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Bayonets, Balloons & Ironclads: Britain and France Take Sides With the South

Page 34

by Tsouras, Peter G.


  “The submersible USS Shark, by God!”

  The boat came up against the water battery wall with a bump. The officer was fascinated by the strange apparition as Mason yelled, “Don’t waste time looking at the damn boat. We just steamed through an enemy flotilla of longboats loaded with troops coming this way.”

  Stentor thundered, and the onlookers rushed back to their pieces. “I’ll see you later,” Mason said and dropped back into the observer’s hatch. Shark pulled about as its engine blew sparks out of its funnel. The boat pulled away from the water battery and headed back into the dark. He slid down the ladder and was met by the expectant eyes of the crew. “We’re going back out to raise hell with the English longboats, boys.” He looked down at the enemy officer who was sitting with his head in his hands. A sailor stood over him with a three pound wrench while Wilmoth was trying to make him comfortable. “Here, man, take a jot,” he said handing the man a small silver flask.

  The Marine took it. “Damned decent of you, colonel,”5 and took a long swallow.

  Out there in the dark the loss of the lead boat with the commander of the flotilla had confused the lot of them. The second in command was slow to find out just what had happened as the boats crammed with Royal Marines crept on now essentially leaderless. Stentor had done more than just keep his men at their guns. A whump from a mortar in the fort sent a flare popping over the water, casting them in relief on the shimmering water. The water battery’s Rodman fired first, sending a 352-pound shell skimming just over the surface and right through the flotilla, turning longboats into matchsticks and flying bodies before it exploded. From the fort’s facing casemate galleries smaller guns dropped their shot into the mass of boats. Another whump and a new flare replaced the dying one. Inside Shark the crew braced as the forty-foot hull scooped up one boat after another, tipping them over into the water.

  Dawn would find the bay littered with overturned boats, bodies, and debris. The British attempt to take the fort’s water battery by surprise and spike the deadly Rodmans had been a disaster that had cost six hundred Royal Marines and sailors dead and prisoners. Shark pulled back up to the water battery before first light. This time the fortress commander was on hand to greet Mason and thank him for his timely warning. He was surprised to see a figure in a scarlet coat emerge from the hatch preceded by a very young army lieutenant colonel. “Oh, yes, General, we have a prisoner. May I present Lt. Col. Sir George Bazalgette, Royal Marines.”

  Before Stentor could reply, Wilmoth stepped forward. “This man is now in the custody of the Central Information Bureau. I must speak to the commander of this garrison on instructions from the President.”

  BLUFF MOUNTAIN, VERMONT, 10:25 A.M., SUNDAY, APRIL 25, 1864

  The view from the mountain was perfect. The town of Brighton nestled below between the base of the mountain and the lake named Island Pond (for the island in its midst). What interested George Custer and Judson Knight was the roundhouse, shops, and all the other facilities of a major rail yard. Island Point Rail Yard was the midpoint on the Grand Trunk Railway between Portland and Montreal. If the Grand Trunk Railway kept Canada alive, the Island Pond Rail Yard was the railway’s heart, pumping the life’s blood traffic in both directions.

  Knight and some Vermont militia had brought Custer to the top of the hill, but what directed Knight to that point in the first place was the intelligence from the CBI in Washington in Wilmoth’s meticulous handwriting. The report all but said, “Look here if you want to find the place that will cause the most pain.”

  “Damn,” Custer said quietly. He positively lusted after what he saw below and was already thinking how he would strike when Knight tapped him on the shoulder and pointed down the slope. A man in a red coat was trudging toward them. He stopped, looked over his shoulder, unbuttoned the coat, threw it into the bushes, and resumed his climb up. As he got closer, Knight jumped up. “I don’t believe it!” He rushed down to meet the man and was waiting by a tree when the man came up by him.

  “Well, talk about the luck of the Irish!” The man turned on his heel. “Martin Hogan, you could fall into the black pit of hell and come out with your arms full of sunshine!”

  “Knight!”

  “I must say, Martin, that red coat was becoming.”

  “Faith, my skin was itching at the shame of it the whole time.”

  “The armor that scalds with safety.”

  “Yes, Shakespeare must have been an Irishman to have that much wit about him.”

  Knight laughed and slapped him on the back, “Are you hungry, man?”

  “No, Her Majesty has just fed me a hearty meal of roast beef and white bread in the yard below. Nothing is too good for a soldier of the Queen.”

  They bantered until they found Custer and his guards, and Knight introduced his prodigal scout. Custer congratulated Hogan on his escape, but when the young Irishman wanted to wax on about his exploit, the general cut him off. “What did you see in the town and yard?” Hogan suddenly switched from good-natured Paddy to all business as he precisely described the yard and the garrison of the town pointing out each visible facility, blockhouse, and entrenchment from the mountain top.

  “About a thousand men, you say?” Custer asked to pin down the point.

  “Sar, it’s two whole battalions of Canadians: the 55th and 89th Sherbrooke Battalions. And green they are, raised only in the last two months. They’ve got a dozen British sergeants and corporals screaming at them night and day to whip them into shape. From the look of them, they will need a lot more screaming.”

  “And you found all this out in less than one day?”

  “Sar, it helps to have one’s countryman about. The Irish came to build the railway, and hundreds stayed to settle. Well, as you may not have heard, Sar, but we are a talkative people. One down there who wore the Queen’s uniform in the Crimea and India scoffs at what use these Canuks would be to anyone in a fight except as targets.”

  Custer’s eyes sparkled as the breeze picked up his long blond curls. He struck his gauntleted hand with the other fist. If ever there was a man for the main chance, it was Custer. Hit ‘em, hit ‘em, and keep on hitting ‘em. A rain of blows was the best shield—the attack without mercy. He leapt on his horse. “Let’s get going.”

  NORFOLK NAVAL BASE, VIRGINIA, 1:55 P.M., SUNDAY, APRIL 25, 1864

  Rear Adms. John Dahlgren and Samuel Phillips Lee and Maj. Gen. Quincy Adams Gillmore were hard men to impress. Wilmoth’s youthful face and lieutenant colonel’s shoulder straps had taken them aback even if it was an age of boy colonels, as those dynamic men in their early twenties were called who rose on the wings of sheer talent.

  Wilmoth reminded Dahlgren of his own son, Ulrich, in an unconscious transference of paternal affection. In any case, all three had heard stories of this remarkable young man who had saved Lincoln’s life in the battle for Washington and had risen so high so quickly in the mysterious Central Information Bureau. Word had spread through the flag officer grapevine of the highly useful information that seemed to come out of Wilmoth’s shop. He stood at the right hand of Major General Sharpe, who was now one of Lincoln’s closest advisors. Youth or not, he was to be treated seriously.

  Lee had commanded the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron and was now senior officer commanding all naval forces penned up in Norfolk. He was a Virginian and a cousin of Robert E. Lee, which caused more than one officer earlier in the war to question his loyalty, to which he would tartly respond, “When I find the word ‘Virginia’ in my commission, I will join the Confederacy.”6 He was proof that like his famous cousin, the Lee men were handsome.7 Gillmore had been the top of his 1849 West Point class and was a master of siege warfare and had pioneered the destructive use of rifled naval guns against stone forts. He had commanded Union troops besieging Charleston, and had insisted that the negro 54th Massachusetts be treated equally with his white regiments. John Dahlgren was still recuperating from his wounds suffered at the battle of Charleston the previous October
, the greatest victory of the U.S. Navy. Lee had invited him as a courtesy.

  Wilmoth also as a courtesy informed the admiral of the news of his son’s raid and how it had not only created the greatest panic since the armada but had crippled the British ability to make gunpowder and rifles, at least for the short run. Dahlgren was devoted to his boy and simply radiated pride. Wilmoth went on to say, “I’m sorry, Admiral, but we have had no word of where your son is now. Our latest information is that the the British are still searching for him. Mr. Lincoln asked me to tell you that he has directed that every effort be given to getting your son out of Britain.”

  “Now, gentlemen, I am fulfilling another presidential order to inform you of the plan for coming operations to break the British grip on the Chesapeake and of your part in that plan.” In meticulous detail he described the unifying strategy of the operation, the forces allotted to it, and the timing. He then described in equal detail the British naval forces in the bay and nearby Virginia and North Carolina waters. Of particular interest was his analysis of recent additions the Royal Navy’s order-of-battle. He did not tell them that this intelligence came from Van Lew’s ring in Richmond. “There are indications that all the available British ironclads are making the crossing as we speak—seven ships.” He did not tell them that this had been gleaned from British newspapers smuggled in from Canada.

  “Admiral Lee, the plan calls for you to engage the British with all the forces at your disposal. The submersibles Shark and Barracuda will support you.”

  Lee was a fighting man, but he was also practical. “I must point out to you, Colonel, that this plan must succeed because I have only enough coal to power my ironclads and a few other ships for one sustained action. After that they are only so much scrap tied up to the docks here.”

  Wilmoth’s eyes now grew hard, and his tenor voice fell several octaves. “The President also instructed me to tell you that if this operation fails, the war is lost, and the Union fails with it.”

  NORFOLK NAVAL BASE, VIRGINIA, 7:15 P.M., SUNDAY, APRIL 25, 1864

  That night the officer’s mess had several new guests. Wilmoth, of course, and Lt. Col. George Bazelgette, Royal Marines. Wilmoth had made sure Bazelgette was invited rather than dumped in the stockade for prisoners. Indeed, he was a celebrity famous on both sides of the Atlantic for his coup de main in the capture of Fort Gorgas in Portland Harbor and for his dramatic capture of two monitors right under the nose of Fortress Monroe. The Navy considered the latter to be its worst day since the CSS Virginia had played havoc with the fleet’s wooden warships in Hampton Roads two years ago. Nevertheless, as gentlemen and naval officers, the sting of defeat did not prevent them from the courtesy due a gallant and admirable foe. Not to be outdone, Bazelgette paid a great compliment to Rear Admiral Dahlgren for his victory at Charleston.

  “I must say, Admiral, after the battle of Charleston Nelson must be swimming in his barrel of brandy.8 No other navy could have done it except one descended from the same stock as mans the Royal Navy itself.”

  Dahlgren bowed in return but refrained from saying his ancestors were Swedish. Their prisoner was proving to be a gracious gentleman himself, as was evident from the smiles and bonhomie around the table, and Dahlgren saw no need to quibble. He did notice that the mess steward replaced every sip from Bazalgette’s wine glass. He did not know that it was on Wilmoth’s instructions.

  Admiral Lee, whose monitor force had been cut almost in half by Bazalgette’s exploit, said, “Well, we did hone our skills in two wars with the Royal Navy, and there is no better teacher. A sailor does not know war unless he has fought the Royal Navy.”

  “You must forgive me, sir, but we hope to keep on teaching you.”

  Laughter.

  “Yes, the loss of the monitors was most unexpected, but how did you think of such a tactic?”

  “It occurred to me that your monitors had no means to protect themselves from boarders. It then was only a matter of getting a boarding party onto the monitors. The answer was small fast steamers. They were too fast to be taken under fire and were maneuvering to ensure that.”

  “Brilliant as that was, Colonel, I would say it was a tactic that would not work a second time. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”

  For the first time, Wilmoth entered the conversation. “I think there will be an opportunity for further test of tactics before too long once our monitors come out again.” He paused and bowed slightly to Lee. “I only assume there will be action; as an army officer, I know less than nothing about naval warfare, only that our navy will come out after you at some point. In that case, our remaining monitors are still more than a match even for your two remaining ironclads here in the Chesapeake. What are their names?”

  “HMS Warrior and Defiance.”

  Wilmoth responded, “I seem to remember that their sister ships were lost at Charleston by the same monitors that will sweep you out of the Chesapeake.”

  “But, Colonel, you should not expect the odds to remain in your favor.”

  “How is that?”

  “You are not the only ones building ironclads.”

  Wilmoth gave a very good imitation of confusion. “But our newspapers say that your building program is behind schedule and that the ironclads you do have are surely being kept home for defense, especially since the Dahlgren raid and Dublin.”

  Bazalgette laughed and then took another deep drink. “Don’t be surprised if you wake up and find more than Warrior and Defense in the bay soon.”

  “Yes! So they are coming to the Chesapeake,” Wilmoth thought to himself. It was all he could do to keep a placid face. He reminded himself to give the mess steward a big tip the next morning.

  DUBLIN CASTLE, 8:29 P.M., THURSDAY, APRIL 28, 1864

  Sergeant Major McCarter feared he could no longer put off the steady stream of men who demanded time of Meagher. These were not officer seekers. He had turned away even Brigadier General Kelly and the cabinet ministers of the new government. Meagher that night was meeting only with an amber-filled bottle. Day by day it grew worse. McCarter had put the fear of God into everyone around the general, but still the whiskey got through.

  This was the time for Meagher to be everywhere, the beating heart and brain of the war of liberation, but he had withdrawn into himself and his bottle as soon as the British had cut off Dublin. Kelly knew full well what needed to be done and just did it. Under his firm hand, the city became an armed camp as entrenchments sprouted along its edge. Outlying houses were torn down as troops and civilians heaped up the earth and cut down countless trees. And when it came to it, he was the one who treated with the British general who came in under flag of truce to demand the city’s surrender.

  Maj. Gen. Sir Robert Napier was a fighting man, which was why Disreaeli had plucked him out of the Indian Army shortly after the war began. He was not the only one. Indian Army officers by and large were battle-tested in hard-campaigning.9 British Army officers, especially those who made a career of politics at Horse Guards, had, to the PM’s mind, been found wanting on too many occasions. He had no hesitation in facing down the Duke of Cambridge over this matter. For Disraeli results counted; he had read enough British history to see the waste attendant on social promotions in the army. He had not forgotten the Duke of Wellington’s letter written during the Napoleonic Wars:

  “When I reflect on the characters and attainments of some of the general officers of this army . . . I tremble; and as Lord Chesterfield said of the generals of his day, ‘I only hope that when the enemy reads the list of their names he trembles as I do.’”10

  Such officers had been responsible for the scandals and wanton waste of life in the Crimean War. Disreali had no intention of trembling. So he went to a different barrel looking for more generals like James Hope Grant, and there he found Napier, an engineer and a man with a talent for storming fortresses from India to China. Ferocious combat service in the First and Second Sikh Wars, along the Northwest Frontier, in the I
ndian Mutiny, and Second Anglo-Chinese War piled up brevet promotions, mentions in dispatches, and the thanks of Parliament and the Indian Government. In the last war he had commanded the 2nd Division under Hope Grant. Victory rode with these Indian Army officers, and a clean victory is what Disraeli desperately needed as quickly as possible in Ireland with a major war in North America and the second shoe about to drop somewhere in the Balkans. His orders to Napier were direct, personal, and peremptory. “Bring peace to Ireland. I do not want some historian in the future to say that we made a desert and called it peace.”11

  Napier dashed protocol and came himself to meet with Meagher only to be told by Kelly, “The President of Ireland and commander-in-chief of her armies is indisposed.” Napier had dealt with too many pretentious princes and chieftains to be put off by this. Napier eyed Kelly carefully; his information indicated that the man standing before him was the real victor of Tallaght. His experience and instinct told him that he faced another fighting man. He came to the point. “I have come to demand the surrender of Dublin and its garrison.”

  Kelly laughed, “And it was your surrender I had thought you had come to offer.”

  Napier took the Celtic effrontery in his stride. “Your position is hopeless, General. Her Majesty’s forces are flooding Ireland. What little unrest your arrival has provoked has been suppressed. You cannot receive assistance from America. You have a great city to feed. There is no dishonor in surrender under such circumstances. You have played the game and lost.”

  Kelly would rather bitten his tongue off than utter what he said next. “I do not admit for a moment that this is so, but for courtesy’s sake, I will convey your terms to General Meagher for his amusement.” Napier had ensured that these terms would find their way into Dublin on their own as well. They were both seductive and corrosive—seductive because they were lenient beyond all expectation and corrosive because they ate away the do or die courage fired by thoughts of a Carthaginian peace. The terms were simple:

 

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