Commodore Dunlop had had no great faith that the fort would fall, but he had hoped that the attempt would be enough of a distraction to enable him to run the fort before the defender's attention could refocus. It would be a damned tricky business whatever happened. He was leading his flotilla up the river two hours after the low tide had ebbed. The main channel made a sudden angle from the center of the river to starboard as it approached the fort and then swerved to parallel the fort, running right under its guns. The remaining broad expanse of the river was extremely shallow. If they stuck to the main channel, they could speed through. It was then that the operation would sink or swim, the outcome depending upon the pilots supplied by Lee.
Greyhound leading the first division, true to her name, dashed ahead and passed the fort without notice. Peterel was next, followed by Desperate. Each had followed the running lights of the ship ahead. They were clean through when the garrison's guns came to life. The diversion at the gate had worked well enough to draw most of the garrison out of their beds to defend the gate, leaving only a few guards to peer down at the broad expanse of the water. The moon had already set the night before, and the only illumination came faintly from the stars. The dawn would he creeping over the wood line to the east, its first faint light more confusing to the eye than night itself. Dunlop had factored this into his plan if they should be late. But chance had given him all her favors when the first division got clean through. The guards had seen the sparks from the ships' funnels, sounded the alarm, and thrown torches into the piles of wood along the shore. The garrison had rushed to the guns. The gunners did not fire wildly into the darkness but adjusted their pieces to the plots of their preset range tables for ships passing below through the main ship channel.
Chance now played against the British and confused the lead pilot of the second division, doubly unnerved by the guns firing down at them. He directed Racer too far west and ran her into the shallow river mud. Taking her lead, Icarus followed to stick herself fast as well. Just in time, Spiteful's captain turned her back into the main channel, signaling frantically to the following gunvessel division to follow her closely.
The darkness still held off the approaching half light. The garrison had long practiced on well-drawn firing tables that raked the river approaches to the fort and the main channel beneath it. Spiteful took two hits as she steamed past. The gunvesssel Steady was hit repeatedly and began to settle. The other two gunvessels pushed past her and out of the range of the fort's guns. With most of the enemy flotilla safely run past their guns, the gunners of Fort Washington took special pleasure in turning the stranded Racer and Icarus into matchwood as the dawn revealed them. The shells started fires amid the wreckage, and soon two ship's funeral pyres were sending their smoke into the morning air.'
LAYFAYETTE SQUARE, 5:40 AM, OCTOBER 28, 1863
Sharpe took the patrol leader's report himself. Despite the uproar on the other side of the Potomac, he listened intently when Hooker's Horse Marines brought him news of the joint forces of a Confederate brigade and a British flotilla just sixteen miles below Washington. The sergeant finished his report, "We barely got back through our lines just south of Alexandria and on the road to the Long Bridge when the Rebs broke through from the west, sir."
"Good report. Now let's talk to the prisoner."
The sailor, who had been in the background, perked right up. "It's a deserter I am, your lordship, strictly speaking. I said to myself, Richard Foley, 'Foley, it's about time you absolved yourself of allegiance to Her Majesty and quit her service.' And every fourth man in the Royal Navy an Irishman, and a great shame it is with England's boot on poor Ireland's throat. That's just what I did, your lordship, deserted from Nettle, I did. Now, I says to myself, 'Foley, it's time to became an American like so many of your kin.' And, so, you see, your lordship, it's both a deserter and recruit I am and not a prisoner."
Sharpe would have enjoyed this conversation if the whole world did not seem to have started crashing down, "There's only room in this conversation for one lawyer, Foley, and it is not you. If you have any hope of becoming an American and not being turned over to the British after this war is over, you will tell me what you know of the strength and purpose of these ships."
That threat cut right through the blarney, and Sharpe discovered that he had before him an observant and shrewd man. The room had grown silent as Foley listed the ships and the flotilla's mission and the particular mission of his own vessel to escort the Confederate infantry, ending with, "And I heard the officers say they would love to watch the White House burn just as their grandfathers had."
The telegraph clattered with the alarm to the War Department and the headquarters of Major General Augur, commander of the Washington defenses. Sharpe sent his cavalry sergeant with the warning dashing to the Navy Yard. He saw the man's horse strike sparks on the cobbles as he himself ran across Lafayette Park to the White House. He found Lincoln walking down the graveled driveway with his new bodyguard following. He gave the man a hard look, and the man returned it, bold and angry. He was relieved to see Major Tappen and a squad walking just behind.
"Mr. President, I'm glad I found you. I must speak with you."
"Sharpe, when I see a general sprinting toward me, I take it he has something to say I should listen to."
"Alone, out of earshot, sir." The bodyguard tried to follow, but a look from Sharpe stopped him. "Sir, you've heard the guns across the river. The Rebels have broken through the fort barrier. I do not know how seriously, but they have cut off the Long Bridge. A British flotilla is coming up the river, and as we speak probably is trying to fight its way past Fort Washington. They are escorting a train of barges filled with Rebel infantry, which my scouts estimate to be a brigade. If they get past the forts, this city will be at their mercy. For that reason, Mr. President, you must be prepared to leave the city. My men will escort you."
Lincoln paused and looked over Sharpe's shoulder. "You know, Sharpe, every day when I come to visit you, I pass the statue of Andrew Jackson rearing there on his horse. And I tell him I wish he were here. You know how much he hated the British and the very thought of secession." He smiled to himself. "That reminds me of the first time the hotheads in Charleston talked big of secession in the '30s. Jackson didn't waffle and let the fuse burn down to this terrible war we have now like Buchanan.' No, sir. He said that if they so much as tried it, he would march into South Carolina and hang the first Rebel from the first tree with the first rope. Well, that shut them up for almost thirty years. Someday when I met my maker, I would have to explain to Jackson how I ran away. I can't imagine that he would have. And I can't imagine that I would let the old general down." He put his hand on Sharpe's shoulder. "The president of the United States will not abandon the capital of the Union."
He let the gravity of what he had said sink in. "Now, Sharpe, let's see what else we can do to avoid the awful sight of my ugly carcass being run out of town."
ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA, 7:10 AM, OCTOBER 28, 1863
Lieutenant General Ewell poured his corps through the hole punched by the Stonewall Brigade. He turned Maj. Gen. Juhal Early's division toward the Long Bridge and Maj. Gen. Edward Johnson's toward Alexandria. The sound of fighting drifting south was the signal Hill's corps, now commanded by Maj. Gen. Richard Anderson, was waiting for; he launched his corps in another assault on the forts defending Alexandria.
Brig. Gen. George H. Steuart took Johnson's lead brigades south parallel to the Potomac, ruthlessly driving all civilian refugee traffic off the road and capturing dozens of wagons supplying the forts from the vast munitions warehouses across the river in the Washington Arsenal.5 The cost was heavy; artillery from the remaining forts raked his column of Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia regiments as he hurried his men along at the double time. The fiery Marylander was in a hurry. His orders were to drive through the town and take Battery Rogers to help the British come up the river and assault Washington. He was finally out of artillery range a mile f
rom the town, but he kept up the pace. Those who dropped out were the price of getting there on time.
His men pounded into a town that was in complete panic. With its railroad yard, supply depots, warehouses, and hospitals, it was the transportation heart of the Union's war effort in the East. Now trains were pulling out of the yard, their cars packed with refugees and soldiers. Wagon trains sent to empty the warehouses and ambulances to evacuate the wounded clogged streets fast filling with people. The rumble of guns to the north and south roiled the crowds with fear. Discipline was breaking down among the rear-echelon troops who had never heard a shot fired in anger. The quartermaster officer was suddenly confronted with defending the town-without the combat troops to do it.
Steuart marched his men straight through the chaos, leaving the follow-on brigades to sort it out. The deep sound of the big coastal and naval guns at Battery Rogers came from the river. The battery was in the right place. It sat at the base of the long finger of land called Jones Point that jutted out into the Potomac, narrowing it sharply. Its guns could rake anything that came up the river to pass Alexandria. Little Nettle and Onyx had crossed the wide mouth of Hunting Creek just below Alexandria to take the battery under fire. With their four relatively small guns, they steamed to within three hundred yards of the battery's huge 15-inch Rodman and six Parrott rifles to slug it out. Not a few men on board the ships must have repeated the famous line of the British grenadier about to receive the volley of the French Guards at Fontenoy in 1745, "May the Lord make us truly thankful for what we are about to receive."6 The senior captain knew that he had no chance in such an exchange, but his primary mission was to engage the battery so that the rest of the flotilla could steam past and up to Washington. Battery Rogers was the Royal Navy's last obstacle to putting the Yankee capital under its guns.
Commodore Dunlop also had expected an expensive fight to get past the huge armament of Fort Foote, which was a mile south of Battery Rogers on the Maryland side of the river. To his amazement, they steamed past without taking a shot. He did not know that the huge guns reported to be at the fort were scheduled to be installed the following week. As they moved past the silent fort, the fight for Battery Rogers was in earnest. The ship channel would take his ships straight into that action. He could see that Onyx was already going down by the head, its bronze propeller glistening in the morning light as it was raised in the air. He did not think Nettle could last long enough to give him time to steam past.
Steuart's men were seeing more than panicked Yankees now. The townspeople were coming out to cheer them, especially when they discovered that there were three Virginia regiments in the column. After two years of harsh occupation, they were overjoyed to see their own boys striding proudly down their streets. There had been altogether too much of New York and Massachusetts's swagger. They looked for their own 17th Virginia but could not find them; they languished at that moment in the defenses of Richmond.7 But these boys would do. Lee, whose hometown was Alexandria, had been sure to find them the guides they needed to go straight to Battery Rogers. They hurried down the main thoroughfare of Washington Street until they came to Jefferson Street, where they turned east to rush down to the river. They burst through the battery's unguarded gate just as the gun crews were cheering the death of Onyx.
From Greyhound, Dunlop saw the guns go silent, then the Stars and Stripes pulled down to be replaced by Confederate colors, the Stars and Bars in the upper left corner on a field of white. Infantry swarmed the parapets to wave their hats and cheer on the British. The crews of the passing ships returned their cheers. Washington was a little more than four miles upriver. The thunder of Lee's guns bounced over the water. Victory was offering her laurels.
WASHINGTON NAVY YARD, WASHINGTON, D.C., 7:00 AM, OCTOBER 28, 1863
As the rumble of guns came closer up the river, the activity at the Navy Yard leaped into a higher gear. Unlike the huge Army supply complex at Alexandria, the Navy Yard was more like a single, well-functioning ship." Her crew, the mechanics, and naval personnel had worked well together for a long time and bonded into a single crew, though larger than any ship's company. Like a good crew, they did not panic but went about their duties with zeal and efficiency, every man proud to pull his own weight and not let the ship down.
Three gunboats pushed off down the Eastern Branch to block the river. A battery of Dahlgren eleven- and nine-inchers pointed downriver, manned by the test crews. Anyone who did not have a gun crewman's job was handed a rifle and formed into the Navy Yard battalion. The Yard intended to fight.
Lowe's balloons were filled and ready to ascend. The Yard commander ordered him up the instant he could go. Lowe noted that the wind had been blowing to the south-southeast. In twenty minutes, he, a telegrapher, and Zeppelin were floating above the city, held taut by four strong cables as the dawn's light flooded over the city. The strong, slanted autumn morning sun illuminated the panorama in gold. He thought it would have been more scenic but for the banks of rising gunpowder smoke and the moving masses on land and ships on the river. He began to dictate to the telegraph operator.
The British ships-he counted seven-were approaching the confluence of the Potomac and the Eastern Branch. Behind them trailed a mass of small boats and barges crammed with infantry. A Confederate flag waved over Battery Rogers as a ship went through its last agonies a few hundred yards away and disappeared beneath the water. Alexandria was covered by a growing pall of smoke. The forts south of it were holding out against strong attacks. North of the town, masses of Rebel infantry were encircling Fort Runyon, which covered access to the Long Bridge. Rebel guns were pounding away at the fort, which was holding its own, wreathing the area in black powder smoke. The rest of the fort system on the Virginia side still flew the Stars and Stripes. He trained his glass far to the west and swept the horizon. Where was Meade? Where was Meade?
Lowe shut his glass. "Well, Count, I think we need to let some gas out this bag and get on the ground as soon as we can." He did not realize that aboard Greyhound off the coast of Alexandria, an officer had pointed out the floating balloon and observed to Dunlop that it was probably hovering over their very objective, the Navy Yard -less than five miles away. It seemed like a promising sign to Dunlop. After losing four ships - three at Fort Washington and one at Battery Rogers - he knew his margin had shrunk, but the defenses of the city had been run and there were no other fortifications to stop him. His first objective was to bring the Arsenal under his guns and land Colonel Cooke's infantry from their small boats and barges along 6th and 7th Street docks on the Potomac. Then he would steam up the Eastern Branch and pound the Navy Yard into submission or ruins.'
SOUTH OF HUDSON, NEW YORK, 7:30 AM, OCTOBER 28, 1863
The Army of the Hudson sprang to life with reveille. Hooker had had them up two hours before dawn and fed a good breakfast. Now their columns were moving north toward contact with the enemy. The cavalry division had clattered out of its makeshift camps first, one brigade going to reinforce Custer and the other to swing wide to the east and cut off the railroad connecting Albany to Canada. Hooker aimed XII Corps for Claverack to put them in Paulet's path, while XI Corps took a paral lel route inland through the hills. There was no shortage of local scouts eager to guide them over the country roads. He had told Meagher, "Tom, your Germans might enjoy falling on someone else's flank and rear for a c ange.
Meagher had laughed at that. Yes, the Germans would enjoy erasing their shame by the very tactics that had inflicted it. "Meagher of the Sword" and the "Damned Dutch" might have seemed like the oddest of matches, the spirited and mercurial Gael and the straight-forward, stolid Teutons-but they had worked on each other in that indescribable way that made magic in a failed organization. It had helped immensely that Meagher spoke passable German and peppered his talks to them with references to the heroes of Germany. Around the campfires, Meagher would roam and speak to them of Arminius (Hermann) who destroyed the three Roman legions at the Teutoburger Wald as Der deutsche Tat fur
Europe - the German deed for Europe to free it from a tyrant. They too were heroes in Der deutsche Tat fur Amerika. In return they called him by the name Unser Mauer-Our Wall, for his thickset, powerful frame. And unlike the late Stonewall Jackson who stood like a stone wall, Unser Mauer was the kind that fell on you.9
He appealed to their love of freedom, the very thing that had driven so many of them out of their fatherland after the failed revolutions of 1848. These were not Prussian Junkers with the Army and militarism in their bones. They were the men who had supported the Frankfurt Assembly and its efforts to define German nationalism in a liberal sense. They had offered the Prussian king the German imperial throne, and he had refused it for its revolutionary contamination. So Meagher was on common grounds with these men; their fires burned with the same blue flame whether it was "freedom" in an Irish brogue or freiheit in Rhenish, Hessian, and Prussian accents.10
They were light in their step now as they pushed off through the countryside, radiant in all its fall colors, glowing now in the clear morning light. It was all he could do to keep them from singing-it was a herculean task to keep German soldiers from singing as they marched, but for him they did it.
Five miles to the north of Hudson, the commander of the 5th Michigan Cavalry, Col. Russell A. Alger, watched from the trees as a locomotive came down the tracks of the Hudson River Railroad from Albany. It slowed to turn one of the few bends in the otherwise straight line of tracks that ran along the river's edge. Ahead, the rails had been removed; the engineer never even saw it in time to put on the breaks. The engine shot off the tracks and went crashing down the shale embankment, its whistle screaming in the paralyzed engineer's hand. It fell on its side in a shriek of rending metal and slid into the river where the hot boiler met the water and exploded in a howl of escaping steam. Five cars followed it off the tracks and down the embankment, spewing red-coated men before crashing into the water. The rest skidded off the tracks to crash into each other in a jumble of smashed and overturned cars.
A Rainbow of Blood: The Union in Peril an Alternate History Page 22