Britannia's Fist: From Civil War to World War: An Alternate History

by Peter G. Tsouras

  Adams rolled his eyes.

  “Well, to business, Captain,” Dudley said as he put down his cup. “My agents report round-the-clock work on the North Carolina. The work crews are happy for the extra pay and the fat bonus promised by Laird. Bulloch himself haunts the ship as if his presence will speed its completion. He’s scared that the ambassador has put so much pressure on the British government that even his friends in high places will not be able to save him. Their only chance to escape is to try the same ploy as they did with the Alabama and pretend that they are going out only for a trial run. I would not believe that would work twice if I did not know how blindness suddenly afflicts British officials where the rebels are concerned.

  “He is also very afraid of you, Captain. My agents tell me his men have been asking about you everywhere.”

  “Well, Mr. Dudley, I am sent here to provoke just that reaction from him.”

  “But, Captain,” Dudley barely stopped himself from calling Lamson a young man, “fear must be carefully applied to be useful. Too much fear will make him become too watchful and circumspect. Too little fear and he may just become careless enough to make mistakes.”

  “That is just what I intend to do, sir, calm the man enough so that he takes an eye off the weather gauge. Our forty-eight hours in port are just about up; I have notified the Custom House that we shall be departing on the afternoon tide. Our pilot shall be here shortly. I shall wait beyond the three-mile limit. But I shall have only a small chance to catch him unless I receive word from you of his departure. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, I will have a dispatch boat ready to receive a signal the moment North Carolina leaves Albert Dock.”17

  FOREIGN MINISTRY, LONDON, 10:38 PM, SEPTEMBER 3, 1863

  Russell was reading Layard’s account of his discussion with Solicitor General Roundell Palmer of the day before. Palmer had suggested that the Liverpool Custom House detain the ships temporarily while proof was gathered of their ultimate destination. Russell immediately telegraphed Layard, “I quite agree in the course suggested by Roundell Palmer. I have made up my mind that the vessels ought to be stopped in order to test the law and prevent a great scandal.” He then ordered Layard to write to the Treasury to advise that the vessels be prevented from leaving the port of Liverpool till satisfactory evidence had been given of their destination. Layard waited until late that afternoon to write to the Treasury, ensuring that the letter would not be delivered until the following day.

  Before he did that, he had slipped away for a few moments. As he returned to write the letter, an anonymous party was sending a telegram to Bulloch. It read: “Flee! There is no more time.”

  USS GETTYSBURG, OFF LIVERPOOL IN THE IRISH SEA, LATE AFTERNOON, SEPTEMBER 3, 1863

  To Lamson’s distress, Liverpool had followed Gettysburg out of port the day before and had pointedly followed her as she attempted to prowl across the Mersey’s mouth. The Royal Navy did not appreciate such an overtly predatory statement so close to the lion’s den and was making that known.

  “Mr. Porter, set a course for Dublin. We have to put distance between us to make him think we’ve departed these waters. Dudley has not notified us of North Carolina’s escape. If they have not left now, they can hardly leave at night if they are to maintain the pretense of sea trials. We shall return in the morning to catch her if she comes out.”18

  CSS NORTH CAROLINA, MERSEY RIVER, ON THE MORNING TIDE, SEPTEMBER 4, 1863

  Bulloch felt the power of the engines through the deck as North Carolina followed the tug out through the river’s fast-running current into the Irish Sea. The tug was the normal accompaniment for a trial run in case the ship had to be helped back into the harbor. His bags were stored in the captain’s cabin. It had not been hard to conclude that should he succeed in slipping the ram out of British waters, he would surely have outworn his welcome in that country. He was not thinking of that now. They would soon cross out of British territorial waters and be beyond the reach of British law. There was not a hint of alarm, no fast harbor craft speeding after to overtake him. It was a normal morning tide on the swift Mersey.

  There was the excitement of knowing that it would be his command. The Alabama had been originally promised to him, but his value in building ships for the young Confederate Navy was deemed more important. As a man more dedicated to the success of his country than his own glory, he had not complained.

  There was only momentary relief when the ram passed out of British jurisdiction because he knew that was not the end of his problems. He still had his crew to pick up in Moelfre Bay, and that would put him right back in British waters. He would have to be quick about it.19

  USS GETTYSBURG, IN THE IRISH SEA, EARLY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 4, 1863

  “Damn that ship!” Lamson exclaimed. Yesterday he had had Gettysburg stretch her legs to lose Liverpool as night fell across the Irish Sea. He had thought to swing wide to the north and come down to resume his station off the Mersey’s mouth in time for the North Carolina to come out on the morning tide, if she were coming. Unfortunately, the British frigate was across Gettysburg’s path that morning as well. “That captain has brains, Mr. Porter. He’s anticipated me and has turned up like the proverbial bad penny. Touché, Captain!” he said as he touched the brim of his cap in the direction of Liverpool.

  He was more distressed than he let on. The Mersey’s mouth was filled with ships leaving Liverpool on the morning tide. The frigate would ensure that he did not sail among them easily or at all.

  The last ship out was a dispatch boat that made straight for Gettysburg. When it came up alongside, Lamson could see Dudley on deck. He shouted across, “She’s flown on the early tide. Gone to Moelfre Bay off Anglesey Island to pick up her crew. Moelfre Bay!”20

  7.

  French Lick to Halifax

  THE BOWLES FARM, FRENCH LICK, INDIANA, 8:23 AM, SEPTEMBER 3, 1863

  The Confederate cavalry company trotted into William Bowles’s farmyard with a jaunty air. The commander saluted a Confederate major who stood on the porch with a delighted Bowles. The major said, “As I told you, Mr. Bowles, the Confederacy has not forgotten its friends.”

  “Wonderful, wonderful, Major Parker. Our people will be heartened to know that the revolution will have such fine support,” Bowles replied.

  The assorted Union deserters, escaped Confederate prisoners, and Copperhead toughs who made Bowles’s farm their headquarters had filled the yard to enjoy the sight of their visitors. The only one not smiling was Big Jim Smoke, who stood in the back of the crowd cradling a shotgun in his arm. He didn’t like it, not one bit.

  “This feller Parker comes waltzing in a week ago,” he thought suspiciously, with an altogether too merry young Irishman as an aide, to announce that he had been sent to pick up the pieces after Morgan had got himself and most of his brigade caught.

  Sergeant Cline was playing the part of Major Parker coolly. He had worn Confederate gray so often and with such believability that it was second nature. He always enjoyed these performances, the mark of a consummate actor. His audiences never failed to appreciate his performance. His supporting actor, young Martin Hogan, played his part with Gaelic style.

  Cline took off his hat with a chivalrous flourish to Bowles. It was the signal to the men from his 3rd Indiana Cavalry who were in disguise as well. Forty Colt revolvers whipped out of their holsters to point at Bowles’s guests. The muzzle of Cline’s pistol touched the wild white hair on the side of Bowles’ head. “You, sir, are my prisoner. I arrest you in the name of the United States.”

  The troopers did not see Big Jim as he raised his shotgun and fired. It sprayed into the gray cavalry; two men fell and a blinded horse went screaming and kicking through the ranks. Everyone started shooting. Bowles snarled and pulled his own pistol, but Cline struck him across the face with his Colt, and he fell into the yard. Another man was on him, but Hogan shot him in the face. The rest of Bowles’s men on the porch were soon down, too.1

  The close-quar
ters gunfight had been as deadly as it was short. Despite Smoke’s surprise, the troopers had had the drop on the Bowles’s gang and shot them to pieces before many of them could fire back. The survivors had thrown up their arms or fled through the yard, pursued by the troopers not overly concerned to take prisoners. Big Jim’s position in the back of the crowd had saved him from the hail of lead. He threw away his empty weapon and was the first to turn and run. When he heard a horse thundering behind him, he sidestepped to let the trooper ride past, drew his pistol, and shot the man in the back. The dead man slumped in the saddle as Big Jim caught up to the horse, pulled the body off in one powerful leap, and threw himself on the saddle. He spurred the horse across the nearby field and into the woods beyond.2

  Looking about the bloody, corpse-strewn yard, Cline thought to himself that a lot had happened since he had reported to Sharpe last month in Washington.

  BRITISH ARMY HEADQUARTERS, MONTREAL, CANADA, 10:20 AM, SEPTEMBER 3, 1863

  Wolseley read the letter from Captain Hancock with great interest. As they had suspected, their American dinner companion in Washington had not been a simple colonel of infantry.

  My sources report that Sharpe was the officer charged with intelligence matters in the Army of the Potomac. He has been promoted to Brigadier since our meeting and is in charge of a new organization, the Central Information Bureau. He has been introduced around the government in Washington by the President himself. We know little more than this.

  It was not difficult to surmise that Sharpe was carrying on his intelligence duties at a higher level. The extraordinary endorsement by Lincoln did more than indicate that Sharpe had the President’s favor and backing. The chief of staff to whom Wolseley reported, Col. E. R. Wetherall, was highly regarded in the British Army. Wetherall justified that opinion when he quickly recognized Wolseley’s abilities and gave him a wide-ranging planning charter. Wolseley himself was an experienced staff officer, despite his impressive combat record, and he was aware of the importance of intelligence. Unfortunately, those resources were meager in his staff. After the crisis of the Trent Affair had passed, Wolseley and the rest of the Trent reinforcements had settled down into what was considered, along with the Greek island of Corfu, to be the best posting in the British Army.

  Wetherall’s and Wolseley’s posting to British North America had been no accident. The War Office did not have an overwhelming faith in the commander in chief, North America, Lt. Gen. Sir William Fenwick Williams, and had therefore provided him with a superlative staff during the Trent Affair. Williams was one of those Victorian generals of legend. During the Crimean War, he had been appointed as the British commissioner to the Turkish Army in Anatolia and had effectively commanded their Field Army in the heroic defense of Kars. His spirited defense, though it had ultimately ended in capitulation due to cold, cholera, and starvation, was a bright spot in Britain’s conduct of the war, and Crown and country were eager to shower honors on him. In 1859, at the age of fifty-nine, he had been offered the comfortable and quiet post in British North America. It had become apparent that however gifted Williams had been in a closely confined siege operation, he did not have the grasp to handle a command that stretched across half a continent.3

  Had the Trent Affair spiraled into war, it had been the intention of the War Office to replace Williams with another commander, most likely Maj. Gen. Hope Grant, Wolseley’s commander and patron in the Sepoy Mutiny and punitive expedition to China. Wolseley took some comfort that whatever Williams’s failure as a theater commander, the old man was combative and likely to approve a bold, aggressive defense planned by his subordinates.

  The Army’s decision that Williams should have a first-rate staff was not particularly paralleled by the choice of subordinate commanders in Wolseley’s opinion. Maj. Gen. Sir Hastings Doyle, KCMG, commanded the British garrison in Halifax was well thought of, but he had reservations about Maj. Gen. Lord Frederick Paulet, a Coldstream Guardsman, who brought over the two guards battalions and was slated for a major command in wartime. It was another example of senior command reserved for the guards. Of the two officers designated for division command, Maj. Gen. Hon. James Lindsay was dependable, but Maj. Gen. George T. C. Napier was clearly incompetent. How Wolseley wished his mentor, Hope Grant, could have been sent over.

  Wolseley’s trip to Washington and his subsequent return to Canada through Portland convinced him to remedy the Army’s inability to collect intelligence on the Americans. At the very least, it would be an excellent professional exercise for the staff. He sent agents to glean every bit of valuable information on the railroad network throughout Maine as well as detailed information on Portland and its defenses, particularly the harbor forts. Already he had obtained a comprehensive picture.

  His new interest had shocked his staff out of their preoccupation with hunting, fishing, and the very pretty Canadian girls. Wolseley himself remembered a golden-haired girl in Kingston, Upper Canada, with Shakespeare’s “war of red and white in her cheeks,” but that was best put aside for now. They had to do some work for a change. They were a good lot and had done a remarkable job in December 1861 of distributing the arriving British reinforcements across Canada in the depths of a hard winter. Compared to the logistics debacle of the Crimean War, the staff had done wonders in making sure every man was properly equipped with cold-weather gear and transport, to include snowshoes, and with ample food and medical care. Almost eleven thousand troops had been spread out in small garrisons to reinforce the seven thousand regulars already stationed in the Canadas and the Maritimes.4

  Wolseley realized that the entire regular garrison was smaller than any of Lee’s three corps at Gettysburg and consisted of thirteen battalions of infantry, twelve batteries of field artillery, seven batteries of garrison artillery, three companies of Royal Engineers, and two battalions of military trains. These units would barely constitute two normal British divisions, numbering a little over nineteen thousand men in all, to include staff corps. They were all first rate.5 The government had wanted the quality of the reinforcement to be taken into account in American diplomatic calculations, which was why the two guards battalions—the 1st Battalion, Grenadier Guards, and the 2nd Battalion Scots Fusilier Guards—were included. The legendary Rifle Brigade had also sent its 1st Battalion.

  Most of the regiments had their share of North American battle honors. The oldest was the Grenadier Guards, which had been sent to Virginia in 1677 to put down Bacon’s Rebellion.

  British Army battalions, often referred to as imperial battalions to distinguish them from colonial units, were unparalleled fighting formations, known for their obstinacy in battle often to the point of suicide. They had a sense of themselves based on the regimental system that gave them a wonderful resilience and cohesiveness. Leavened with Crimean War, Great Mutiny, and China expedition veterans, they knew the bayonet end of their business better than another other army in the world.

  “Battalion” was not necessarily synonymous with “regiment.” A regiment was the permanent organization that was organized into the tactical formation of a battalion with ten companies. Most regiments had only one battalion, though there were a number of exceptions when there were two or more battalions. The guards regiments all had more than one battalion. Battalions usually numbered about 1,000 men on paper, but actual strength usually varied from 800 to 950.

  British regiments were also famous for their unique personalities and were often known by their nicknames. The 1st Battalion, Grenadier Guards, were known as “the Dandies,” no doubt from their parade functions in London and the fact that as all the guards, they were selected for height to make a grander appearance. More often nicknames were born in battle. The famous red coat of the British soldier was actually scarlet and a new and more practical tunic cut adopted as one of Crimean War reforms. Different facings distinguished the various regiments. Black trousers and a black shako completed his uniform. The only exception to scarlet was the rifle green and black of the rifle
battalions. It was Richard Sharpe, hero of the 95th Rifles—later 1st Battalion, the Rifle Brigade—of whom Wolseley spoke in his dinner conversation with George H. Sharpe.

  The British soldier was also armed with the superb .577 caliber muzzle-loading Enfield rifle of the 1853 pattern, only rivaled by the American Springfield rifle. Ironically, the Enfield rifle was produced on American machinery and according to the “American method” of mass production.6

  The Royal Artillery had also taken the lead in introducing a breakthrough artillery piece. The field artillery batteries had come equipped with the new breech-loading Armstrong guns. However, the average gunner and his officer could not deal with such a fundamental change and complained of having to rewrite the venerable gun drill “because the gun loaded at the wrong end. In the bloom of the industrial age, the British artillery was not yet prepared for the maintenance of delicate machinery.”7

  The Trent Affair had also given some impetus to the creation of an effective Canadian militia. The Canadians shared the mother country’s outrage over the Trent Affair, but many English-speaking Canadians had a deeper dislike for the United States than for the imperial smugness of the British. Many were the descendents of the one hundred thousand American Loyalists who either refused to live in the new republic or had been “encouraged” to emigrate after the Revolution. They also continued to describe Americans as unsophisticated braggarts, using the epithet they shared with the British—“Brother Jonathan.”

  The outbreak of the Civil War followed by the Trent Affair had resulted in an initial burst of enthusiasm for defense by the provincial Canadian authorities. The new Volunteer Militia was quickly recruited up to its authorized strength and divided into small, organized units that drilled together on a regular basis. By 1862, there were thirty-four troops of horse, twenty-seven artillery batteries, 182 companies of rifles, and five companies of engineers. A Sedentary Militia, which theoretically included every adult male between the ages of eighteen and sixty years old, was also available, but they were not drilled and did not have weapons.8