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

by Tsouras, Peter G.

  HANOVER JUNCTION, VIRGINIA, 9:30 A.M., THURSDAY, MAY 5, 1864

  Little Phil Sheridan sat on his magnificent black warhorse, Rienzi, watching the destruction of the Virginia Central Railroad west of Hanover Junction.4 The new commander of the Cavalry Corps of the Army of the Potomac had been one of Grant’s successful generals in his western campaigns and had come east with the new general-in-chief. This son of an Irish immigrant was one of the black Irish with dark hair and fierce, penetrating black eyes. He stood barely five foot three inches tall, but he was the biggest cavalryman this army had ever seen. An aggressive talent for the kill was what set him apart. One of his subordinates described his influence as “like an electric shock. He was the only commander I ever saw whose personal appearance in the field was an immediate and positive stimulus to battle.” Another summed him up when he said that he was “a little mountain of combative force.”5

  His corps was in fine shape, on well-fed horses, his men experienced, well-trained, and well-armed with the new Spencers. His two divisions were commanded by talented officers, Brig. Genls. David M. Gregg and James H. Wilson, and his reserve brigade of mostly regular regiments by one of the army’s bright young talents, Brig. Gen. Wesley Merritt.

  It was Wilson’s 2nd Brigade that was so busy in wrecking the railroad. This was the twenty-seven-year-old brevet brigadier general’s first combat command as a cavalry officer. He was commissioned as an engineer in the West Point class of 1860 and had so impressed Grant that he was the only member of his staff that he had appointed to a combat command. David McMurtie Gregg had taken the 1st Brigade further down the line to wreck another section of the line. Unlike Wilson, he had been commissioned in the cavalry, and ironically at West Point had been the best of friends with both Stuart and Sheridan. He was a bold and aggressive officer who had rubbed Stuart’s nose raw at Brandy Station and repulsed him at Gettysburg on the third day. Sheridan would come to rely upon this quiet Pennsylvanian in the days to come.

  Sheridan had taken the corps and dashed the twenty-five miles from south of Fredericksburg to Hanover Junction in a day of hard riding. Hancock’s Army of the Rappahannock was following. Now the railroad ties were making bonfires. The soft iron rails thrown on them were glowing red when a half-dozen gloved men grasped each end and wrapped them around telegraph poles, something he had learned from Sherman. The smoke from the fires could be seen even beyond the trees. Sheridan was determined to wreck the railroad severely enough that the enemy could not repair it in time to affect the operations underway.

  As talented as Sheridan was, he was playing on the board of war with a grand master. Sheridan’s departure from around Spotsylvania had not gone unnoticed by his counterpart. Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart notified Lee immediately, who ordered him to follow Sheridan with his own cavalry. Six hours after Sheridan reached the junction, two miles south of the North Anna River, Stuart’s scouts were briefing him on the disposition of the Union cavalry. They had slipped through Sheridan’s pickets without detection. It did not take long for Stuart to realize that this was the opportunity to pay back the Union cavalry for its surprise attack on his camp at Brandy Station the previous June. The humiliation still stung. Attempting to redeem himself in the Gettysburg Campaign by taking the time to trail his coat past Washington, he failed Lee at the great battle. That only doubled down on the shame.

  No one could say, though, that Stuart did not learn from his mistakes. More than his own honor was at stake. Sheridan’s cavalry had put its boot on the throat of the Army of Northern Virginia. If Stuart could not drive them away, the army was doomed—cut off from resupply with Meade in close pursuit and Sheridan across his route of retreat. He counted himself lucky that the enemy cavalry corps had only two divisions since its first division had been sent north to the Army of the Hudson last fall. The first thing he did was send couriers racing to Lee and Longstreet to inform them of the dire threat to the army’s communications and to Richmond. The second was to attack.

  HAMPTON ROADS, 11:35 A.M., THURSDAY, MAY 5, 1864

  Just as Stuart’s couriers put spurs to their mounts, Admiral Hope’s iron fleet of six ironclads steamed Chesapeake Bay—Royal Oak, Hector, Prince Consort, Royal Sovereign, Prince Albert, and Wivern—bearing 106 guns and manned by 2,400 men (Appendix D). The rumble of heavy guns rolled across the bay from Hampton Roads, where the ongoing attack on Fortress Monroe thundered on. A cloud of black powder smoke guided them across the bay.

  Upon joining the squadron already in the bay, Hope transferred his flag to HMS Warrior, the largest ship in the Royal Navy and the first of its ironclads. Warrior with the smaller HSM Resistance, was part of the originally part of the force that had descended on the bay after the outbreak of war. Their sister ships, HMS Black Prince and Defence, had been sunk at Charleston in October. He immediately took a steam launch to do a personal reconnaissance of Hampton Roads and observe the attack on Fortress Monroe and then called a meeting of his captains the next day.

  It was at this meeting that he was informed that Lieutenant General Longstreet was approaching in a launch to pay his respects. The ship’s crew sprang to action to prepare a fitting welcome. The gun salute for a lieutenant general began firing as the launch approached. Longstreet climbed aboard as the boatswain’s whistle pierced the air and a platoon of Royal Marines presented arms with a snap. The first thing Hope noticed about his visitor was that he was a big, powerful man who carried himself with a menace of a predator. He was known as a great warrior among the British, and Hope’s captains were eager to meet him. Military protocol required the introductions to the several dozen captains, and Longstreet had not got halfway through when the noise of another launch engine approached and a man started shouting, “General Longstreet, General Longstreet!” A Confederate officer scrambled up the ship’s ladder, strode across the deck, and saluted. It was Maj. Moxley Sorrel. Longstreet dreaded what had brought his young and very capable chief of staff to him in this manner.

  Sorrel bowed to the British officers and said, “General, a dispatch from General Stuart of the utmost importance.” He handed the message to him, unaware that he had captured the complete attention of the cream of the Royal Navy with the drama of his arrival. Longstreet read it quickly and then asked for a private word with Admiral Hope. “I must depart at once. The enemy has placed General Lee’s army in great danger. Major Sorely has already ordered the corps on the road in my name. I must ride to catch up.”6

  BRIGHTON, VERMONT, 11:49 P.M., THURSDAY, MAY 5, 1864

  The Canadian patrols around Brighton had had the predictable pattern of inexperience, and that was their undoing. One by one they fell prey to Custer’s 1st Vermont Cavalry Regiment.7 The Vermont men especially were rougher than required. Some of the men were from Brighton and the surrounding counties. To say that they were eager to fall upon the railroad center was an understatement. None was more eager than the Vermonter’s commander, Col. William Wells, of whom Custer had said, “He is my ideal of a cavalry officer.” He had commanded a battalion of the regiment and repulsed Stuart himself at Hanover just before Gettysburg and at the battle itself rode in the suicide charge that killed his brigade commander. His gallantry in that campaign won him the Medal of Honor.8

  It was Wells’s mission to capture and wreck the railroad yards at Brighton as the opening move in Sherman’s campaign to retake Maine. The 1st Vermont was reinforced by the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry, detached from the Army of the Hudson’s provost guard brigade. These fifteen hundred would be faced by two Canadian militia battalions of about a thousand men. Wells, however, would have experience and surprise on his side, not to mention a thousand Vermont state militia that would attack from the north side of the town first to distract the defenders from his own attack from the south. Wells expected nothing more of the militia than that distraction.

  He looked at his watch; there was a half hour before the attack was to begin. A whistle in the distance made him glance in that direction. First smoke above the trees then
a locomotive and endless cars appeared from the north. The train came to a halt in the station. “Good,” he thought, “another fat prize.” The car doors opened, a stream of men in red filled the platform and smartly formed ranks. Through his glasses, Wells could tell that these were not militia. He did not realize that it was the Guards Brigade itself that had stopped for a hot midday meal. Suddenly the sound of firing came echoing over the lake next to Brighton. He looked at his watch again. The militia had attacked early.

  The Guards Brigade commander immediately assumed command of the post of Brighton from the Canadian militia officer there and promptly moved his battalions to the sound of the guns. Col. E.R. Wetherall had come out to Canada in late 1860 as chief of staff to the previous commander of British forces in North America. Grant gave him command of the Guards, which he ably led at Chazy, and had praised him in dispatches for breaking the jaws of the American encirclement.

  By the sound of the gunfire outside of town, this promised to be a good fight. He put the Grenadiers and Scots Fusiliers on line abreast and led them forward as Canadian pickets came rushing back through their ranks. He ordered one of the Canadian garrison battalions to form a reserve in his rear. It did not take long for his skirmishers to make contact with the militia clumsily making its way forward. The thin British line stopped the Vermont men in their tracks with one crushing volley. The brigade’s battery now opened fire dropping shells into the militia. Wetherall ordered a bayonet charge, and with a shout the Guards rushed forward. The militia got off a ragged volley and fled into the woods. They ran so fast through the briars and the brambles that the British could not catch a single one.

  At the north end of town, Wells’s cavalry came crashing in, riding down the Canadian pickets. The 2nd Massachusetts followed with the bayonet. In ten minutes the rail yards had fallen, and the destruction of the rail facilities had begun. That very moment futher down the rail line the New Hampshire militia under the leadership of John Lynn, reinforced by the 1st West Virginia Cavalry guided by Sergeant Knight, were swarming into Gorham also to the complete surprises of the Canadian. Almost simultaneously, the two most important rail yards on the American leg of the Grand Trunk Railway had been captured.

  Hearing the crash of gunfire from the town, Colonel Wetherall halted the pursuit of the militia. A frantic Canadian officer rode up to blurt out that American cavalry and infantry were in the town. Leaving the Canadian battalion to guard against a sudden rebirth of the militia’s courage, he turned the Guards battalions back. They ran into the dismounted Vermont cavalry behind some of those ubiquitous Vermont stone walls. The slaughter of Tallaght appeared to be set again in bloody motion for the British as their front ranks dropped in the fire stream that struck them. If ever the Guards were to waver, it was now, especially now, as an American battery unlimbered to throw case shot into them. But it was not now. Wetherall ordered the drummers to beat the charge and rode to the front. With a shout the Guards rushed forward straight into the fire of the Spencers. They fell by the scores but pressed on over the fallen. The Scots Fusiliers were the first to reach the wall. The fury of their rush made the Vermonters flinch as they closed. The bayonet has an incredible affect on the mind of the man about to meet its sharp end, especially if his own rifle is not equipped with one. The cavalry broke and rushed back to where their mounts were being held and fell back into the town.

  Wells had to pull the Massachusetts men away from wrecking the yards and into line of battle, but Wetherall was not giving him the time as he pushed into the town. The Guards overwhelmed each company as it came up and before they could mass their firepower. The fighting broke up into multiple combats in the streets and gardens of Brighton, and in this man-to-man fighting, the big men of the Guards had an advantage. Still they paid as groups of men in dark blue and scarlet fought from house to house, leaving trails of bodies. Before long the inevitable fires started turning buildings into torches. The commander of the Canadian battalion watching the militia disobeyed his orders as the crescendo of battle reached him. Leaving two companies to deal with the militia, he rushed his remaining men back into the town to join the fight. They came just in time; the Guards needed a moment to catch their breath, something the Canadian attack would not allow the Americans to do.

  Until then Wells believed that he could hold off the British but not now as the fresh Canadians entered the fight. He looked about him; many of the facilities of the rail yard were burning and soon would be of no use to the enemy. He had accomplished half of his mission, the more important half—to wreck the yards. If they were useless to the enemy, it would not matter if he did not hold the ruins. So, he ordered a retreat and extricated his men as fast as he could. They retreated down the line to the south. Eventually, when he had broken contact, he stopped to begin tearing up the tracks.

  HANOVER JUNCTION, VIRGINIA, 3:30 P.M., THURSDAY, MAY 5, 1864

  The dismounted Union cavalrymen guarding the Chesterfield Bridge thought the approaching cavalry shrouded in a cloud of dust to be the advance guard of Hancock’s army. The bridge crossed the North Anna a half mile west of the railroad bridge of the RF&P Railroad. When it was too late to matter to the guards, the 35th Virginia Battalion broke into a gallop, screeched out the rebel yell, and rode them down in a flurry of sabers and pistols. After them came the powerful cavalry division of Maj. Gen. Wade Hampton. This forty-five-year-old general was a superb horseman and a bold and audacious cavalry commander. The wealthiest planter and largest owner of slaves in the South had no military experience at all when the war started. He was found to be a natural cavalry commander, every bit as good as Stuart but without the showmanship.

  At the same time that Hampton’s men were streaming over Chesterfield Bridge, the smaller division of Maj. Gen. Fitzhugh Lee splashed across the unguarded Ox Ford on the North Anna a few miles to the west and in one mile reached Anderson Junction on the Virginia Central Railroad. Fitzhugh Lee was Robert E. Lee’s nephew and had served with his uncle in the 2nd Cavalry in Texas before the war, distinguishing himself in actions against the Comanche Indians. Wilson’s 2nd Brigade, in its frenzy of destruction of the railroad, was separated into many small dismounted parties. Lee’s brigades rolled them up north and south of the station, taking many prisoners.9

  Sheridan had little time to help Wilson. Hampton’s brigades were converging on Hanover Junction where Sheridan’s other division and his reserve brigade was concentrated. He had only been alerted to the approaching enemy by a surviving cavalryman from the bridge guard who had left bloody gouges in his horse’s flanks from his spurs to give the warning. Sheridan ordered up Gregg’s division and Merritt’s brigade.

  Halfway between them was a small stream of fateful name—Bull Run. Ironically, it was not the Bull Run of the battles of 1861 and 1862 in Manassas County to the north. Only the name of this Hanover County stream was the same. Stuart waved his black-plumed hat as he crossed saying to his boys that the name alone brought luck to Southern arms. Sheridan also noticed the name and muttered that it was time to change the enemy’s luck.

  The ground between them was largely open farmland with small woodlots.10 Stuart and Sheridan could not have picked a more classic cavalry battlefield if they had searched all of Virginia. It was as the Greek general Epaminondas had described the battlefields of his native Beoetia—“the dancing floor of war”—so could once fair Virginia in this terrible war succeed to that honor.11

  ENTRANCE TO CHESAPEAKE BAY, 3:48 P.M., THURSDAY, MAY 5, 1864

  Farragut’s squadron entered the great bay guided also by the smoke of the ongoing battle for Fortress Monroe barely twelve miles distant. A British picket boat fled ahead of them to give warning. Behind the ironclads came a line of supply ships loaded with coal and ammunition for the ships trapped at Norfolk. One ship, the most closely guarded of all, carried the special gas generator wagons and aeroship ground crews. Guarding them was a half-dozen sloops and the powerful wooden frigate USS Brooklyn, armed with twenty Dalhgren 9-inch guns.r />
  From the telegraph station on the tip of the Virginia Peninsula a message instantly flew across the wires to Washington that Farragut had arrived. The Washington Navy Yard suddenly flew into action with the suddenness of a release of great tension. The last preparations were made before the new submersibles USS Dophin and Stingray steamed down the Potomac. The gas generators began pumping hydrogen into the cigar frames of the George Washington, Stephen Decatur, Andrew Jackson, and John Paul Jones. Gus Fox rushed to the Navy Yard to witness their departure. Lincoln and Sharpe arrived soon thereafter to cheer them on.

  From Farragut’s flagship, USS Dictator the signal flags flew up to order the squadron to prepare for action. The line of ironclads broke into two parallel divisions three hundred yards apart with Dictator halfway between and parallel with the lead ships. Into the space between the divisions, the supply ships and their escorts entered. It was a defensive formation meant to fight its way through the Royal Navy’s blockade of Norfolk.

  Surprise would do half the work. The picket boat gave Hope barely a half hour’s warning.12 The signal flags shot up with the order to prepare for fleet action. Beat to quarters sounded on dozens of ships. Unfortunately, Hope’s discussions with his captains did not include instructions on a fleet action with a large monitor force entering the bay. They had concentrated on the continuing blockade of Norfolk and attack on Fortress Monroe. The only offensive instructions were those in case the U.S. Navy issued from Norfolk.