The support teams of the two reserve balloons had been well trained, but this was their first operational inflation, and Lowe wanted to be there to make sure things went right. Lowe was relieved to see that both teams needed little supervision and seemed quite eager to get their balloons, named Eagle II and Washington, into the fight. Zeppelin, with the energy of youth, had stuck with him and eagerly took notes under the light of a lantern during the entire process.
Lowe could then spare a moment or two to watch the rest of the bustle that filled the Yard even at this early morning hour. Under the lights of lamps and torches, men were fitting guns onto the gunboats tied up at the docks and loading ammunition. Other heavy naval guns were being emplaced to defend the Yard itself or trundled across the city to bear on the Virginia side of the river. It reminded him of an anthill in which streams of disciplined insects bore streamed in and out of the nest. One such stream was transferring shells by wagon from the huge brick Yard buildings to the boats and new gun emplacements along the docks. A wagon wobbled out of line suddenly as a wheel shattered with a loud crack, followed by the louder cursing of the wagon driver. Before he could bring up the team, the wagon sagged, spilling out a dozen shell boxes. One of the boxes splintered, and its shell came spinning over toward Lowe, coming to rest only a foot away. He noted a dab of red paint on it.
A sailor came running over to retrieve the shell. He doffed his cap to Lowe. "Beg pardon, sir."
Ever curious, Lowe said. "Just a moment. What is the red paint on the shell?"
"Oh, that, sir. That means the shell is loaded."
"And that strip of lead?"
"That's the fuse patch, sir."
"And what does that do?"
"That protects the fuse. Just before the shell is put into the gun's barrel, the loader removes it to show the gun captain that the fuse has been uncovered."
"Then what?"
"Then the loader sets the fuse."
"Then what?"
"Well, sir, then they fire the gun."
Lowe smiled. "Thank you, sailor."12
The man waited expectantly for Lowe to ask another question or terminate the conversation when a young officer walked over to see why an Army colonel was speaking to a sailor, especially when that sailor was supposed to be loading ammunition.
"Sir, is there a problem here?"
Lowe was struck by the presence of the young officer. He was slender and tall - about six feet - erect, shoulders thrown back, and his brown hair fell to his shoulders. His light blue gray eyes were arresting, and his manner radiated force, strength, and ability.13
Lowe shrewdly appraised him and suddenly realized there was almost a sensation of magnetism between them. He replied, "Not at all, lieutenant. This shell fell out the wagon and rolled my way, and I had a few questions about it."
The lieutenant nodded at the sailor who fled, as much as one can flee with a 72-pound nine-inch shell. He was putting his fingers to his cap to take his leave when Lowe asked another question.
"Lieutenant, I was not able to ask to the man how the shell was ignited. Can you illuminate the process for me?"
"Why, of course, sir. If you noticed the lead caps on the shell ..." Lowe nodded. "It's for safety. Directly underneath the fuse patch, or the safety cover, is some mealed powder. This is ignited by the hot gases in the gun's bore as it is fired. Inertia causes the lead safety plug at the base of the fuse to fall away into the powder inside the shell. The burn ing mealed powder in turn ignites the fuse, which can be set at 3 1/2, 5, 7, 10, or 15 minutes. The fuse burns down to the powder in the shell and ignites it, causing it to explode." 14
"Very good, Lieutenant. Now, how would you get the shell to explode if it were dropped from a height?"
The lieutenant burst out laughing and then apologized. "Why, sir, who ever heard of such a thing? Dropping a shell from a building?" Then, intrigued by the odd question, his eye wandered to the inflating balloons. He grasped Lowe's intent immediately and explained the priming procedure. He suggested, "Two things would be needed. The lead safety cap would have to be removed as in firing the shell, of course, but you would need to have removed the lead safety plug at the base of the fuse before inserting the fuse into the shell. Then just before the shell was dropped, the mealed powder would have to be ignited by hand. Whatever did you have in mind, sir?"
Lowe smiled. "Just an idle question, Lieutenant. Thank you for your help."
The lieutenant saluted and turned to go, then stopped, and turned back to Lowe. He looked beyond Lowe at the gas generators and the fabric of the balloons spread over a rack to keep it from the ground.
"It could work, but you would need a man who knows fuses. And I don't know how many of the shells your basket could hold because the nine-inch alone weighs seventy-two pounds. Two of them would be the weight of a man. Grenades would be easier. We have some here, the Ketcham grenades. Anyone can use them."
Zeppelin had been as fast on the uptake and asked, "Herr Oberst, it vood be a great honor if I could ascend ven you take these Bomben mit Ihnen.1'
THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON, D.C., 4:10 AM, OCTOBER 28, 1863
Maj. John Tappen circled the White House, inspecting his guards. Tappen was the acting commander of Sharpe's regiment, the 120th New York. The two were old friends from their prewar militia service. Sharpe now wanted the whole regiment to stand by. Two full companies stood guard while the other eight slept on the lawn with their weapons. Hooker's Horse Marines, except those Sharpe had sent outside the lines to scout, were bivouacked in nearby Presidential Park. Tappen would have felt better if the old 20th had been with them, but the crisis on the Hudson had stripped the Washington forts of much of their infantry and all of the New York regiments that could be spared. The 20th was now somewhere in New York, force-marching to join Hooker. Its commander, Col. Theodore Gates, had been impressed with Tappen's use of the coffee mill guns in training and had drawn a dozen for his regiment with Sharpe's support. The two regiments had practiced at the target ranges together on a regular basis. Tappen thought his old friends should be catching up with Hooker right soon. He believed that New York men would see a lot of fighting no matter where they were.16
Tappen had placed four pairs of coffee mill guns to cover each corner of the buildings and its grounds. The crews slept by their guns, too. He stopped to pat one of the pieces on its long barrel. The men had taken to these infernal machines with such enthusiasm that practically every man had volunteered for the crews. To keep them all happy, he had run the whole regiment through training on them. Every man had checked out in one crew position or another. It was easy to understand the men's delight. The guns shredded the targets on the firing ranges. More than one man had said, "If we had had these at Gettysburg, Bobby Lee wouldn't have had a man to get back over the Potomac .1117
RED HOOK, NEW YORK, 5:00 AM, OCTOBER 28, 1863
It was not even light yet when the regiment got back on the road. They had been hurrying to catch up to Hooker's command ever since they left Washington. Gates had given them barely three hours sleep, but thanks to the good people of Red Hook, no man had had to sleep outdoors in the frosty night. The people had had a hearty breakfast waiting for them as soon as their adjutants began to rouse them. There were no complaints either. These were all New York men.
The townspeople came to ask what the strange little cannons were trailing behind a single horse. They were glad to show off "Old Abe's" coffee mill guns and explain to the locals' wonderment that they could easily fire one hundred and fifty bullets a minute-as much as seventyfive riflemen. Even more, the guns fired from a steady rest and were not subject to the propensity of men to fire high or wide of the mark when worked up by a fight. One officer said, to the amazement of all, that each gun was worth a half regiment in firepower.
At Cold Spring, they had been joined by the Corps of Cadets -four hundred young men in their old fashioned, gray, swallow-tailed uniforms with a tall black shako. The veterans had looked askance at the "Kay Det
s." West Point officers, with their insistence on discipline, were not always popular among the rank and file, and these budding officers did not even have the benefit of having "seen the elephant." Still, the soldiers had to admit they marched better than anyone thought possible. At least that was something.
Veterans and cadets had to gulp down those wonderful breakfasts - flapjacks, butter, bacon, ham, hot bread, and preserves (apricot, peach, raspberry), and lots of hot coffee, with cream of all things-as their officers NCOs shouted to hurry. That left the fruit pies and cakes untasted, but the women wrapped the slices in cloth napkins and pressed them into the men's haversacks, along with fresh bread, cheese, and sausages. Most men left the town with the kiss of a pretty girl on cheek or lips. It would be a long time before any man forgot Red Hook 18
FORT BERRY, VIRGINIA, THE DEFENSES OF WASHINGTON, 4:00 AM, OCTOBER 28, 1863
The whispered command crept from man to man across the line of Confederate engineers lying on the cold ground in front of the infantry parapet just south of Fort Berry. They rose, stiff from the chill, but moved forward quickly to drag off the ahattis. Other men rushed through the gaps to find the stout gate in the parapet. To their amazement, it swung in at a touch on well-oiled hinges. The rescue party that had saved the screaming man had forgotten to secure it. Battles are won by such accidents. They rushed through without a second thought.
The infantry stood up in a mass to follow, when a shot rang outthen another and another. The alarm was given, but it was too latethere were too few Union infantry to make much difference. In minutes, the 2nd Virginia had followed the engineers through, then the 4th, 27th, 33rd, and 5th Virginia like a downpour through a spout. Guns from Fort Berry fired laterally down the front of the parapet but missed most of the men who had scrambled into the ditch in front of the position waiting to get through the gate. Once inside the defenses, the regiments peeled left and right, trying to overrun the forts on either side. Berry was one of the few unenclosed forts and fell quickly to the 2nd Virginia in a rush of bayonets. There they found a medical wagon and tent; a plain-faced, dark-haired woman was standing by a man on a stretcher. As they passed, each man doffed his cap, saying, "Thank you kindly, ma'am," or "God bless you, ma'am." Once the fort was secured, the colonel came up to her, took off his hat, and bowed. "On behalf of my men, ma'am, I wish to thank you for your Christian charity in helping this poor man. I have ordered my regimental surgeon to your assistance."
"Thank you, Colonel," she replied. "I'm afraid he will have more than one patient today."
"Fortunes of war, ma'am. Fortunes of war." Then he paused and asked, "May I know your name, ma'am? The men would like to know if this angel of mercy has a name."
"Barton, Colonel. My name is Clara Barton."
HEADQUARTERS, ARMY OF THE HUDSON, FIVE MILES SOUTH OF LINLITHGO MILLS, NEW YORK, 6:05 AM, OCTOBER 28, 1863
Few men had gone through the soul-searching ordeal that Joe Hooker had put himself through after his failure at Chancellorsville last May. What had made it so bitter was to realize that Sharpe's intelligence effort had put Lee in his hand. That hand had flinched and let Lee not only escape the trap but turn it around on him. So when Sharpe's man, Captain McEntee, briefed him on the reports of his scouts, Hooker, not normally a religious man, instinctively thanked God for giving him a second chance. It was up to him.
McEntee, with the big chief of scouts Judson Knight standing behind him, quickly drew the enemy situation. Paulet's forces were rapidly assembling at Hudson, brought down by steamer and railroad from Albany. The scouts estimated that at least ten thousand or more were already at Hudson, but there could be more. Canadian cavalry had pushed up the road to Claverack barely two hours ago and were driven back by Custer. The young brigadier had sent a regiment of his Michigan cavalry off to cut the railroad about five miles above Hudson. He had sent back a half dozen Canadian prisoners whom McEntee had personally interrogated. From them he was able to tell Hooker that at least three of the big enemy brigades, each almost the size of a Union division, were already concentrated in Hudson. The Guards and some cavalry were there, too. He concluded by presenting Hooker with a nickel-plated dragoon helmet. "Courtesy of Private Hogan, General. He and Knight found a pair of enemy scouts in the woods outside your headquarters. Unfortunately, they declined to be taken prisoner."1
Hooker took the helmet and turned it over, evidently pleased. It would make a fine mantel trophy. McEntee added, "We can't place this unit, sir. The uniform is not quite the same as the rest of the Canadian cavalry."
"Well, we are all peacocks, you know," Hooker said. "And most of the time it means absolutely nothing but vanity. Though why a scout would wear something this shiny, I don't know."
"If there's one thing Colonel Sharpe taught me, General, it's to look for patterns and their absence. This helmet is an aberration. And Sergeant Knight said he could tell good scouts when he saw them. It was only luck that he and Hogan stumbled on them."
Another variable, thought Hooker. "Get your scouts out, Captain. Let's see if we can catch any more of them. I expect Knight and Hogan can make a pretty penny selling these things as souvenirs."
Hooker went back to his maps. He had spent much time studying the maps of this region of Upstate and questioning locals. Now, with McEntee's fine work, the pieces were falling into place. Yet, as he stared at the shiny souvenir, he worried about the two men Knight and Hogan had killed. He did not want some fancy dan in a shiny helmet giving Paulet the same sort of information about him that Knight had just given him about Paulet.2
FORT WASHINGTON, MARYLAND, 6:15 AM, OCTOBER 28, 1863
The Royal Marine captain had hoped to bounce into the fort just as Capt. George Bazalgette, whose fame had already spread through the fleet, had taken Fort Gorges at Portland. Hoped but not expected. His company was part of the battalion brought over with the ships of the Channel Fleet. Guiding them were Confederate soldiers, Marylanders native to this shore, provided by Lee. The guides were completely at home on the small roads they traveled after landing a few miles south of the fort. Nevertheless, it had taken more than three hours, in the last darkness before dawn, to get where they were concealed behind a small rise just in front of the main gate on its north side with the river on their right. He was worried that he was cutting it too fine. He had less than an hour before dawn. It had been impressed upon him that his flares must go up at least an hour before dawn to give the flotilla time to run the guns of the fort in the darkness. Already he was late, and being late was the greatest sin an officer could commit.
The captain admitted that the description of the fort had been correct -strong masonry structure, much like the larger forts in Europe. A moat girdled the landward sides of the fort and a bastion covered the gate on the river side. Amazingly, the drawbridge was down, though the gate remained closed. He ordered two men with the signal rockets to position themselves just behind the hill.
His men wore their dark blue overcoats as had the Marines at Fort Gorges. The Marylanders were game for his gambit. He marched them straight up to the bridge. They were challenged smartly. One of the Marylanders in a blue Yankee greatcoat replied, in what the Americans had the temerity to describe as English, that they were the 27th Maine, come to reinforce the garrison. Lee's current intelligence indicated that this regiment was assigned to the defenses of Washington.
A man from the wall announced he was officer of the guard and asked them to repeat themselves. The Marylander officer shouted up again that they were the 27th Maine come to reinforce the garrison. On the wall, the officer of the guard muttered to his sergeant, "I'll be damned if they're the 27th Maine. I served with them, and they were a nine-month regiment, mustered out in July. That man speaks just like the locals around here, too. Call the colonel." He looked over the wall at the column by the drawbridge and said to himself. "Maine men-my Massachusetts ass if they're Maine men."
The Royal Marine officer was getting nervous. Fifteen minutes had passed since they had hailed
the fort. There was barely a half hour of darkness left. He was more than nervous-alarmed would be a better word, for he saw time slipping away. He shouldn't be, he told himself. In every army, things went up and then down the chain of command, a time-consuming process. Ten more minutes went by. He did not see or hear the men of the garrison filing slowly up the walls to hide behind the parapet, nor the cannon being pushed through the inside of the gate house. The Marylander officer said to him quietly, "I think they have not taken the bait. Best get out of this as soon as we can."
"No, we wait."
The Marylander was about to say something rude when the small door in the gate opened, and an officer stepped out. "Come on in," he beckoned. "Sure glad to see you. We need all the help we can get. The cooks have put breakfast and coffee on for you." Then he stepped back inside the door.
The RM officer nodded to the Marylander who just shrugged. They were halfway across the bridge when the great double doors of the gate began to open, creaking on their hinges. In the lamplight that flooded through the opening doors, they saw the muzzle of a cannon. The last thing they heard was the command, "Fire!"
Double canister swept everyone off the bridge. The doors slammed shut, and the men on the parapet jumped up and began to fire into the recoiling survivors. On the rise behind, the two Marines with the rockets followed their orders. Two red rockets shot up into the air.
THE POTOMAC RIVER, JUST BELOW FORT WASHINGTON, 6:35 AM, OCTOBER 28, 1863
The British ships had been waiting for that signal, moving slowly up riverline ahead, the sloops first, then the gunvessels. The infantry-laden boats and barges would be escorted up the distant Virginia shore by the two small gunboats, Nettle and Onyx, where their shallow draft would allow them to go where the larger British ships could not.
A Rainbow of Blood: The Union in Peril an Alternate History Page 21