863; and “Our Russian Visitors,” New York Times, October 11, 1863.

  2. “The Russian Empire and the American Republic Against the Western European Powers,” New York Herald, October 7, 1863.

  3. “A Russian Fleet Coming Into Our Harbor,” New York Times, September 24, 1863, 2; “Our Naval Visitors,” New York Times, September 26, 1863, 2; “The Russian Ball,” New York Herald, November 6, 1863, 10.

  4. “The Russian Ball,” New York Herald, November 6, 1863.

  5. “The Russian Padre,” New York Times, September 27, 1863, 5.

  6. “The Russian Guests,” New York Times, October 3, 1863, 2.

  7. *“WAR! U.S. Victory in Naval Battle off Welsh Coast; British and American Ships Sunk,” New York Tribune, September 17, 1863, 1.

  8. *William H. Seward, The Diplomacy of the Great War (New York: E. P. Dodd & Company, 1872), 152.

  9. Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Selected Letters, 1839– 1865 (New York: The Modern Library, 1990), 384–85. “At Vicksburg 31,600 prisoners were surrendered together with 172 cannon, about 60,000 muskets and a large amount of ammunition. The small-arms of the enemy were far superior to the bulk of ours. …The enemy had generally new arms, which had run the blockade and were of uniform caliber. After the surrender, I authorized all colonels whose regiments were armed with inferior muskets, to place them in the stack of captured arms and replace them with the latter.”

  10. *Michael D. Wilmoth, ed., Reports of the Central Information Bureau During the Great War, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1888), 35–37.

  11. Robert V. Bruce, Lincoln and the Tools of War (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1956), 264.

  12. *Martin P. Anderson, “The Coffee Mill Gun in the Great War,” Harper’s Weekly, July 15, 1869, 2; Bruce, Lincoln and the Tools of War, 263. In August 1863, the Spencer Company reported that it had two thousand of its repeaters on hand for immediate delivery. Ripley had been sabotaging orders from Spencer but was retired at this time. The repeaters were immediately ordered and were on hand at the time of the cabinet meeting.

  13. John W. Busey and David G. Martin, Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg (Hightstown, NJ: Longstreet House, 1994) 241–63. Maine’s contingent in the Army of the Potomac suffered 27.9 percent casualties at Gettsyburg.

  14. *Telegram from Sharpe to Rosecrans, September 15, 1863, National Archives, M504 Unbound, Roll 303. It is one of the ironies of the war that Rosecrans had put such confidence in Sharpe’s message but underestimated the time in which Longstreet would arrive. He thought he would fight and beat Bragg before “Old Pete” arrived.

  15. Peter Cozzens, This Terrible Sound: The Battle of Chickamauga (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992), 376, 393.

  16. Homer, The Iliad, trans. Robert Fagles (New York: Viking Penguin, 1990), 9.1–8.

  17. “Report of Maj. James E. Callaway, Twenty-First Illinois Infantry, Commanding Eighty-First Indiana Infantry,” September 28, 1863, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Off
icial Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (hereafter OR), vol. 30, part I (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1890), 525.

  18. Ibid., 526.

  19. Jerry Korn and the Editors of Time-Life, The Fight for Chattanooga: Chickamauga to Missionary Ridge (Alexandria, VA: Time-Life, 1985), 72.

  20. J. J. Colledge, Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of All Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy From the Fifteenth Century to the Present (London: Greenhill Books, 2003), 338. Undaunted measured 250 by 52 feet and 4,020 tons compared to Kearsarge at 201 by 33 feet and 1,550 tons.

  21. *“Sea Fight of the USS Kearsarge and HMS Undaunted,” New York Tribune, September 17, 1863, 1.

 

‹ Prev