The Ironclad Alibi

by Michael Kilian

  “Wants us to go to Washington City?”

  “I’m supposed to go west. Far west. New Mexico Territory.”

  “Why? The war’s not there.”

  “Will be soon. Your friend Jeff Davis is supposed to have designs on it. Something about a railroad, a Reb invasion from Texas, grabbing California.

  “And me?”

  The room echoed with the ringing reverberation of a cannon shot. Another swiftly followed.

  “The Virginia’s out,” Harry said. “It’s begun again.”

  Leahy crossed to the window, peering out of it.

  “It’s a poor view,” he said. “Let’s find a better one.”

  They were allowed up on the fort’s parapet, though a sergeant looked askance at Harry’s peculiarly mismatched uniform, for he was still wearing a sailor’s blouse beneath the soldier’s jacket. Nearly all the garrison seemed to be lining the walls, as though preparing to repel an assault, though they were simply spectators to one. Along the shoreline to the right, there were more—mostly civilians. Harry was reminded of the battle at Bull Run the summer before. He hoped this one would end better.

  A second cannon shot led his eyes to a large puff of smoke in the middle of Hampton Roads. As the breeze blew it clear, he saw two vessels—the hulking Virginia, and the flat little ship with the huge turret on it he had noticed in the night. The Confederate ironclad was on a course straight for the fort and the Yankee ships moored below it. The mysterious Union craft was moving swiftly toward the larger Rebel ship to intervene, firing as it went, though at slow intervals, two or three minutes between each pair of shots.

  Leahy had borrowed a pair of field glasses from a junior officer and let Harry use them. He could see more clearly through the expanding veil of smoke. Though both combatants moved slowly, the smaller Union ironclad appeared almost to dance around the clumsy Virginia, a slow and graceful waltz to the other’s plod. Many of the Confederate ship’s shots missed, whizzing aft. Those that struck, bounced off the Union vessel as the Cumberland’s had off the Virginia.

  “I don’t understand how the federal ship works,” Harry asked. “How do they turn that huge turret? If it’s covered with iron plating, it must weigh many tons.”

  “More than a hundred tons, they say. I don’t know much else about it, but it takes two steam engines to make it go around. The whole contraption rests on a shaft, like a pencil. That man Ericsson designed it, the fellow who invented the screw propeller. They’ve been building it up in New York the last three months. They named it the Monitor.”

  “Then they knew about the Confederate ironclad. They didn’t need us at all.”

  “Harry. They made haste because of you people in Richmond. The Monitor only got here last night. Think if they had dawdled with more sea trials in New York. That damned Rebel boat would be sitting right off the shore there, blasting this fort—with the Union fleet a shambles.”

  An orderly came up bearing a large plate with two tin cups of coffee and a pile of decent biscuits. Harry was impressed by Leahy’s standing with the military. He must have reported directly to the commanding general here.

  The Virginia had been making for a new victim—a two-masted Union frigate Leahy said was the Minnesota, lying in shallow waters not far off the western ramparts of the fort. It sat so motionless Harry decided it must have run aground much like the unfortunate Congress the day before. If the Monitor proved unable to stop the Virginia, the frigate would be as doomed as its sister warships.

  The ironclads continued to make their circles around one another, the Monitor’s agile, the Virginia’s not. But the circles were moving them back toward the Minnesota, and the rest of the Federal squadron.

  “The damned British thought up these monstrosities,” Leahy said. “Used them in the Crimean War as floating batteries. Now they and the Frenchies each have an ironclad ship, though neither’s said to be much good. They’re just sailing ships with a lot of iron nailed onto them. But these two—they’re the first of their kind. No sails. Wholly steam powered. Armored everywhere. Armed to the teeth.”

  “The Union ship, it has only two cannon I can see.”

  He lowered the binoculars.

  “Eleven-inch Dahlgrens,” Leahy said. “They’re enough to handle the Reb boat—as we can plainly see. And that turret lets them fire from any angle.”

  “But to no effect.”

  “Aye, not yet.”

  Drawing quite close, the two ships suddenly fired fusilades at each other almost simultaneously, so much in unison Harry wondered if their cannonballs might strike each other in mid-air. The Monitor appeared to stagger, though that was hard to tell at such distance. It drew off, then maneuvered itself onto the Virginia’s bow quarter, denying the Confederate ship a shot. The closest Rebel gun was the Parrot Harry had worked on.

  The Virginia, billowing forth smoke, strained to maneuver yet closer, bringing port guns to bear. Two of them fired, then a third. The Monitor backed off and turned to starboard, its turret swiveling in the other direction, but too fast, failing to stop in time for the gunners’ next shot. Both Dahlgrens fired, the balls splashing astern of the Virginia.

  All four port guns on the Confederate ship responded, all four shells screaming over the Monitor’s low after deck and proceeding on, two of them striking the helpless Minnesota. For the first time, Harry began to feel nervous on this perch. He sipped his coffee, calming himself. He needed to get his brain working.

  Now the Virginia began a slow turn in the opposite direction, trying to steer a course that would bring its bow to bear on the Union ship. Harry figured Buchanan was going to try to ram his adversary, as proved so fatal for the Cumberland. Whoever was commanding the Monitor apparently read the maneuver and countered with one of his own, attempting to get at the Virginia’s stern. He’d be aiming at the rudder. If he could smash the Rebel’s steering, she’d be helpless. They could board her, or push her until her bottom foundered in the mud.

  But, somehow, she evaded the Union ramming gambit, the Monitor sliding close, but then on by. Receiving a broadside from the Virginia as its reward.

  “They may be the mightiest warships on earth,” Harry said. “But they seem so feckless. It’s like watching a chess game in which both players have only a king.”

  “This could be the war, Harry,” Leahy said. “Right there, those two ships. If that Rebel ironclad can’t be stopped, she’ll tear apart our blockading squadron—all our blockading squadrons.”

  Harry had seen firsthand the truth of that. He reminded himself of the actual size of the Virginia and the heavy caliber of its guns.

  “She draws too much water to make it all the way up the Potomac to Washington City,” he said. “Mr. Lincoln has nothing to worry about.”

  “Maybe so, but she could get near enough to Baltimore, or Philadelphia, or New York. She’d sure as hell be able to knock down any house in Boston she chose to. Victory here, it changes the whole war. McClellan might change his mind, all his plans. Call off the invasion.”

  “That’s the only ironclad they’ve got.”

  “For now. Us, too.”

  “I’m sorry,” Harry said. “I tried. I found out what I could. I passed everything on to Miss Van Lew. I’d no idea they’d be putting to sea so soon.”

  Leahy hesitated, but spoke his mind anyway. “Like I said, you did your bit, Harry. But you didn’t do yourself or us any favors, getting all caught up in that woman’s murder. That nasty business was something you could have foregone.”

  “Now how could I do that, Joseph? They took Caesar Augustus. And that woman, as you refer to her, for all her Southern notions—well, she was once important to me.”

  “But a slaver.”

  “George and Martha Washington kept slaves.”

  “They let them go. Were you still in love with that … with Mrs. Mills?”

  “She was my first love. You never get over that. No matter what.”

  “Well, you can leave it be now. She’s as
leep in her grave. Caesar Augustus is safe. It’s over.”

  “No, Joseph. It’s not over.”

  The ironclads were coming at each other once again, but on parallel courses, fixing for broadsides.

  Again, the Virginia’s shots missed, but the Monitor’s double blast ripped apart the Confederate’s funnel, leaving it dangling a tattered mass of metal over the casement. Smoke and sparks spewed out of the gaping hole left in its place. If there was a way to drop shells through it, the Virginia could be sent to the bottom.

  “I got off that ship too soon,” Harry said.

  “You ask me, you got off just in time.”

  “No. Palmer Mills was on the Virginia. He may be aboard today. He never answered a question I asked him—an answer I need to know. And he has a picture. A photograph. I should have looked at it carefully. I just glanced at it.”

  “Palmer Mills. From the Tredegar Ironworks?”

  “You’re familiar with him?”

  “Very.”

  “I could have killed him. I had a chance to.”

  “Murder’s not our trade, Harry.”

  “Not murder. A duel.”

  Leahy glanced at Harry’s arm. “That how you got your wing clipped?”

  “It was.”

  “And you missed him?”

  “I didn’t aim at him. I fired into the air.”

  “That’s fortunate.”

  “Why? He helped create that terrible weapon we see down there.”

  “It’s fortunate for you because, as memory serves, you’re about as good a shot as General McClellan is a battler. Fortunate for us, Mills is still among the living—unless he chanced to get hit by one of the Monitor’s cannonballs.”

  “Not much chance of that. They all bounce off, as you can plainly see.”

  “Well, that’s fortunate like I say.”

  “Damn it, explain yourself, Joseph.”

  “Mr. Pinkerton likes all of us to know as little about each other as possible, but you should know this about Mills. He’s working for us.”

  “What? That’s impossible.”

  “I didn’t say he knows he’s working for us, but he is. We have learned a lot these past weeks, thanks to him.”

  Harry nodded, not to Leahy, but to himself. Louise had made him more than a little nervous by pressing him to tell her if he was a Yankee spy. He suspected she had come to believe he was, and that had made him very nervous. Little had he realized she’d take comfort in the fact, being a Yankee spy herself. Or so it seemed.

  “You mean thanks to Miss Devereux,” he said to Leahy.

  Leahy’s index finger went to his lips. “That’s all we ought to say about the matter, Harry. Even here. She’s in a lot more danger now than we are.”

  Harry finished his coffee and stood up.

  “I’m going to go find Caesar Augustus,” he said.

  “If this sea battle goes wrong, Mr. Lincoln’s going to need both of us. He’ll need everyone.”

  “Whichever way it goes, it looks to take a long time getting there. I’m going to that contraband camp.” Harry nodded toward the headquarters building across the fort’s central parade ground. “How much influence do you have with these people?”

  “A fair bit. The name of Major Allen works quite a lot of magic.”

  “I need a horse. I can’t walk very well.” He held out the arm of his private’s jacket, which was too short. “Is there somewhere I can acquire some civilian clothes?”

  “Not on these premises. Maybe in town.”

  “How about something with a higher rank, then? In this, I’m afraid I’m going to be set to digging latrines.”

  “All right, boyo. I’ll see to it.” Leahy took a step, then halted, as did Harry.

  The two ironclads were very close now. From this distance, it looked as though they had collided, though they were still moving, the Monitor steaming the fastest. It backed up, turning its stern away, a maneuver that brought its bow right under the Virginia’s guns.

  The Monitor had one disadvantage. Its steering was in a small, armored pilot house set far forward on the deck, almost at the bow. It stuck up like a thumb, and now the Virginia’s gunners took aim at it.

  When the smoke cleared from their blasts, the structure was still standing. But some sort of damage had been done. The ship began to pull away, back toward Fortress Monroe.

  “I need to go,” Harry said.

  “Surely not now?” Leahy admonished.

  “Now.”

  Chapter 26

  The officer’s jacket Leahy procured for him had captain’s bars on the shoulder straps. The foraging cap that went with it made Harry feel foolish, but with it and the rest of his now complete uniform in place, no one bothered him. He rode his borrowed horse right through the gates of Camp Hamilton and down its dirt main street unimpeded. A sergeant readily answered his request for directions to the contraband encampment, which lay just to the north of the military establishment.

  Union batteries were firing further along the shore—at what, Harry could not tell, but he paid them no mind, remaining fixed on his destination.

  He was amazed at the size of the Negroes’ jury-rigged settlement. There seemed as many Sibley tents in this muddy enclave as there were in the Union Army post, and they were far more crowded.

  There were a few soldiers about; none of them helpful. The Army had been so overwhelmed by black refugees from the Confederacy that it had long before ceased keeping count. It had never given much thought to taking names.

  But Caesar Augustus would have a unique distinction—the chest wound given him by Boston Leahy. He described this to a corporal who was in charge of a small Negro working party. The soldier thought a moment, then sent Harry over to a collection of smaller tents near a meandering stream that wound by the camp.

  The moist ground sucked at Harry’s large boots, slowing his progress. Small children ran about him, splashing into the water and then bounding back again from its cold. A few walked along behind him. Women with wide bands of cloth wound around their heads stood here and there, eyeing him solemnly, some a little fearfully. They would have no idea who he was. Slavery was still legal in the U.S., and for all they knew, Harry was someone’s old master, come to retrieve his property—though that would of course now be impossible.

  One woman appeared friendlier than the others.

  “I’m looking for a man,” said Harry. “He’s hurt. He has a wound here.” He pointed to his shoulder. “A big man, named Caesar Augustus.”

  She smiled, broadly, but the expression faded.

  “Why you want him, Massuh?”

  “I’m his friend.” He hoped that was still the truth.

  “You say friend?”

  “I want him to do some work for me,” Harry said. “I want to hire him. Pay him money.”

  She grinned again, then pointed to a tent down the line. “They down in there.”

  “They?”

  The woman pointed again. “They down there.”

  Harry hesitated outside the tent. The flap was closed, but untied. If he called out, he might spook whoever was inside.

  He pulled back the flap, and stepped within. Estelle looked up from a pallet at the side, where she was seated repairing garments in the light of a small lantern. At her side was a child, a little girl of five or six. When she noticed Harry, she drew back a little, the lantern illuminating her pretty face.

  In that moment, nearly all Harry’s questions were answered, as they might have been had he thought to more closely examine the photograph Mills had aboard the Virginia.

  The tent roof was too low for his six feet of height. He sat down cross-legged on the other side of the clothing Estelle was mending. Her eyes stayed upon him. Otherwise, she did not move.

  “You join de Yankee army, Mister Raines?”

  He shook his head. “I’m just borrowing these. I had to leave most of my own clothes behind.”

  The child came up to him, fingering the gold on his
shoulder straps. He smiled at her, but it wasn’t returned. Only curiosity showed in her face.

  “Did my sister get you through the lines?” he asked.

  “Nosuh. Not her.”

  “Why not?”

  “She didn’t think it be very safe. She say to wait ’till later, but I’se afraid of your father. I don’ know what he be fixin’ to do.”

  “How did you get here then?”

  “I go to the preacher man, like Miss Van Lew says.”

  “What preacher man?”

  “Reverend Haynes. He got a church in Ruthville. Miss Van Lew say to go to him if I get down here and got no place else to go. So I go to him, and he bring me here in a wagon—me and Evangeline.”

  “Evangeline.”

  She put her hand on the little girl’s shoulder. “This be Evangeline. Reverend Haynes been keepin’ her ’till I come.”

  “How was that?”

  “Miss Van Lew and Caesar Augustus, they got her to him—so she not be sold down the river.”

  “This was on the day Mrs. Mills was killed?”

  Now her eyes fell away. The child turned and darted out of the tent. Harry rose, painfully, and went out after her.

  Estelle made no move to follow, until Harry commanded her to.

  He stood and watched the girl skip down the muddy tent street. She was easily the best dressed person in the camp. Her silk dress was torn and dirty in places, but very expensive. She wore several petticoats, and finely made leather shoes. Blue shoes.

  “She is not your child, is she, Estelle?”

  “Nosuh. I done tol’ you that.”

  He put his arm around the woman, intending it to be a comforting, reassuring gesture, but also a restraining one.

  “Estelle, you are free now. No one’s going to put irons on you or whip you or sell you down the river. You’re not going to get in any trouble because of what happened to Mrs. Mills. In Richmond, maybe. But not here, not with me.”

  “Yessuh, Mister Raines.” She was trembling.

  He kept his arm around her shoulders. “Estelle, I know it was you and Samuel who brought Arabella to my room that day. You brought her to the hotel the way she’d come in before—through the back, dressed as a man, carrying her female clothes in a carpet bag. Only she was already dead, wasn’t she. You held her up between you. Isn’t that so?”