Glory In The Name sb-1

by James L. Nelson

  Son of a bitch…that Yankee son of a bitch is trying to kill me…

  Three hundred feet away and he could see that little round black spot that was the muzzle and for the briefest instant a blossom of red and yellow, and then nothing.

  For Lieutenant Robley Paine, Jr., it had been the worst day in memory. Twice more the battalion had shuffled into line, marched forward, splashed through the Bull Run River, then stopped. They milled around, the lines drifted away, and all the shouting of the officers could not keep the men in order. It was as clear to the men as it was to Robley that they were not going into a fight.

  Robley did his share of shouting at them, more than his share, despite his own admission of the futility of it all. He kicked men in the ass to get them back in line and in the legs when he caught them sleeping in the grass, shoved them back into formation. Once he made his company go through the manual of arms. He was furious and taking his fury out on the men and he knew it and did not care.

  All the day long, taunting him, the sounds of the fight off to the left grew louder, the cloud of smoke denser. From the south and the east and the north they could see dust clouds where more and more regiments rushed to the battle, and all the while the 18th Mississippi crossed back and forth at McLean’s Ford, or sat and did nothing at all.

  With each hour that crawled by, with each muffled escalation of the fighting off to the left, Robley grew angrier by degrees. He felt utterly betrayed, that his brothers should march off and leave him that way. He felt sick at the thought that they might well be in the thick of the fighting, while he sat on his hands.

  How would it be if this was the first and last battle of the war? How could he endure it, the rest of his life, listening to his younger brothers tell tales of the fighting they did while he sat silent? And when pressed, he would say only, “Third Brigade, we never did get into the fight.”

  But your brothers were in 3rd Brigade. How did they get into the battle?

  He almost went off to the fight himself, half a dozen times at least. Once he even took two steps in the direction of the gunfire, but even then he stopped. He could not do it. He was an officer, it was not his business to go. He felt as if his soul was being drawn and quartered.

  It occurred to him, more than once, that his brothers could be wounded, terribly disfigured, perhaps dead. But even that thought did little to mitigate his misery. How would it be, back home, if his brothers were killed in the fight, and he never even showed the courage to go? Would he be able to make the others understand that he could not go? That his duty lay in doing as he was ordered to do?

  He says it was his duty, but Jonathan and Nathaniel, they went into the fight anyway. Gave their lives for the cause. They understood the real meaning of duty. And honor. That was what people would say. Could he ever convince himself that duty, and not cowardice, had held him back?

  The long afternoon dragged on, and Robley sank deeper into his funk. He found himself engaged in mock arguments in his head, eloquent explanations of why he had not left his regiment to join the fight, discourses on how, heroic as his brothers might seem, it was he, Lieutenant Paine, who was the real soldier, for wars could not be fought with renegade troops, rushing off where they pleased, but by steady, reliable men who obeyed orders.

  As the sun was moving toward the horizon, and the sounds to the left of the line changed once again, two rumors ran through the 3rd Brigade, one to fill Robley with horror, one with hope.

  The first was that the enemy was routed, that Jackson and Evans and Bee and the rest, aided by the timely arrival of reinforcements and Stewart’s cavalry, had sent the Yankees fleeing for the Bull Run and the defenses of Washington. The word was that it was not a retreat but panicked flight, that the great Union army had crumbled completely, that it was every bluebelly for himself.

  Robley could think of no news that he less wanted to hear. The Yankees whipped, his brothers a part of it, and him having not fired a shot? It was too much to bear.

  Then on the heels of that dreadful news came word that the 18th Mississippi was moving out, going in support of Longstreet’s 4th Brigade. They would be advancing on Centreville, hitting the Yankees from the other side, cutting off their retreat. It would be real fighting, finishing off what the men on the left had started.

  Oh God, oh, God, let it be so…

  Twenty minutes later they were moving out again, following the Bull Run River northwest to join up with the 4th Brigade, which even now was halfway across Blackburn’s Ford and marching north.

  There was artillery fire somewhere ahead, from the direction in which they were marching, and Robley felt the sound lift his spirit. This could be it. He looked to his left. The sun was moving fast toward the horizon. Soon this long day would be over, but there was still time for them to get into it, if they would only hurry.

  The 18th Mississippi splashed across Blackburn’s Ford and marched up a narrow, dusty road flanked by scrubby trees. Robley could feel the line tense as the marching men waited for skirmishing fire to burst from the undergrowth. But there was no fire, and they marched on, and to Robley’s joy the artillery fire increased with every yard they covered.

  They broke out into open country and Robley could see that the men were spreading out in a line of advance. The sun was lower now, washing the fields and the trees in orange and casting the lines of men in lovely, warm tones as they stood ready to advance into the face of the artillery.

  He could see the Union guns up ahead, or more precisely the muzzle flashes, brilliant in the gathering dusk. The gun smoke was pink and orange and the guns belched their pinpricks of light and now the shells were screaming by. For the first time that day, Robley considered the reality of what he was doing. Suddenly the discomfort in his gut was not from fear of missing the fight, but from fear of the fight itself.

  Ah, hell… he thought. His personal demons had worn him down.

  Captain Hamer was issuing orders now for Company D to take its place in the line, and Robley echoed those commands, directed men here and there, shuffled them from a marching unit to a unit ready to attack. They moved forward, stood among the yawning men, the grim men, the pale-looking men who faced the Union batteries and readied themselves to advance into the guns.

  Robley took his place in the front and off to one side of his company. He scuffed his feet in the dirt, checked the percussion cap on his rifle, checked to make certain the company’s line was dressed properly. And finally, there was nothing to do but wait.

  The artillery was firing faster now, the muzzle flashes getting brighter as the daylight grew more dim, the shadows deeper. The order came to advance, and there was no room for anything else in Robley’s mind, there was only himself and the line of guns and the broken, uneven ground between them, the real estate he had to cover to get to those guns and make them stop.

  The long line of men moved forward and the pace began to build and Robley saw the Confederate Army as one solid whole, and himself one small part of that, and he saw the whole as an unstoppable force, rolling forward. Other men were yelling, the peculiar yell that had become so popular in the camps, a weird, twisting, yelping sound. A frightening sound. Then Robley found himself doing it too as his pace built from a walk to a fast walk and the line of guns on the road ahead grew closer.

  The shells were screaming overhead. Robley could feel their wind as they passed and the shriek filled his head so that no other noise, not even his own voice, could get through the sound.

  He looked to his right, at H Company, to see that they were advancing evenly, and it was only then that he realized the artillery was finding its mark. There were big gaps in the line, as if God had cut away a section of men with a shovel, just scooped it away. Even as he watched he saw a shell plow through the line not fifty feet away, saw men and parts of men tossed into the air, heard the screams of the wounded take up where the shriek of the shell left off.

  Dear God… Robley thought. Dear God… He had never conceived of anything so ho
rrible. He pulled his eyes away, fixed them on the guns, the flashing muzzle, marched on with determined step.

  Perhaps it was an illusion, perhaps the Yankees were being reinforced, but Robley could not help but think the artillery was coming faster now, the guns served quicker, the scream of the shells and the buzz of minie balls nearly continuous. The Yankees’ guns were telling more. With the Confederate lines so close they could hardly miss.

  Robley could feel the momentum wane, could see the men slacken their pace, wince as the guns went off, shy away as if turning a shoulder to a cannon could ward off the shot. He had heard of how panic could sweep a unit, how they could, as if by mutual consent, turn and run. He could sense that they were there, that Company D would, at any second now, stop going forward, and when the forward momentum stopped, it was only a matter of time before they ran.

  “H Company! Hamer’s Rifles! Stand fast!” Robley shouted, holding his rifle above his head, his voice competing with the artillery fire, the blast from the guns and the song of the shells.

  “Men of Yazoo! Advance!” Robley turned determinedly toward the guns, stepped into the onslaught of shells. He wondered if Captain Hamer had been killed, wondered why he was not rallying the troops. No matter. He, Lieutenant Paine, was doing it. Through the fear, the numbness, the confusion brought about by the relentless noise, he felt a spark of pride. He had not flinched, he had not run. When he saw his company ready to break, he had rallied them, led them forward. Two hundred yards and they would be swarming over the artillery and he, too, would be a victor that day.

  “Advance!” He turned to make sure the lines were dressed properly and instead saw nothing. He was alone. He turned farther. The Confederate line was twenty feet behind him and backing away. Not breaking, not panicking, but backing away from those lethal guns.

  “No! Hamer’s Rifles! To me!” he shouted, but if anyone heard him, no one responded.

  “Son of a bitch!” he shouted. He was on the verge of heroism and his men were leaving him. “Son of a bitch!”

  He whirled around, looked right at the guns. He would charge them himself, come in like a fury, drive the gunners away. The others would join him when they saw his courage, saw how real determination could win the day.

  He took a step forward. This is madness, he thought. The shells screamed past him and he stood in the middle of their hail and he was locked in indecision.

  He glared at the guns, hating them. In the gloom he could hardly see them, save for when they fired and threw their flash of red and yellow light over the black barrels.

  A gun directly ahead fired, the sound of the shell close and simultaneous with the flash of the gun. And in that flash he saw the gun beside it, and realized he was looking right into the muzzle.

  Goddamn you… Robley Paine thought. A shout built in his throat and he ran forward, hating that gun, hating the bluebellies, ready to kill them all himself.

  And then the gun fired. Robley Paine saw the flash of red and yellow as it discharged its canister shot, and then a thousand rifle balls tore him apart.

  18

  I deem it proper to bring to the notice of the Department the inefficiency of the battery of this ship when exposed to the fire of heavy rifled cannon, as was clearly shown in the attack…by a very small steam propeller, armed only with one large rifled gun.

  – Captain J. B. Hull, USS Savannah, off Newport News, to Hon. Gideon Welles

  Flag Officer’s Office, Dockyard,

  Gosport, Va., July 21, 1861

  Sir:

  You are directed to take the steam tug Cape Fear, currently under your command and mounted with one rifled gun and two howitzers, and carry with you all the projectiles you deem necessary, as well as such additional hands as you might require, to be secured from among the company at the dockyard, and proceed along the coast in shoal water to Sewall’s Point; to exercise your best judgment in an approach to the enemy’s vessels at anchor off Newport News or Hampton Roads, and take a position out of reach of their guns, to try the range of yours, to near the enemy cautiously and do them as much damage as possible. You are at all times to exercise your best judgment and above all to avoid loss of your crew or your vessel to the enemy. Upon completion of whatever action you deem appropriate you are to return to the dockyard and report to me.

  Respectfully,

  Captain French Forrest,

  Flag Officer, etc.

  Captain Samuel Bowater, CSN

  CSS Cape Fear

  Bowater read the orders over again, and then a third time. They were fairly typical, in his experience, ranging from the obvious (“exercise your best judgment”) to the absurdly obvious (“avoid loss of your crew or your vessel to the enemy”), but beyond that they really said nothing, other than ordering him to attack the enemy as he saw fit.

  He stared out the window of the wheelhouse, down at the ten-pound Parrott rifle mounted in the bow. He had come to loathe the sight of the gun. Every time he looked at it, it reminded him of his shame and humiliation, scheming like some criminal, lying to a superior officer. And just as bad-worse, perhaps-allowing himself to be talked into the act by Hieronymus Taylor, of all men. How had he come to a point where he would follow the lead of men like Taylor?

  He had come to loathe himself, loathe Taylor, loathe the gun for what it represented. But now, orders in hand, he was not so certain.

  It had come to a head that very morning, Commander Archibald Fairfax giving him a verbal keelhauling the likes of which he had not endured since his first year at the Navy School. But it was no more than he deserved for playing the low trick he had played, and so he faced up to, and to some extent even welcomed, the humiliation he suffered.

  Those issues of honor and humiliation so occupied Samuel’s thoughts that he hardly heard a word that Commander Archibald Fairfax said, or rather shouted, neither the commander’s insinuations concerning Bowater’s fitness for command nor threats of dismissal from the service.

  Samuel stood in Fairfax ’s office, in front of the commander’s desk. Fairfax, seated, ranted and jabbed a pencil in the air as if he was trying to stab it through Bowater’s chest, if only Bowater would come a bit closer.

  It was not until Fairfax demanded a response from him that Bowater came back to the reality of the moment.

  “It was a…fabrication, was it not? The whole thing?” Fairfax would not go so far as to say “lie.” Even military discipline had its limits where a man’s honor was concerned.

  “Yes, sir. A fabrication. There was no order from Captain Cocke. I fabricated the entire story simply to secure those guns for use aboard the Cape Fear .”

  Once Fairfax had, under false pretenses, given Bowater and Taylor permission to load the guns aboard, they rounded up a dozen yard workers, augmented them with the crew of the Cape Fear, and set them to it. It had taken all of the afternoon and into the evening to wrestle the ordnance aboard, the ten-pound Parrott rifle, six and a half feet long and weighing nearly nine hundred pounds, and the twin twelve-pound howitzers, two feet shorter but almost as heavy.

  It would have been easiest, of course, to set the gun carriages down first, and put the guns right in place. But that would have looked as if they intended to arm the Cape Fear all along, and not carry artillery to Captain Cocke. Instead, to maintain appearances, they set everything on deck and lashed it in place and then steamed away, up the Elizabeth River in the general direction of Fort Powhatan.

  They returned the next day with the guns still conspicuously lashed in place. It seemed to Bowater that there was something particularly unethical, even unseemly, about concocting an excuse in advance. He figured, if pressed about why the guns had not been delivered, he would count on his ability to fabricate some innocuous explanation on the spot.

  To his relief, no one asked. For three days they steamed around with the guns lashed in place while, unseen, the men strengthened the deck and bulwarks that were to become gun stations and Eustis Babcock was set to work making up train tackles
and breeching.

  When that was done, and sufficient time passed, they put the gun carriages in position and with the aid of improvised shears lifted the barrels onto them. In that way they cunningly transformed their tug into a man-of-war.

  Unfortunately, they had not fooled anyone. Least of all Commander Archibald Fairfax, who did take the precaution of inquiring of Captain Cocke if he had, in fact, requested the guns, before ripping Bowater apart like a bear.

  “Would you care to tell me why, Lieutenant? Why you felt the need to participate in this elaborate charade?”

  “I hoped that arming the vessel, sir, would lead to our engaging the enemy.”

  “This navy will decide whether or not you engage the enemy, with no prompting from you. For the moment, Lieutenant, you command a tug. And you are hardly fit for that. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Samuel Bowater was not terribly concerned with losing his position or his command. He was going mad, puttering around Norfolk while the war was being fought elsewhere. He had even toyed with the idea of resigning, of looking for a berth, or whatever one called it, as an officer in an artillery company.

  “I apologize, sir,” Bowater said.

  Fairfax stared hard at him, and Bowater stared at a point just above Fairfax’s head. At last Fairfax made a snorting noise and tossed the pencil on the desk.

  “Your apology is accepted. And you may rejoice to know that your scheme is working out just as you had anticipated,” he said, and the change in his tone caught Bowater’s attention. “Seems Forrest saw the way you loaded your boat down with guns and liked the looks of the thing. He intends to send you upriver, see what you can accomplish against the Union fleet.”

  For a moment Samuel did not know what to say. He was not certain he had heard correctly. “You mean, sir…send us upriver to fight?”