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

by Tsouras, Peter G.

  Today was an exception.

  NORFOLK NAVY YARD, VIRGINIA, 2:30 P.M., SATURDAY, MAY 7, 1864

  The John Paul Jones slowly settled on its landing ground in the navy yard. Its ground crew ran over to tie her down as hydrogen wagons lumbered over to refuel her. Only when they were finished and removed would the ordnance wagons come out to replenish her bombs and incendiaries. Stephen Decatur and George Washington came down beside her. Cushing stepped down to supervise the work to find that Wilmoth had rushed over to meet him.

  Wilmoth had become a byword in the CBI for his unflappable nature and coolness in a crisis, but now he was almost jumping up and down to learn how the battle had gone. He could tell without a word as soon as he saw Cushing’s huge grin.

  “God, Mike! It was glorious. To see a great naval battle from the air. Then to be part of it. The world will never be the same.”

  “Details, man! I want details.” He handed Cushing a brandy flask.

  “Bless you, Mike,” he said as he took a good swig.

  “We’re winning, by God! Our attack did them in, I am sure. We hit three ships. The incendiaries are more dangerous than the bombs. As we left we could see all three ships on fire from our attack. Masts, sails, rigging—all make for a great fire. I tell you, Mike, no one in his right mind will ever take a masted ship into a battle again.”

  “Did you see anything of the submersibles?”

  “Not a thing. But there were a number of ships that were listing

  or settling.”

  Cushing took the brandy flask back for another long swig. “I tell you, Mike, the world will never be the same again.”

  Nothing could have been more true for Admiral Hope. He knew he had lost and ordered the captain of Warrior to break off action and head for the open sea. He would have communicated that order to his surviving ships by signal flag, but Warrior’s masts and rigging were masses of splintered wood and cordage spilling over the deck and into the sea. All that was left was a midshipman to gallantly wave his flags from the shattered stub of the mainmast. Defence and the surviving frigates and corvettes nearby read the signals and broke off action. Their greater speed meant that they could outdistance the enemy ironclads quickly, though their guns could follow for well over a mile. Captain Cowles aboard Prince Albert realized what was happening when he saw Warrior and the others break off action and head east to the entrance of the bay. His second turret had just been knocked out of action. The Dictator’s guns struck the hull below the turret. The two shells burst inside, killing or wounding all eighteen men pushing the capstan that revolved the turret. The sea coming through the waterline holes in her hull was slowing the ship down as she turned to trail Warrior and the others.

  A dozen sloops and gunboats had also broken away and were making for the bay entrance. They had taken aboard as many of the crews of the floating batteries as possible. American sloops hung on their rear hoping to snap up any that fell behind. The only fighting still going on was Immortalelité’s death struggle with the big American frigates Wabash and Minnesota. Captain Hancock realized that these two ships were the only ones capable enough to pursue and inflict serious harm on the retreating ships. He attacked them both to fix their attention on his own ship. He fought her until she was kindling and the survivors of the fleet had escaped. Then and only then did he strike.19

  ONE MILE NORTH OF THE HANOVER ACADEMY, 2:30 P.M., SATURDAY, MAY 7, 1864

  “Little Powell’s got on his battle shirt!” The word went through the ranks of the Third Corps as it deployed north of the Hanover Academy. They knew they were in for a fight. Lt. Gen. A.P. (Ambrose Powell) Hill was riding through them wearing his red calico hunting shirt, something he always donned before a good fight. The most brilliant of Lee’s division commanders, the thirty-five-year-old Hill had been given the new Third Corps before the Gettysburg Campaign but had fallen ill during the battle and played no real part. He had also fallen sick in the fighting around Spotsylvania. Described by a historian as “always emotional . . . so high strung before battle that he had an increasing tendency to become unwell when the fighting was about to commence.” Others would say the illnesses were stress induced from the gonorrhea he had contracted as cadet while on furlough from West Point.20 Today he seemed his old swaggering, aggressive self. That was nothing less than a miracle after the terrible wound he had suffered at the battle of Washington the previous October. Reports that he had been cut in two by a jagged shell splinter had been only slightly exaggerated. Yet, to the astonishment of his doctors, he had healed enough, barely enough, to climb back into his saddle.

  Lee’s orders had been preemptory. Break through to Longstreet at all costs. Now all that stood before him was a single cavalry brigade. His men would scatter them with the first advance. He was wound up as tight as a top at just then; he knew how desperate the situation was. Hill had barely sidestepped a trap at Hanover Junction the day before where his own corps had taken heavy, heavy losses. It all depended on him to link up with Longstreet. Richard S. Ewell’s Second Corps was behind him and could offer no assistance. It all depended on him. As he worried, masses of blue infantry streamed onto the field where only a cavalry brigade had been only moments before. It all depended on him. The weight of it pressed down on him until his joints began to ache, and his half-healed wounds screamed and throbbed, and his heart seem to race out of control, as it seemed to want to burst from his chest.21

  He looked over to his aide. His face pale with sweat beading on his forehead, he said in a low voice, “Captain, ride to General [Richard H.] Anderson, and tell him that he must assume command, as I am indisposed.”

  By the time Anderson was able to assume command, Lee had ridden up to the forward brigade demanding to know why the attack had not begun. Hill had been a favorite of his, but at this moment his face turned to stone when he heard that Hill had fallen out again. He then said with all the force of his being, “General Anderson, you will break those people so that the army may pass.” Unfortunately, by this time the enemy’s II Corps was also marching onto the field to reinforce the VI Corps division that had already arrived.

  A scout rode up to the group, his horse wet with lather and half dead. “General Lee, Meade is barely two miles to our rear and coming up fast.” Everyone around Lee was stunned; Meade had been expected to be at least a half day behind them. Lee turned to Anderson without the least expression of distress. “You have one hour, General.”

  TWO MILES WEST OF SACO, MAINE, 2:55 P.M., SATURDAY, MAY 7, 1864

  The last of the Highlanders had fought over McPeak’s body like the warriors at Troy to keep the body of their chieftain from the Jonathans, but even they finally went down. All that was left of the 78th were the wounded scattered along the path of their charge. The colors of the 78th and 73rd were now waving overhead by men in Union blue. The division now advanced over the littered field toward Saco.

  A mile to the north Logan’s 3rd Division had broken the attack of the 3rd Hamilton Brigade with the same concentrated firepower. Only the remnant of the 47th Foot fought a stubborn rearguard at terrible cost along with a single battery of the Royal Artillery. Only the rapid fire and accuracy of their breech loading Armstrong guns kept the Americans at bay.

  Wolseley had been stunned by the smashing of the two brigades; survivors and the walking wounded rushed past him, beyond all caring, and here and there a single gun or caisson, all that remained of an entire battery. His last two brigades were most certainly going to suffer the same fate. This battle was lost; his only duty now was to get the men out that he could by way of the Portland road to the seaport where they could find refuge within the defenses under the guns of the Royal Navy.

  Logan was not going to give him much time. His two divisions were attacking. Through the initial fighting his reserve had been the Maine Division. The men were not happy about sitting this fight out, and only Chamberlain’s calm presence as he rode down the ranks telling them to be patient kept the grumbling under control. That
patience was rewarded when Chamberlain received Logan’s order to strike northeast toward the Portland road. As the Maine men stepped off with a long stride, the lead division of XII Corps entered Saco and pushed west. Sherman was determined to catch the British between his two corps.

  Wolseley was everywhere in the chaos, putting life back into the scattered groups of broken units, rounding up the mob of fugitive Britons and Canadians, and putting them on the road north along with his trains. He ordered everything but the ammunition wagons and ambulances abandoned. Next on the road was the still uncommitted Dublin Brigade. His rearguard was the 1/Rifles of the Montreal Brigade. He knew that if any regiment could hold off a determined enemy it was the Rifles. Their deadly marksmanship would counter to some degree the American firepower. The rest of their brigade had hardly marched off when the Rifles went into action. Wolseley heard the crash of musketry behind him as he hurried the tail of the column on.

  They had hardly gone a mile when American infantry appeared on the right of the Montreal Brigade’s three Canadian battalions. The XII Corps had arrived. Sherman was determined that McPherson’s corps would clamp its jaws shut on this part of the enemy. These three Canadian battalions were the first three to be raised and had performed with distinction in every battle. Wolseley rode up to the brigade commander and pointed at the deploying blue lines. “You must throw them back.” The Canadians wheeled into line and attacked with a precision and confidence that no imperial battalion would be ashamed of. “Forward the Prince of Wales!” shouted the commander of Canada’s premier battalion, the 1st Battalion, the Prince of Wales Regiment, as he lead it forward as he had done at the battle of Claverack. The sudden charge caught the arriving Americans off balance, and the Canadians drove them back picking up two colors. Wolseley had watched from the road and shouted, “Well done, Canada!” It had been the only bright spot of the day.22

  ONE MILE NORTH OF THE HANOVER ACADEMY, VIRGINIA, 3:30 P.M., SATURDAY, MAY 7, 1864

  Grant and Hancock had arrived on the field just as Anderson launched the entire Third Corps into the attack to break through the thickening Union lines. “Just like Gettysburg on the third day, General,” Hancock observed as the gray brigades surged forward, the Union artillery tearing great gaps in their ranks even before they got within rifle range of the blue infantry. A rider galloped up to them and handed Hancock’s chief of the BMI a note. The man scanned it and burst into a huge smile. “General,” he said looking at both of them, “Our balloons report a huge dust cloud coming down from the north directly behind the enemy. It is Meade, and they estimate he will be here in an hour.”

  Hancock had been right. It was just like Gettysburg. His old II Corps was repeating their repulse of the massed Confederate attack, but this time their lethality was multiplied by their repeating weapons and Gatling batteries. And again, just as at Gettysburg, Lee rode among the shattered regiments as they staggered back from the attack, dragging their wounded with them. This time it would not be like Gettysburg because Hancock was attacking on the heels of the enemy’s repulse.

  Lee had only one reserve, the division of Maj. Gen. John B. Gordon, of Ewell’s Second Corps. The rest of Ewell’s corps had turned to face Meade. If anyone could save the day, it was the dapper little Georgian who had heroically led his lead brigade over Long Bridge in the battle of Washington and been severely wounded when the attack had collapsed in the converging fire of a dozen coffee mill guns. He had survived the abattoir of Long Bridge and was nursed to health in a Union hospital and exchanged in February. He had had no military experience before the war had found in him a natural and gifted commander. One of his men said of him that he was “the prettiest thing you ever did see on a field of fight. It’ud put fight into a whipped chicken just to look at him.” 23

  Gordon’s brigades formed on line with the precision of a field parade despite the artillery that was beginning to find them. He raced down the line on his jet black charger so that every man could see that their commander would lead the attack. He stopped before the center brigade and gave the command to advance. His brigades stepped off briskly the square stars and bars battle flags whipping the breeze. He was surprised when Lee appeared on Traveler to ride with him. He was shocked when Lee drew his sword. “My God,” thought Gordon, “he means to go in with us.” He turned his horse in front of Traveler and grabbed its reins.

  “General Lee, this is no place for you! Do go to the rear, sir. These are Virginians and Georgians, sir—men who have never failed—and they will not fail now.” He turned to the men who had been watching this scene intently. “Will you fail, boys? Is it necessary for General Lee to lead this charge?”

  There were loud cries of “No! no! General Lee to the rear! General Lee to the rear!”24

  Men came from the ranks to grab Traveler’s bridle and pull him to the rear. “It seems, General Lee, that the men will see you out of harm’s way if they have to pass both you and Traveler over their heads.” Those men did lead him back through the moving ranks of the division who waved their hats and cheered Lee. “God bless you, Marse Robert!” He saluted them with his sword as the tide of Southern manhood surged past him.

  Their attack was irresistible, and for the last time the Rebel battle flags streamed on to victory, driving back Hancock’s leading division commanded by Brig. Gen. John Gibbon. At a terrible cost they broke them, pushing back the very men who had broken the high tide of the Confederacy at Gettysburg on that bloody third day. Hancock spurred away from Grant without a word, rode up to the next division commanded by Brig. Gen. Francis Barlow. “Go in, Barlow! Drive them back! Your objective is that building,” he said pointing to the Hanover Academy.” He then raced off to his third division and the one from VI Corps and sent them in as well. The gray brigades were struck in front and on their flanks by a mass of men in blue that all but overwhelmed them. Gordon’s men did all that men can do that afternoon. Those Virginians and Georgians did not quit the field easily, falling back step by step making the enemy pay for each yard.

  Lee’s heart had raced as Gordon’s men smashed through that Yankee division. From that height of hope it then sank to despair as masses of the enemy first stopped them and then come on in an inexorable tide. Behind him to the north the sound of battle now erupted. His staff all turned their faces in that direction. At the Hanover Academy Lee said calmly, “That must be General Meade. He has finally caught up with us.”

  RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, 5:12 P.M., SATURDAY, MAY 7, 1864

  An officer came dashing up to the mansion but did not even have time to dismount before Davis called down to him asking what news.

  “Yankees! Yankees and niggers! They came right through the defenses on the Williamsburg Road; there was no one guarding them.”

  Davis’s first thought was to find troops somewhere, but then as the gunfire grew closer, it was his family that he ran to find. Sticking a pistol into his waistband, he ordered the servants to hitch the team to his coach as his wife looked at him, fear barely under control but under control as was to be expected of a great lady. “The enemy has someone entered the city. I must get you and the children out immediately.”

  Then the doors shuddered and splintered until the leaves flew apart. Black men in Union blue rushed into the marble foyer with carbines leveled. Davis and his wife could hear the servants screaming as heavy boots bounded up the stairs. They could hear a voice shouting, “Find him, boys! Alive!”

  Davis drew the pistol and chambered a round. “Be brave, my love.”

  FIVE MILES NORTH OF SACO, MAINE, 5:30 P.M., SATURDAY, MAY 7, 1864

  The sound of fighting lessened as Wolseley hurried his shrunken command north on the Portland road. The Rifles and the Canadians had held the Americans long enough to give the rest of them a good marching head start. Then rifle and artillery fire burst out from up the road. He rode ahead to see wagons and ambulances rushing back down the road and the 29th Foot deploying. He found the brigade commander who was getting his other battalions into li
ne as well. The man pointed ahead. “As far as I can tell, the enemy is on the road, but in what strength I don’t know.”

  “Let’s find out,” Wolseley said and dashed up the road to where it crossed a rise. A deployed American division was barring his way, and on the flanks he could see masses of cavalry. The commander of the 15th Dublin Brigade rode up beside him. “Your orders, sir.”

  The 3,800 men of this big brigade was the only organized force he had left, and the enemy in front of them outnumbered them by at least three to one. The British Army had come to expect odds like that in its conquest of empire. Wolseley did not hesitate. “You will bring up your brigade and break them in the center and hold the road open long enough for the rest of the army to get through. I will put all our remaining artillery in your support.” Then he grasped the man by the arm and said, “You must do this quickly or it is not done at all. Our rearguard can’t last much longer.”

  Three batteries of Armstrongs lashed their way across the fields to that rise in the road, unlimbered their guns, and went right into action. The Dublin Brigade went forward with 1/10th, 29th, and 45th Foot on line heading straight for the center of the American division. The Canadian 5th Royal Light Infantry of Montreal and the 6th Hochlega Light Infantry followed on the flanks to protect the brigade from the enemy cavalry.

  This was just what the Maine men had been waiting for, a straight knock-down-drag-out fight with the invaders of their home state. They stood their ranks as the Royal Artillery blew holes through them only to close up. Their own artillery opened up concentrating at first on the enemy artillery then switching to case shot for the British infantry and then to canister at four hundred yards. At the same time the infantry opened up with rifle fire in such a concentrated volume that the lead British ranks seemed to disintegrate.