“Captain? You down there?”
Bowater wanted to respond but he could not. He gave himself a moment, heaving for breath, and then when he had his wind called, “I’m here, Chief! Coming up!”
“I suggest you hurry, sir!”
The powder. With drowning imminent, he had forgotten all about the chance of being blown to hell. He swiveled around, stared across the black space toward the powder train. He could still see it, that hateful flame, creeping toward the unseen charge. Bowater gritted his teeth, hating the thing, waiting for the blast.
And then it winked and then it was gone.
The spark had drowned, and he, Samuel Bowater, had not.
He turned his face back toward the side of the dry dock, pressed his cheek against the granite, closed his eyes. The fire that had burned in him earlier was out, the head of steam that had propelled him with such fearless energy was gone. He could feel his hands trembling. His knees began to vibrate. He squeezed his eyes tighter shut, clenched his teeth.
Then he opened his eyes, looked up, said, “Oh, Lord!” then turned and vomited into the water swirling around him.
For a long moment he lay there puking, until nothing else would come. He spit out, again and again, lowered his face into the water to wash the vomit away. He could not let anyone see the shame of it.
“Captain?” Taylor’s voice again.
“Coming up!” Bowater shouted back, and took the steps one at a time, his confidence and his strength returning as he climbed up out of the pit.
At last he came up over the edge, not where he had first climbed down, but near the far end of the dry dock. The inrush of water had pushed him nearly the length of the thing.
He straightened and looked around. The blast-furnace heat from the ship houses felt good on his wet clothing. Shapes moved out of the smoke, and they materialized into Hieronymus Taylor and Eustis Babcock.
“Hell, Captain…” Taylor said. He shook his head. He was grinning.
“Hell, indeed. Where’s McNelly?”
“Ain’t he with you?”
“No. He must have run off.” Bowater forced McNelly out of his thoughts. “Good job, Chief, opening the gates.”
“Thankee, sir. Sorry ’bout near drowning you.”
Bowater shook his head. “It couldn’t be helped.” Now that his thoughts were settling back into place, he was feeling a bit sheepish about not having thought of the floodgates himself. “Let’s get back to the ship.”
Wearily they trudged off, making their way back in the direction they had come. With the bulk of the flames at their back they had an easier time of it, the shipyard before them brilliantly illuminated, the light making a million little bright spots and shadows over the rounded cobblestones. But the smoke was a dense fog, and their visibility was down to a hundred feet or so, and after a few moments Bowater found himself questioning his own sense of direction.
“Chief…” he began and then from behind him an explosion jarred the ground, tossed bright volcano flames high in the air. Bowater and Taylor and Babcock were flung forward, part from the shock and part from a desire to get down. For a long minute they lay there, unmoving, their hands clapped on their heads, as if that would save them from the falling granite of the dry dock.
Another explosion, and they felt the cobbles tremble under them.
Bowater rolled over, sat up, realized that lying on the ground would do them no good. He could see the fires at the ship houses had redoubled, and the wooden frame that had once been at the center of the inferno was gone.
“Reckon that was the dry dock?” Taylor asked.
“No,” Bowater said. “Probably some powder stores, or such. They put two thousand pounds of powder down in the dry dock. If that had gone off we’d be under half a ton of granite right now.”
He turned and looked at Taylor, who was on his belly and propped up on his elbows. Incredibly, his cigar was still in his mouth. The engineer nodded.
The three men hauled themselves to their feet, stumbled off again. The roar of the flames had dropped off a bit, as the fire consumed everything it could and began to starve.
They found the others, and together the lot of them made their way back to the Cape Fear. In the east, the sky was beginning to show signs of dawn, but Samuel Bowater could think of nothing but sleep.
We will anchor out…if it is safe…anchor out and let all hands sleep…
The tug was where they had left her, tied to the seawall, but lower with the ebbing tide. She looked like a ghost ship in the early-dawn light and the ubiquitous smoke. Samuel could see men moving about her deck.
Quite a lot of men, it seemed.
His weary mind toyed with this observation as he and his men shuffled the last hundred yards to the vessel. And then, twenty yards away, he became aware of more men, to his right and left, men closing in on them, and suddenly he was alert again, and his pistol was in his hand.
“Hold!” a voice called. Bowater turned. Men were coming at him from both sides, armed with rifles, some in uniform, most not. “Hold, sir!” the voice said again, and the man calling stepped forward, a sword in hand. He stood directly between Bowater and his tug, pointed with his sword to the pistol in his hand.
“Lay down your weapons, all of you!” he said in a commanding voice. “You are all prisoners of the Provisional Army of the State of Virginia!”
Bowater watched the officer’s expression of cool command turn to anger as he holstered, rather than dropped, his expensive presentation pistol. He did not know what to say. He wanted to laugh, but he was far too tired for that.
Book Two
HAMPTON ROADS
11
Richmond Dispatch
TUESDAY MORNING…APRIL 23, 1861
BURNING OF THE NAVY YARD!
DESTRUCTION OF GOVERNMENT ARMS AND STORES
FIVE FEDERAL SHIPS BURNT!
ESCAPE OF THE PAWNEE:
THE CUMBERLAND TOWED DOWN AND ASHORE!
EXCITING INCIDENTS, amp;c., amp;c.
Passengers from Norfolk last evening assure us that the amount of guns, stores and ammunition secured by the Virginia forces after the burning of the Navy-Yard, was enormous, and our correspondence confirms the fact. The guns in many instances were imperfectly spiked in the hurry and alarm of the Federal incendiaries, and are in no respects damaged.
THE DRY DOCK
Appearances indicated that it was intended to cripple this admirable and useful work, by blowing up the gates, but from some cause this work was not done, and the dock was found to be altogether unhurt.
We cannot bring ourselves to believe that an officer of a Navy, distinguished hitherto by a high sense of honor and chivalrous courage, could willingly condescend to such an inglorious mode of warfare as this. We rather regard it as an emanation from the wretched cabal at Washington, and a practical carrying out of the tactics laid down by the villainous Sumner, and other orators of the Black Republican party. Burn, sink and destroy is the word with them.
The Petersburg Express has the following by telegraph from Norfolk:
The prisoners taken this morning are Capt. Wright of the army, and young Rogers, a son of Commodore Rogers of the navy.
The enemy took two of our young men prisoners last night. They were reconnoitering on their own account.
To: Stephen R. Mallory
Norfolk, April 22, 1861
North left for Charleston to-day; I answer your dispatch. The Pennsylvania , Merrimack, Germantown, Raritan, Columbia, and Dolphin are burned to the water’s edge and sunk. The Delaware , Columbus, and Plymouth are sunk. All can be raised; the Plymouth easily; not much injured. The Germantown crushed and sunk by the falling of shears. Her battery, new and complete, uninjured by fire; can be recovered. Destruction less than might be expected. The metal work of the carriages will be recovered; most of it good. About 4,000 shells thrown overboard; can be recovered. The Germantown ’s battery will be up and ready for service to-morrow. In ordnance building all small arms broken and th
rown overboard will be fished up. The brass howitzers thrown overboard are up. The Merrimack has 2,200 10-pound cartridges in her magazine in water-tight tanks. Everything broken that they could break. Private trunks broken open and officers’ clothing and that of their wives stolen.
Glorious news! General Gwynn just read me a telegram; it comes from a reliable source; the New York Regiment, attempting to march through Maryland, was met half way between Marlborough and Annapolis and cut all to pieces.
– G. T. Sinclair
From the Journal of Lieutenant Thadeous Harwell:
April 20 and 21, 1861
What strange and awful spirits were abroad that night! Which our brave Captain sensed, and handing the field glasses to me did most nobly ask that I give him my opinion of just what mischief might be afoot! To my eye I put the glass. And what was that I saw? To our good captain said, “Indeed, there is some ignoble thing here! Something is rotten in the State of Virginia!”
And so on my urging the captain steered our humble vessel down the Elizabeth River to Norfolk. What is that we see? Just what the cowardly debased Yankees had wrought-not but utter destruction to the grand and valuable naval yard which by right and location does and should belong to the Sovereign State of Virginia, and the Grand Confederacy.
With never a thought toward his own life nor limb, our gallant Captain Bowater went at the head of his own small army and extinguished the very flame that would have destroyed the dry dock and rained down on the heads of those poor innocents abed in Portsmouth untold hundred tons of granite! And thus did the bold Bowater save for the Confederacy that grand edifice, the dry dock, with which we now might hope to build grand and vast men-of-war to sally forth and vanquish those sea-born vandals who have come south to do us gross injustice!
I made much protest that our bold captain should not thus expose his life to the cowardly fires of our enemies, but rather it was the place of his subordinate officer, myself, who so longed to charge into the lion’s mouth with guns blazing. What is that that our brave captain replied? He would hear none of it, but did assure me (with that nobleness and honestness of character that is the birthright of those noble Sons of the South) that on the next occasion I should have my chance to distinguish myself in mortal combat with those who would deprive us of our liberties! O, how I long for that day, hour, moment!
Mrs. Bertrand Atkins
9 Elm Street
Culpepper, Virginia
Dearest Mother,
No doubt you will have heard of the terrific excitement we have had down here! I daresay it has been building for the past month, ever since my arrival here in Portsmouth, the way the storms build up in the summertime. You could just feel it, with more and more soldiers arriving in town, and talk everywhere of attacking the naval yard, and the Yankees making their preparations to leave. Two nights ago the storm broke, as it were. Of course I remained safe at home with Aunt Molly, well away from any danger, but the flames were perfectly visible, and the sounds of the gunfire and explosions quite clear, even though we were more than a mile away from the yard.
Now things are settling down some, with our troops in command of the yard and the Yankees fled to Fort Monroe and Washington. Still, it seems as if Portsmouth and Norfolk are to be the center of much activity, in the military and naval line, as the Yankees were not able to destroy as much as they thought. It is a very exciting place to be, during an exciting time, not unlike being in Boston or Philadelphia in 1776. But I am getting too full of all this excitement and playing the poet again, as Father has always accused me of doing.
I trust all is well with you and Father, and that Father has become more sanguine about my moving down here. Aunt Molly is well and sends her love, and I am well also.
Love to everyone there.
Your daughter,
Wendy Atkins
12
The officers and men all being raw recruits, discipline was very galling to them…but soon the boys began to learn the “Old Soldier” tricks and learned to yield gracefully to the inevitable when they could not dodge the officers.
– James R. Binford, 15th Mississippi Infantry
Lieutenant Robley Paine, Jr., trudged through the tent-lined, makeshift streets of Camp Walker, bivouac of 3rd Brigade, of which the 18th Mississippi was now a part. The summer sun pushed him down into the dusty path. He and his men had been there for two weeks already, but it seemed much longer than that.
It was July of 1861, and Lieutenant Paine reckoned he knew most of what soldiering was about.
He knew the weary, hot, dusty marching, as he and the rest of the young men had tramped to Yazoo City and then north to Corinth, over two hundred miles by paddle wheeler, by foot, and by rail.
He knew the muttering and the growling and the insubordination of the men, silent and otherwise. He learned when to cajole and when to yell and when to deliver a cuff to the ear or a boot to the ass. He learned how to do it in such a way that it got the job done and left no permanent and festering hatreds.
In Corinth he learned what an ungodly mess a cluster of officers could make of trying to create an army from a rabble. Officers who, a month before, had been cotton planters and merchants and politicians.
But not all of them. There were a handful of real soldiers, men who had resigned their commissions in the old army and come south to fight for their states. These men Robley watched close, and imitated, and tried to learn what he could about real soldiering.
He learned about indecision and infighting, about intrigue, about toadying and backstabbing and bootlicking. By his own inbred good sense and natural aversion to such things, and the honor instilled in him by his father, he learned to avoid it all, and to go about his business and look after the welfare of his men.
As a result of that policy, Robley Paine remained an officer, because in the Confederate Army the men voted their officers in, with a democracy that harked back to the army of 1776. Robley Paine was a near-unanimous choice for third lieutenant.
At length, under the direction of General J. L. Alcorn, the disparate young men from Mississippi were formed into companies: Company A, the Confederate Rifles, Company B, the Benton Rifles, Company C, the Confederates, and so on. The boys from Yazoo County formed Company D, named, to no one’s surprise, the Hamer Rifles. And finally the great lot of them were formed into the 18th Mississippi Regiment and sent north once again.
They traveled for eight days, marching, jostling onto railroad platforms, crushing into sweating railcars, rattling northeast. They covered nearly seven hundred miles and landed at last in the great ad hoc tent city of Camp Walker near Manassas Junction, Virginia.
Robley paused in his deliberate wandering, pulled off his kepi, wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his frock coat. He squinted around him, at the bored men on guard duty, the companies off in the distance, kicking up dust as they drilled, the men lounging around, reading, writing letters, playing cards. Things were getting mighty relaxed at Camp Walker. Laundry hung out in the sun, tables and chairs were set up outside the little tents, chickens ran around the dusty ground. They were only about twenty-five miles from Washington, D.C., the heart of the Union, and all the bluebellies gathering there, but no one of either side seemed overeager to do anything about it.
From the moment that he had signed his name to the enlistment roll, through the long march and wait and the endless drilling at Corinth, over the misery of eight days’ travel to Manassas, Robley had known several fears.
One was that he would miss the great battle that would decide the war. That one was a common fear. It was the only fear that the boys would gladly own up to, and did, often.
But also, in his heart, tucked away, he harbored the secret fear that that was what he wanted, that he hoped to miss the battle, that he was afraid to stand up in that great fight. That, too, was not an uncommon fear, but it was not so popular a topic.
All of that seemed long ago, and those fears were smothered under the weight of drilling, guard duty,
mess duty, general boredom, and now fear that he or his brothers would fall victim to the measles, which were spreading like plague through the 3rd Brigade. After weeks of dull camp routine, the possibility of battle seemed so unlikely as to not warrant concern.
Yes, Robley figured he had already experienced just about all there was to soldiering. There were only two things left, that he knew of. One was the misery of a winter march or encampment, and the other was the horror of battle. The former he reckoned he could do without. The latter he was desperately eager to try, to be done with it, if only to discover the truth about himself.
Robley put his kepi back on, trudged to the end of the 18th Mississippi’s encampment. Coming from the other direction was Nathaniel Paine, alone.
“Couldn’t find him?” Robley said.
“No, sir.” Nathaniel pulled his kepi off, just as Robley had done, wiped his forehead. As soon as Robley had been promoted, Nathaniel had begun to address him as “sir,” with not the least hint of irony.
Robley frowned, looked around again. Miles of identical tents, thousands upon thousands of men. The Confederate Stars and Bars hung limp from a flagpole near the center of the camp. The two-story brick home of Wilmer McLean, headquarters of Brigadier General David Jones, stood brooding over the rows of Lilliputian tents.
Far off in the distance they heard the flat boom of cannon fire, the artillery units around Washington, D.C., exercising at their pieces. It had caused a stir in camp the first time they had heard it, but now it was hardly noticed.
“Fella told me he saw him with his bird, heading for the South Carolina boys,” Nathaniel added.
“All right. We’ll try there.” Robley headed off, with Nathaniel behind, and soon they crossed the largely invisible divide between the 18th Mississippi camp and the 5th South Carolina, with whom they were brigaded.
Glory In The Name Page 10