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

by Peter G. Tsouras

  Milne had also expressed a strong desire to control the Chesapeake Bay and make a descent on Washington itself, a tactic that the Royal Navy had used successfully in the War of 1812. An Admiralty report on the feasibility of attacking Northern ports concluded that the “intricacy of the channels and the strength of the forts made such attacks unfeasible.” Except for his pet project to strike at Washington, Milne himself did not favor operations against ports despite an Admiralty assessment that control of New York Harbor would probably end the war. As Milne went over these points with Hall, he explained, “The object of the war can only be to cripple the enemy—that is, his trade and merchant and whaling fleets.” He realized that Great Britain could never truly destroy the North. “No object would be gained if the ports alone are to be attacked, as modern views deprecate any damage to a town. If ships are fired upon in a port the town must suffer; therefore, the shipping cannot be fired upon. This actually reserves operations to vessels at sea.”22

  Hall countered that the Union had shown no such punctilious regard for civilian lives and private property in its bombardment of Charleston and other Southern coastal towns. Milne was clear on this point. “The usages of civilized nations do no permit such depredations any longer.”

  “But, Admiral, would not such a prohibition also prevent an attack on Washington?

  Milne replied, “That will not be a problem. Once the river forts are suppressed, the city is at our mercy.”

  Hall could only look into his teacup at the rebuff.23

  Milne glided over the issue and went on. “Seizing coaling stations at Martha’s Vineyard is vital to maintaining a blockade of the North, but they do not have the advantage of fully functioning ports when the North Atlantic winters will limit communication with Halifax. Bermuda, our winter headquarters, and Nassau, are too far away to sustain a blockading fleet. For that reason, I believe we must support the Army’s plan to capture Portland. Colonel Wolseley is correct in his conclusion that for the Army to wait to receive an American attack would be fatal. A rain of blows is the only thing that will keep the Americans from conquering Canada. I am reminded of something my father said back in 1817. ‘We cannot keep Canada if the Americans declare war against us.’24

  “We must also have a more southern base on the American shore. I was thinking of the American Navy’s forward operating base at Port Royal, south of Charleston, which they have conveniently prepared. Wolseley recommended the four thousand–man garrison of Barbados as a landing force to occupy it once we seize it.

  “Like the Army in Canada, we too in the Navy have our own vulnerabilities that are best defended with offensive operations. We have no dry docks able to handle our ships of the line. We have had to depend on the American naval yards for emergency repairs in the past. Although we have a ready supply of coal in Nova Scotia, the best coal must still be brought from Wales. You know, Hall, I have another worry. Our base in Bermuda is woefully defended. My recommendations to London have fallen on deaf ears.”

  Milne stood up and began to pace before the great windows. “We must plan for the long war, Hall, if our initial strike does not bring the Americans to their senses. I fear that if that first blow fails, we will only have roused these people to even greater efforts.

  “What was feasible in 1861 is fraught with problems today. The strength of this station to undertake such an operation teeters, Hall, teeters on the jagged edge of adequacy. I cannot recommend to the Admiralty that it be attempted with the forces we have. If such an issue ever arises, I would insist on powerful reinforcement. We must have all four of our broadside ironclads and a good part of the Channel Squadron itself. We shall also require the naval siege train, the ‘Great Armament,’ that was assembled for the capture of Sebastopol.”

  He stopped pacing. “I think such a war will make us long for the French as enemies.”25

  GOVERNOR’S MANSION, INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA, 12:20 PM, SEPTEMBER 4, 1863

  Governor Oliver Morton was a happy man as he raised a glass of wine. “Gentlemen, I toast the good Sergeant Cline.” Sharpe was happy to comply, as was Col. Henry Carrington, the officer detailed to be the Copperhead catcher in Indiana. Cline’s raid on Bowles’s farm and the recovery from his barns of all the Springfield rifles stolen the last month had been a signal success in a difficult and shadowy fight against disloyalty.

  Sharpe had sent Cline immediately out from Washington to report to Colonel Carrington. A week later, several companies of Cline’s old regiment, the 3rd Indiana Cavalry, had followed. Sharpe had secured their detail to his bureau for special operations. This regiment had what was called “personality.” Unlike most Union cavalry regiments it had never had to go through long periods of training simply to learn how to ride; its volunteers were already accomplished horsemen and owned their own horses and equipment. Hooker had put them to good use when he commanded a division in an almost independent command on the Eastern Shore of Maryland earlier in the war. Always eager for intelligence, Hooker had called on the services of Lafayette Baker, who was glad to train the regiment in aspects of counterespionage. They responded with such enthusiasm that on one occasion they captured a Confederate sloop loading contraband supplies on the Chesapeake Bay, earning the title of “Hooker’s Horse Marines.”26

  With a crack unit like the 3rd at his disposal, Colonel Carrington approved Cline’s suggestion to clean out Bowles’s nest. Now Bowles was safely in prison without the protection of habeas corpus, his band was dead or captured, and his farm no longer served as a locus of subversion. Morton was in a very good mood. Sharpe thought it a good time to hand him a letter from General Meade. He requested a promotion to captain for Cline. Morton read it and huffed. “Captain! He thinks I hand out captains’ commissions like candy. Why, sir,” he said with a slight twinkle in his eye, “those are scarce as hen’s teeth.” He paused, “But I have a surplus of commissions to major at hand. While Captain Cline is a pleasant alliteration, I think Major Cline would be far more useful to our cause.”

  Sharpe had every reason to be as positive as Morton. He had set up his bureau successfully. McPhail was in Washington, assembling a staff. He had secured the detail of his “Horse Marines” for very special operations, and he had personally attended to the lancing of a festering boil in a state important to Lincoln for the sustenance of the war effort.

  On the train the next morning he let his thoughts range in a stream of consciousness, which he had come to learn could be most useful at finding new perspectives. The Washington Arsenal came to mind, that complex of weapons munitions and storehouses and assembly factories on the southern tip of Washington where the Potomac and Eastern Branch rivers met. He had been intrigued by Lincoln’s references to the coffee mill gun, and a few inquiries had revealed that all fifty the President had encouraged McClellan to buy were there. He paid a visit and found them in a shed, all neatly lined up and oiled, and looking with their hoppers very much like the coffee mills that Lincoln had named them after.

  He had put in a requisition for ten of them and had been turned down flat by Ripley. Sharpe had stormed into Ripley’s office. The old man had actually lied to his face that there were no coffee mill guns stored at the Arsenal. “I was there three days ago and saw them with my own eyes!”

  Caught in a bold-faced lie, Ripley blamed an administrative oversight. Then finding another argument, he said, “But in any case, you are not authorized such weapons in your present capacity.”

  Sharpe tossed away any pretense at courtesy. “Listen to me, you lying old fraud, I have the authority of the President of the United States, and I will not hesitate to use it to make sure you are issuing rations on a Sioux reservation in Minnesota by next week.” Ripley blinked and signed the authorization.

  Sharpe issued them to his old regiment, the 120th NY, now safely a part of the garrison of Washington. He had raised this regiment in Ulster and Greene counties back home, and no colonel in the Army retained a more paternal concern. They had bled badly at Gettysburg but
had earned a reputation for stubbornness. He was proud of them, but what was more useful at this time was that he knew they were reliable and returned his devotion. Though assigned officially to the garrison, they were considered to be at his disposal. He arranged for them to replace the military guard at the White House and to train with the coffee mill guns at one of the firing ranges. He could rely on their acting commander, Maj. John Tappen, to run a taut outfit. Tappen was a first-class fighting man and held the respect of the men. He and Sharpe had been company commanders together when they marched off to save the capital in the first days of the war in their old militia regiment, the 20th NY State Militia Regiment. It would take him a few more weeks to get the 20th swapped out with another regiment gone soft in the Washington forts. Sharpe was a man of strong and even sentimental loyalties, and these were strongest with the two regiments he had served with. In fact, when he raised the 120th, he deliberately chose that number to reflect the old 20th, even though that put the new regiment behind in seniority. Sharpe was a Hudson Valley man who trusted his Ulster and Greene County compatriots first and foremost.27

  The train jolted and brought him back to the purpose of his visit in the West. There was far more to do. He had intended to visit Major Generals Grant and Rosecrans, who commanded the two major armies in the Western Theater; brief them on his organization; and set up the military intelligence staffs that he had created for the Army of the Potomac. Unforeseen events had intervened. Grant was in New Orleans, disabled by an accident in which the vicious horse he had been riding had fallen on him. Rosecrans was also unavailable. He was marching into battle.

  BRIDGEPORT, ALABAMA, 7:00 PM, SEPTEMBER 4, 1863

  The Union troops marched across the pontoon bridge over the Tennessee River in an endless river of faded blue. There was great confidence in all ranks as the Army of the Cumberland, which had chased its opponent, the Confederate Army of Tennessee, out of Alabama and into northern Georgia. The mercurial Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans—”Old Rosy” to his troops for his good nature and his Roman nose colored red by the bottle—had run the fight out of his opposition, the sour and dyspeptic Lt. Gen. Braxton Bragg, whose only aggressive characteristic was the intensity with which he avoided a decisive battle. Bragg had systematically alienated every senior Army officer with his relentlessly nasty and blame-placing personality. Rosecrans, who was the most popular officer in the Union Army, had already beaten Bragg at the battle of Stone’s River in December 1862, a tonic to the North after the disastrous defeat at Freder-icksburg a few weeks before.

  The campaign flowed onward to what everyone could sense was coming—the decisive battle. It was understandable that Rosecrans had not had time to consider a letter dated twelve days before from a major of the 21st Illinois, despite the strong endorsements of his brigade and division commanders. Maj. James E. Callaway had been mightily impressed with the effectiveness of the innovation of mounted infantry armed with the Spencer repeating rifle and requested permission to raise a regiment of mounted infantry in his native state. A bold, intelligent, and far-thinking young lawyer, Callaway was the type of man who was attracted to the potential and thrill of the cutting edge of change. He pressed on Rosecrans, “There are already several companies organized in the state of Illinois that are anxious to enter the service as cavalry or mounted infantry.” He threw in his political connections with the state adjutant general who had “pledged all the assistance in his power.”28

  Callaway was striking while the iron was hot. Already the brigade of mounted infantry under Col. John Thomas Wilder had proven its worth in Rosecrans’s brilliant Tullahoma Campaign that June. The brigade was the brainchild of Maj. Gen. Lovell H. Rousseau, one of Rosecrans’s division commanders, who had arrived in Washington in February “all afire with zeal for mounted infantry.” Rousseau had deep credit with Lincoln. He had been, according to the President, “our first active practical Military friend in Kentucky.” Now Rousseau was telling Lincoln what he wanted and needed to hear—that only mounted infantry armed with repeaters could deal with the likes of the infamous Nathan Bedford Forrest. He said, “I propose to organize and use such a force to be furnished with Sharps rifles. If I do not make this pay at the end of three months from today, I will cheerfully relinquish the command.”

  Lincoln was impressed and wrote Rosecrans, authorizing the experiment. Rosecrans had been an early supporter of Rousseau’s idea and had requested repeating rifles in February only to receive the usual tart and disingenuous reply from Ripley’s ally as general in chief of the armies, Maj. Gen. Henry Halleck. “You are not the only general who is urgently calling for more cavalry and more cavalry arms. The supply is limited, and the demands of all cannot be satisfied. In regard to ‘revolving rifles, superior arms,’ &c., every one is issued the moment it is received.” Halleck did not mention that the repeaters had not really been ordered at all.

  Rosecrans was not one to wait on Ripley’s shifty promises; he immediately authorized Colonel Wilder to impress mounts and transform his infantry into a mounted infantry brigade. Wilder was even less willing to rely on normal requisitions. He bought Spencers with money borrowed from Indiana home state bankers, and his eager men repaid the bankers in installments. The federal government later reimbursed them. It was an effective way to get around Ripley. The Spencers soon proved their worth, whipping a Confederate brigade at Hoover’s Gap with the weight of their firepower. The enemy commander thought he was outnumbered five to one and suffered three to one losses. Thereafter, they were known as “Wilder’s Lightning Brigade.”29

  Callaway was determined to catch some of that lightning for himself, but he would have to wait. The big fight was coming, and for him it would be an old-fashioned infantryman’s brawl. The Army pressed on; it could smell the enemy’s fear.

  Tremors of despair spread in every direction from all ranks of the fleeing Army of Tennessee. They arrived in Richmond and from there to the headquarters of Robert E. Lee at Culpepper Court House in Northern Virginia. President Davis feared the worst. Yet he would not replace Bragg for whom he had a great and unaccountable regard. Something would have to be done to save Bragg from himself. As usual, in such moments of desperation, Davis turned to Robert E. Lee.

  8.

  Battle at Moelfre Bay

  OFF THE MOUTH OF THE MERSEY RIVER, LIVERPOOL BAY, 8:22 AM, SEPTEMBER 4, 1863

  Lamson had asked his chief engineer for every bit of speed the engines of the Gettysburg could generate. The word had spread through the crew that the ship was speeding west to pounce on their unsuspecting quarry. The black gangs sprang to their broad shovels with a will to feed the boilers with the good Welsh coal taken aboard at Liverpool. The fires burned hot as the sweat slicked off them in dark, greasy rivulets. Had they been galley rowers in ancient Greece, they themselves would have been the motive engines of their ship, their muscles fed with energy from bread dipped in olive oil. Now the hard coal of Wales replaced muscles to power the world.

  Moelfre Bay was just short of forty-five nautical miles from the Mersey’s mouth. Lamson could make it in three hours or a bit less. Gettysburg had taken off like an arrow, leaving Liverpool behind just as she was joined by Goshawk. As it was, Lamson had a barely fifteen-minute head start. The lookout shouted that the British ships were coming directly after them. Lamson could only conclude that they would try to snatch his prey from him. Fox had chosen Gettysburg for her speed, and that speed was the only advantage he had now. Liverpool could do between ten and twelve knots to Gettysburg’s sixteen. That meant they would arrive at Moelfre Bay in about four hours. None of this would mean a damn if North Carolina had already transferred its crew and departed. In that case, he would be following her most likely course to the Azores. There are too many ifs, he thought.1

  Two hours and fifty minutes later, the biggest “if” was answered as Gettysburg steamed into Moelfre Bay. The lookout had already reported a few ships in the bay, including a cluster near the shore. It did not take long for Lamson’s glass
to reveal that it was North Carolina and several lighters. He slammed the telescope glass shut. “Battle stations, Mr. Porter.” Most of the men were already at their stations, as eager for this prize as the captain was.

  It took the crew of the new Confederate ironclad longer to discover the fast steamer racing toward them. When they did, everyone stopped and stared. One of the officers ran up to James Bulloch. “Sir, she’s the Yankee that was in King’s Dock.”

  Bulloch was tight lipped while looking through his glass. “So she is. So she is. Well, don’t just stand there. Get the men to the sheets. Tell the engineer to give me full speed.”

  “We’ll never make it, sir. Look how fast she is approaching.”

  Bulloch turned on him, drawing a pistol. “Now, Mr. Wilson.”2

  It did not take long for the Gettysburg’s lookout to spot commotion on the decks of the ironclad. “She’s seen us, Mr. Porter. Prepare to put a shot across her bow.” Lamson had extended his telescope again; he was within range and could see men scurrying to bring sacks and boxes from the lighter tied up to the ironclad. Then the last of them jumped aboard a small craft that peeled away from North Carolina whose own smokestack was beginning to puff deep coils of black coal smoke. Gettysburg raced through the waves like a greyhound as her prey began to get under way. “Fire, when ready, Mr. Porter.”

  “Are you crazy?” The scream came from behind him. Lamson turned on his heel to see who would address the ship’s captain with such blasphemy. It was Henry Adams with a look of horror on his face. “We are still in British waters. You cannot fire on them here.”