The two shells exploded as one. The smoke blew away and when Virginia's rear turret passed the other ship a great hole could be seen in her armored side. Both rear turret guns fired into the gaping wound.
Conqueror had been mortally wounded by the four explosive shells. Smoke poured out of the jagged opening—then there was another explosion and sheets of flame appeared. Her magazine had exploded. As the American ships turned, she settled lower in the water as her bow rose up. Then the great ship sank with a mighty bubbling roar.
The two ironclads slowed to pick up the few survivors. The pride of the British navy was no more.
From the wooded hillside General Stonewall Jackson could see the rear of the enemy lines. A group of officers conferred, while a squad of soldiers passed them; wounded soldiers were being brought back on stretchers.
"Five minutes," he ordered and his tired troops dropped down in the cover of the trees. March discipline was strict and they had not touched their canteens before this. They drank deep. They checked their cartridges, then fixed their bayonets.
"And no shouting until we hit them, hear," the First Sergeant said. "Then whoop like the devils in hell. Cold steel—and lead. Go get them, tigers!"
The signal was passed and they rose, waited in the shelter of the trees. All eyes were on General Jackson when he stepped out into the sunshine and slowly drew his sword. He raised it high—then slashed it down. Silently the lines of gray clad soldiers emerged from the trees, walking forward, faster and faster—then running down the slope.
The enemy was taken completely by surprise. The First Sergeant lumbered past Jackson and slammed into the shocked group of officers—bayoneting the one with the most chicken guts on his hat. Jackson was at his side, his sword slashing down.
The attackers slammed into the rear of the defenders' line, jabbing with their bayonets. A shot was fired, then more—and a single rebel cry was echoed from a thousand throats.
In the defensive lines the firing and shrill yells could be plainly heard.
"Now it is our turn," General Robert E. Lee said. "We have been taking it for too long. Now let us give them back some of their own."
His men surged out of the trenches and over the stone and timber defenses, and fell on the enemy.
The suddenness of the charge, the brutality of the bayonets—and the rapid-firing Spencer rifles—swept the field. Clumps of men struggled and died. British soldiers tried to flee, but they had no place to go. Leaderless, their officers captured or dead, their rifles empty and fear gripping their guts, they had no choice.
They threw down their weapons and surrendered.
While out to sea the final battle was being fought.
With the Avenger in her wake the USS Virginia steamed out to face the approaching convoy. On his bridge Captain Raphael Semmes looked through his glasses at the two ironclads, Union Jacks flapping and their guns run out. Behind them the three troop transports had heaved to.
"Now I do believe that they want to fight us," Semmes said, lowering his glasses and shaking his head. "This is foolhardy indeed." He turned to his first mate, Lieutenant Sawyer. "Lower the ship's boat. Get a tablecloth and wave it at them. Tell the senior captain that if he strikes his colors he, his men—and his ship—will be spared. As a bit of a telling argument you might tell him what happened to Conqueror." The few survivors of the battle had identified their ship.
Captain Fosbery looked at the approaching boat with mixed emotions. He saw the size of the guns he was facing and knew what he was to be offered. Life—or death. But did he have a choice? He heard Lieutenant Sawyer out, was appalled at the news about Conqueror.
"All hands, you say?"
"Under a dozen survivors. And that was a single salvo. How long do you think your ship would last?"
Fosbery drew himself up. "Your consideration is appreciated. But, you see, I have very little choice. I could never live down the disgrace of surrendering, without firing a shot, in my first encounter with the enemy. The disgrace..."
"Your death, the death of your crew. There are things worse than disgrace."
"To a colonial, perhaps," Fosbery snapped. "But not to a gentleman. Remove yourself from my ship, sir. You have your answer."
"Mighty touchy about their honor, aren't they?" Captain Semmes said when Sawyer had reported back to him on the bridge. "Make a signal to the Virginia. Surrender refused. I am firing high to disable the guns not sink the ship. Good luck."
The three troop ships pulled away as the two American ironclads steamed down on their defenders.
It was not a battle but deliberate slaughter. The British shells bounced off the heavier American armor.
The American guns battered them into twisted ruin. And they had fired high. Pounded and torn—but still afloat—the British ironclads struck their colors at last.
Captain Fosbery's honor was intact.
He was also dead.
Dictator stayed by the battered British ironclads while the Virginia went after the troop ships that had turned tail when the battle had started. The troops aboard would march ashore and straight into prison camps.
It had been a very close-run thing, but the British attack had failed.
Ireland was no longer a part of Great Britain. Still not a country in her own right. There was still a long road to travel before she reached that happy day.
VICTORY!
For Henry, Lord Blessington, it was very obvious that something very disturbing was happening in Ireland. For three long days he had watched and waited, listened to what was being said by the servants and tried to separate rumor from fact. This was very difficult to do. From the upper windows of Trim Castle he had seen soldiers marching north. A squadron of cavalry galloped past on the second day, the same day that he had heard cannon booming in the distance. On the third day he had sent his manager riding into Drogheda to find out what he could. The man was Irish, but he was reliable. At least for the present. Now he had returned and stood before him, shaking, gripped by some strong emotion. Riley was a man of little imagination and Blessington had never seen him like this, standing here in the study and twisting his hat, unspeaking.
"Sit down man, sit down and compose yourself," Blessington said. "And drink this." He pushed a beaker of brandy across the table, sat down himself in the big armchair with his back to window. "Now tell me what you found out."
Riley drank too fast and had an immense coughing fit. He dried his mouth and face with a bandana from his sleeve, then rooted in his jacket pocket for the little leather-bound book that he always carried. The coughing seemed to have broken his silence.
"I made notes, your lordship. Of what people told me. I went to the town clerk and checked with him. He had some telegrams there and he let me look at them. It seems that American soldiers have seized Dublin by force. They are everywhere."
"Taken Dublin? How—and how did they get here?"
"Who can tell? Oh, the stories I heard, there is enough talk all right. Some said they came by sea, in an immense fleet. Someone said he had seen them with his own eyes, landing in their thousands, by boat and barge down the Royal Canal and the Liffey. But one thing is certain, and all I heard agreed on that, they are here and a great number of them indeed. Wounded too, and in the hospitals where there was talk of a great battle in the Curragh."
"There would indeed be a conflict there." Blessington almost said "We have" but quickly corrected himself. "There must be at least ten thousand troops stationed there. That would be a battle!"
"Indeed, sir, and I am sure that there was. And there were a lot of people who also seemed to believe that the Americans came by train, had seen them doing it."
"Yes—of course, just what they would do. I can believe that. I have been in America and they are the great ones with their trains." He stood and tapped the framed map on the wall. It had castles and heraldry that picked out the noble seats of Ireland, yet behind all the shields and coats of arms it was still visible as a map. "They landed here at Gal
way City, I'll warrant. Beat down the local resistance, whatever there was of it, then took the trains to Dublin. What of the rest of Ireland?" he asked, turning back towards Riley. "What did you hear?"
"Saw, your lordship. A big announcement hung on the post office gate. I copied it here, just the gist if it, the best that I could, people were righting to get close to it and read it. Cork taken, it said, and all of the south of Ireland in the Liberators' hands. That's what they call themselves now, the Liberators."
"They would, wouldn't they?" he said bitterly. "But what of Belfast?"
"Fierce fighting there, that is what it said. But Belfast subdued, Ulster surrendered, Ireland one and indivisible and free. Martial law, with a dusk-to-dawn curfew, to be lifted as soon as the dissident elements are subdued. Those aren't my words, I copied what I saw."
"Yes, Riley, thank you. An excellent job." Blessington dismissed the man with a flick of his hand and turned back to the map. "Trains," he muttered to himself. It was so easy when you thought about it. There were no troops to speak of in the west of Ireland. None that he had ever seen. The invaders could land wherever they pleased there, to be greeted by rebels no doubt. Limerick to Cork. Galway to Dublin. Londonderry to Belfast—and no easy thing for them in the north, I'll warrant. There are loyal people there. Not like the south of Ireland. A viper's nest of Fenians. He turned away from the map as the door to the study opened.
"I saw Riley leaving," Lady Sarah Blessington said. "Did he find out about the... troubles?"
"He did indeed. The troubles, as you see fit to call them, are a bloody invasion and a bloody war!" He knew that his wife disliked vulgarity and it gave him perverse pleasure to use it at this time. She was English by birth, very distantly related to the Queen, as she was fond of reminding him. Her eyes widened slightly, but she refused to be dragged into an argument.
"War?"
"The Americans, it seems, are the new masters of Ireland. While our troops are mucking about in Mexico, plotting some piddling invasion, the Americans have jumped the gun and are here. Now."
"Our troops?" Sarah asked, stressing slightly the our.
Henry turned, fists clenched, to stare unseeingly out of the window. He was part of the Protestant landed gentry, one of the titled few in a sea of Catholics. Irish-born and reared, except for the few years at Cambridge, he was neither all of one nor part the other. Sarah had no problems. English-born, she carried that country locked into her bosom. But what about him? Where did he stand? What of his future?
Patrick Riley, manager of the estates of Trim Castle, had no such problem of identity. He had left the castle and walked to the row of tied cottages by the gatehouse. The door to his house opened directly into the kitchen. Peter, the Blessington butler, was waiting for him there. Seamus, the head groom, as well. Riley nodded at them and took down the stone crock and glasses for them all. Poured out good measures of whisky.
"Here's to Ireland—free at last," he said as he raised his glass.
" 'Tis true, then," Peter said.
"True as I'm sitting before you and drinking from this glass."
"Not just rumors?" Seamus asked, always the suspicious one.
"Read it in the paper yourself," he said, as he pulled a copy of the Irish Times from his tailcoat pocket and slammed it onto the table. The black letters of the headline leaped out at them:
THE LIBERATION OF IRELAND
"Glory be to God," Peter said in a hushed voice, brushing the back of his hand across the newspaper, as delicately as he would a lover's cheek.
"I gave his lordship a word or two about what was happening. But this paper is mine, for my children and their children's children," Riley said. "History has been made this day."
"It has indeed," Peter agreed, bending over to read the blessed words.
General William Tecumseh Sherman was also admiring the bold headline in the Irish Times. The first issue of the paper that had been published since the army had reached Dublin. Through the open window he could hear the cheering of the crowd outside in Sackville Street. He had moved his headquarters to the General Post Office here as soon as the telegraph wires had been repaired; all of them seemed to have terminated here. One of his aides had hung his big battleflag outside on the pole next to the main entrance. Now the street was packed solid with people come to see the flag and to cheer the liberating army.
"You are the man of the hour, General," General Francis Meagher said as he came through the door.
"That credit belongs to you and your men in the Irish Brigade. First in battle, first in peace. We should hang an Irish flag up next to the stars and stripes."
"We would if we could—but we don't have one. Yet. I'm thinking that that will be the first order of business. But I'll be forgetting my head next. The telegraph to Limerick is working again. The troop ship Memphis Star has finished loading and is just waiting for the message."
"Fine. Here it is. Addressed to President Lincoln." He handed it to an orderly who hurried away. "The Memphis Star is the fastest ship we have. Got a load of British prisoners below decks. Her captain assured me that she'll do twenty-one knots all the way to Halifax, Nova Scotia—that's where the new cable to the United States ends. That message will be in the President's hands just as soon as the ship docks there."
Meagher shook his head. "It is a miracle of modern telegraphic communication. It is a brand new world that we live in."
The Cabinet was meeting when Hay brought the telegram to the President and laid it on the table before him.
"The message from General Sherman that you have been waiting for, Mr. President."
Lincoln found his fingers trembling slightly when he put his glasses on. But his voice was firm as he read the telegraph message aloud.
" 'It is with the greatest pleasure that I inform you that our forces in the field in Ireland have achieved success on every front. The landings in Limerick and Galway were relatively unopposed, so that the attacks on Dublin and Cork went as planned. There was fierce resistance from British troops defending Dublin, but their defeat was the order of the day. The same might be said of Cork as well. The joint operation with the Navy was most successful in all the cities. However the defenders of Belfast, and the counter-attacking forces in the north, put up a strong resistance. They were in the end overwhelmed and defeated.
" 'I have declared martial law until the garrisons and pockets of enemy troops we bypassed in our swift attack are neutralized. They pose no real threat to peace since they are few in number and disorganized. I can therefore truthfully state that we have prevailed by might of arms. Ireland is free.' It is signed General William Tecumseh Sherman."
"I make it five days from beginning to end," the Secretary of War said. "History has seen a Forty Years' War, as well as other conflicts both longer and shorter. But, gentlemen, I don't think history has ever seen a war before that began and ended in less than a week. This is a new kind of war, just as General Sherman told us. A lightning war where the enemy is overwhelmed—even as they are discovering that they are being attacked. Ireland is taken, the usurper defeated, the deed done."
"For that we are most grateful," Lincoln said wearily. "I, for one, am tired of war no matter how swiftly executed, how rapidly won. Perhaps now our British cousins will read the handwriting on the wall and will begin to understand. The warring is done. We look only to peace in the future. My fondest wish is that they will now withdraw their troops from this hemisphere and join us in looking forward to a peaceful future."
"This is impossible!" Queen Victoria shrieked, her face flaming red under her white face powder. "You stand before Us and say that We are no longer Queen of Ireland?"
Lord Palmerston bent his head in a sorrowful bow. "That, Your Majesty, appears to be the case. We have had the wired report from the Conqueror about her investigations of Cork. In Northern Ireland the Scots troops have fought a successful retreat and have returned with the news that Belfast is taken as well. In addition there is the telegram from Holyhead
that the mail ship from Kingstown has arrived on schedule, for the first time in a week. There were only British passengers aboard, and the vessel was short-handed since only British sailors remained on her crew. However she did carry copies of an Irish newspaper, which, in its entirety, is being telegraphed here even as we speak." He straightened up and proffered a handful of telegraph papers. "These are the first to arrive. They speak in some detail of the defeat of our forces and the jubilation of the natives at what is referred to as the removal of the English yoke..."
Palmerston ceased speaking when he realized that the Queen was no longer listening. She was wailing, half-fainting, crying into the kerchief held by one of the circle of ladies-in-waiting who attended her. Murmuring his regrets Lord Palmerston bowed his way out.
"A damn' black day indeed!" he said as the door closed behind him. He shoved the papers into his pocket as he turned to leave the palace.
"Damnation!" he shouted at the trembling royal servants. "This is not the end, I swear it is not—but it is the beginning! It will end only when those Americans are destroyed—destroyed to the last man! We were caught by surprise, that is all. This evil shall not prevail."
A NEW IRELAND IS BORN
It was Sunday, the first Sunday since the brief battle for Ireland had ended with victory for the American troops. Church bells sounded throughout the land and in many churches prayers of thanks were given, and a warm welcome extended to the soldiers who came to attend services. Smiles and handshakes and, even better, in the public houses there was drink all around and no mention of payment expected from these brave men from across the sea.
In the south.
In the north of Ireland, in Belfast and in the cities that the Americans had marched through, the Catholics went to mass in silence, not even glancing at each other as they trod the rain-slick streets. Not until they were inside, and the church doors locked, did they dare speak, voices raised in questions that had no answers.
Stars And Stripes In Peril Page 31