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

by Peter G. Tsouras

  “Fire!” The forward XI-inch pivot gun snapped back as the round shot flew across the leaden waters of the bay to splash only a few yards from North Carolina’s bow. She did not stop.

  “Mr. Adams, I will not be addressed so on my own quarterdeck. Kindly go below.” He turned to Mr. Porter and said, “Aim for their steering gear.” Adams did not go below. He stayed on deck and gibbered something about British territorial waters. When they closed to eight hundred yards, the pivot gun captain shouted, “Fire!’ The great bottle-shaped gun sprang back again with a roar. The first shell struck just behind the stern and went skipping off across the water. The next struck the stern. It penetrated the three-and-a-half-inch armor plate there and exploded inside, but the ironclad was building up a head of steam, attempting to get out to sea. Gettysburg closed to four hundred yards and sent a steady stream of XI-inch shells from all her guns that could bear into North Carolina. They smashed the steering, punched through the armored hull in several places to explode inside, and sent the foremast crashing over the side. The ram’s armor was no protection against Admiral Dahlgren’s guns at full charge. Her trial-run crew was not up to the pounding; nor was the rest of the men, who had been taken on only the hour before and were still unfamiliar with the ship. They huddled belowdecks. The engineer and his crew had shut down the engine.

  “Oh, dear God. Lamson, do you realize what you’ve done?” Adams shouted.

  “Indeed, I do, Mr. Adams. I have obeyed my orders to prevent this ship from escaping to become another Alabama. Those orders were further seconded by Mr. Seward, if I remember your father’s statement. Now get below, or keep silent.” Adams leaned against the railing and put his face in his hands. Porter signaled to a Marine to escort Adams below.3

  On the ram, Bulloch recognized the inevitable as the Gettysburg closed. All his dreams and efforts had been smashed by the XI-inch Dahlgrens. There was at least one more thing he could do. He went below to his cabin and threw open his sea chest. He drew out the gray uniform of a Confederate States Navy officer and caressed its fine wool and gilt buttons before changing into it. Next, he drew from the chest a dress sword presented to him by George Trenholm. He looked himself over in the mirror and was satisfied. At least, I will command this ship at her last, he thought. There was one more item in the chest. He held it reverently to his chest, then tucked it under his arm, and climbed to the deck.4

  He found it almost deserted. He climbed to the quarterdeck and found the halyard from which the British merchant colors flew. He hauled them down.

  Lamson was barely a hundred yards away and shouted the command to cease firing. The men saw the British colors come down and raised a cheer. “Do you strike, sir?” Lamson shouted through a megaphone.

  Bulloch bellowed across the water, “No! By God, sir, the Confederate States Ship North Carolina has not struck!” He hoisted the Confederate naval ensign to the top of its staff. Then he walked over to the rail and shook his fist, “Now, sir! Do your worst!”

  Gettysburg’s larboard battery thundered, sending three more shells through the ironclad’s plate to explode inside the empty casemate. “Prepare to board!” Lamson shouted. Lamson was drawing his sword when Adams, who had broken away from his escort, grabbed his arm. “You dare, sir?” the captain asked as he pulled back his arm.

  “Don’t you see? Don’t you see? We are saved!”

  “What the hell do you mean, Mr. Adams?”

  Henry Adams was beside himself with excitement. “When he raised that rebel rag, he removed the protection of British sovereignty from his ship. He became a belligerent, liable to be attacked at any time or place, and revealed that was his intention all the time.”5

  Lamson blinked. All well and good, but he had more to do now than think about the rights of belligerents as Gettysburg came alongside North Carolina. Grappling hooks flew over the narrowing space until the hulls ground against each other. Lamson, sword and pistol in hand, led the boarding party of Marines and sailors over the side. Other than the angry man on the captain’s quarterdeck, the upper decks of the ship were empty save for a pool of blood or two. The men fanned out as Lamson led a party up to the quarterdeck. He approached Bulloch, who stood there gloriously alone.

  Lamson holstered his pistol and touched his fingers to his cap brim. “You are my prisoner, sir.”

  Bulloch bowed slightly and returned the salute. “I see that the fortunes of war regretfully have made that so, Captain.” He slowly drew his sword and handed it hilt first to Lamson. The Confederate colors fluttered down the halyard at the same time and fell at his feet.

  Lamson turned to the ensign that had come aboard with him. “Mr. Henderson, escort Captain…” he looked at Bulloch and said, “I do not believe I know your name, Captain.”

  “The name is Bulloch, sir, Capt. James Dunwoody Bulloch, Confederate States Navy.”6

  “Mr. Henderson, escort Captain Bulloch to my cabin and see that he is comfortable. Ask Mr. Adams to join me here.”

  Adams found Lamson searching through papers in Bulloch’s cabin. Lamson looked up. Any anger he may have felt for Adams’s hysteria on deck had evaporated in the excitement of what he had found. “Look at these,” he said and spread papers across the table. His purpose was everywhere; there was even preprinted official stationary for the CSS North Carolina.7

  “I saw at least three things on the way here, Captain, that were stamped or carved with the ship’s name. Proof! Russell wants endless proofs. We can start with sending him the ships’ bell.” Adams pulled up a chair and started to go over the papers, “I will be awhile, but I think these will nail the British to the wall.”

  Lamson left him to his work and went back on deck. The ironclad’s crew had been brought up and was under guard. There were a half dozen wounded men being attended by their own surgeon and the Gettysburg’s. Porter was examining the papers of the crew. “These papers confirm that almost every man here is a British subject. If they weren’t all Royal Navy, I’d be much surprised.”

  “They’re nothing but a liability, Mr. Porter. Put them in the ship’s boats and let them row ashore, but winnow out any of Captain’s Bulloch’s Confederates. Have the engineer report to me as well. Tell him I want to know the condition of this ship’s engines and whether she has the coal to get to an American port. We may put a prize crew in her yet. It would be grand, Mr. Porter, to not only take this enemy but take her home as well.”

  “Aye, sir, grand indeed.”

  “Waste no time, Mr. Porter. We don’t have much before our British friends arrive. I want them to find this bay empty of us.” Lamson allowed himself twenty minutes to inspect the casemated gun deck and one of the turrets. The gun deck was a shambles of smashed and splintered teak and twisted armor plates. He carefully examined the damage; the Navy would be eager to hear what the Dahlgren guns could do to the best British armor plate. The turret was even more interesting, being built on a different principle than Mr. Ericsson’s central moving spindle. There was much to learn, but so little time. A Marine found him and said that Porter requested his presence on deck.

  When Lamson joined him, Porter pointed east. “Liverpool, Captain, with Goshawk fifteen minutes behind. Faster than we thought.”

  “Get Mr. Adams back on board Gettysburg. Have the engineer report to me. We will not be taking this ship home as a prize. But I won’t give her back so that they can hand her over to the Confederacy. We will sink her right here.”

  Liverpool slowed warily as she approached the two ships. Her captain noticed that there was no smoke coming from the ironclad but plenty rising from the American ship. She would be able to leap forward at a moment’s notice. He also noticed that the American ship moved to keep herself between the ram and Liverpool. The wreckage of an engagement aboard the ironclad was also impossible to miss, as were the American colors. The captain was in a quandary for his orders did not cover such an eventuality. The day before he had been ordered to observe and follow the American ship as long as she was in
British waters. This morning, Goshawk had brought the urgent new orders—to pursue and seize the escaped Laird Brothers ram.8

  He ordered beat to quarters. Gettysburg’s gun crews stood their posts in silence as they watched the British guns run out. They knew that Gettysburg’s broadside had only four guns as opposed to the almost twenty British guns. The Liverpool was only wood, but Gettysburg’s iron hull was vulnerable as well and its side-wheels even more so.

  A boat came over from Liverpool. The captain himself climbed the ladder to be met by hastily assembled Marines and a petty officer to pipe him aboard. He tipped his hat to the colors and stepped forward to meet Lamson. He bowed and then saluted. Lamson returned the courtesies. Capt. Rowley Lambert was about forty, spare as a beanpole, and affected all the Royal Navy’s disdain for the upstart U.S. Navy. He was especially disdainful of the mere youth that said he was the captain of this warship.

  For a moment he looked around at the huge soda bottle–shaped Dahlgrens. He knew their reputation as the finest smoothbores in the world. He also knew that his thirty-nine guns, even as old as they were, could shred Gettysburg before she could get off many shots. He refused Lamson’s invitation to go below for a brandy and came to the point. “I must know the meaning of your presence in these waters and why you have attacked a British ship in British waters.”

  Lamson had been coached by Adams to say, “I have pursued and seized a belligerent ship that was attempting to escape to open sea, sir.”

  “What rubbish is that, sir? She is a British ship, built by Laird Brothers of Birkenhead and on her sea trials.”

  “That is true that she was built by Laird Brothers, but when we found her she was flying the colors of the Confederate States, which your own government has recognized as a belligerent.” Lamson told the necessary lie. “And her captain was in Confederate uniform. His papers clearly state that she was the property of the so-called Confederate States of America. Why, sir, even the ship’s bell was cast with words CSS North Carolina. She is my prize, and I intend to send her with a prize crew to an American port.”

  Lambert was having none of this. “This ironclad is a British ship as far as my orders are concerned, and her status will be determined by British courts. You have committed a hostile act in British waters. I must demand the surrender of your vessel.” He paused, “Or I will take you by force. You have fifteen minutes to strike, sir.”

  “When hell freezes over, sir. Now, be on your way.”

  Lambert’s face turned red at the peremptory dismissal from the mere Yankee cub. Not even the boldest Frenchmen would have dared to snap his fingers in the lion’s face like that. He turned on his heel and hastened down the side and into his boat, eager to make good his threat.

  No sooner had his boat pushed off than Gettysburg sped forward, the wake tossing Lambert’s boat about and giving the captain a good splash. The American ship maintained station on the opposite side of the ram. Lamson was careful to keep his vulnerable paddlewheel behind the ram’s forward turret. It was a furious British captain who climbed up onto his quarterdeck. His disposition did not improve as he attempted to maneuver around the ram to get a good shot at the American ship that just continued to circle the other way. It was obvious the American captain was using the ram’s unloaded freeboard of only six feet to mask the fire of the fifteen 8-inch rifles and 32-pounder smoothbore guns of Liverpool’s gun deck battery. That left his eight 40-pounder Armstrongs and the bruising 110-pounder Armstrong pivot gun on the main deck. The four Dahlgrens that could bear on the Liverpool’s main deck fired 135-pound projectiles for a broadside weight of 540 pounds. Liverpool’s nine main deck guns totaled only 430 pounds of projectile weight. In effect, by Lamson’s maneuver, the smaller ship had a 26 percent advantage in broadside weight. Even that was deceptive because the Dahlgren projectiles were far more destructive.9

  Lamson’s cat and mouse game with Liverpool gave Goshawk time to come up and take up station on Gettysburg’s open flank, but her one 68-pounder, one 32-pounder, and two 20-pounders were vastly outmatched by the larger guns that the American ship could bring to bear.10

  Lamson looked at his pocket watch as the last few minutes counted down. Behind him Adams said, “You must let him fire first; it is imperative that the British start this.”

  “Have no fear, Mr. Adams. But I do suggest that you get below. Pray, sir, do not make me waste a Marine to watch over you.” Lamson could feel the tension settle over all three ships as the last seconds fell away. The men were steady at their posts, the Dahlgrens double-shotted. The command to fire echoed across the ram from the British ship. Instantly Liverpool was engulfed in smoke as her main deck battery fired. Lamson felt the shock wave cross the ram and push him back like the shove of a giant, and instantly Gettysburg’s guns roared back.

  Through the smoke, Lamson heard the shout of the gun captains as their crews leapt back into action. All the guns were still in action. The British were now firing at will. A bullet struck the railing where he stood. Adams was still on deck and came up to point at the Royal Marines firing their Enfields from the rigging at Lamson. “Look out!” he threw himself at Lamson, knocking him to the deck. In the next moment he cried out and fell over Lamson. Two Marines ran up to pull Adams off the captain, then took aim with their Spencer repeaters. One by one the British Marines dropped from the rigging.11

  The fire from Liverpool slackened. A breeze blew the smoke away enough to reveal the carnage of splinters, dismounted guns, smashed carriages, and the dead and dying across her decks. Goshawk was an even worse shambles, now drifting away with fires starting. Lamson inspected his own ship and found that a shell had detonated inside the smokestack and left it like a colander. Another shell had gone through the top of the engine house, and a 110-pound shot had lodged in the sternpost. His casualties were few, but Liverpool was not going to play his game any longer. She came about to circle around the ram, but Lamson was faster and rounded that ship in time to send a shell from his pivot gun into her stern and watch it explode, spewing out wooden debris and a body. Lambert turned hard to starboard, circling back to open Gettysburg to his gun deck battery. His ship rocked as it fired in one well-timed volley. At the distance of barely three hundred yards, it struck Gettysburg a brutal blow. The port paddlewheel disintegrated, and the crew of one of the waist guns was swept away in a bloody wind. With only his larboard paddle-wheel in operation, Gettysburg automatically turned in that direction. The ragged cheer from Liverpool was cut short when Lamson’s remaining Dahlgrens poured their fire into the Liverpool’s gun deck. He could see shells exploding inside, but the British fire did not slacken.

  What Lamson could not see was the scene around Liverpool’s Armstrong gun. When the gunner pulled the lanyard, the vent piece on the gun blew out and straight up like a bullet. The breech blew back at the same time. The crew stood stunned, their stares only broken by the red-coated body of a Royal Marine who fell from the rigging, bouncing over the smoking breech, brought down by the vent piece.12

  The two ships were now paralleling each other, trading blows in an arc as Gettysburg’s stricken paddlewheel condemned it to steaming in a circle. The crews of both ships had no time to pay much attention to the ram, which had slowly been settling. Lamson’s engineer had opened the sea cocks as planned when Liverpool approached. With only six feet of freeboard, the ram settled fast. The water rushed over her decks and into the open hatches. She went under, barely noticed by either ship.

  The laws of naval warfare clearly allowed Lamson to strike his colors at this moment. He had accomplished his critical mission when the North Carolina slipped beneath the waters of Moelfre Bay, and his ship was hopelessly disabled in those same hostile waters. Yet Lamson was just plain bloody minded and would sooner drag Liverpool to the bottom with him before he quit.

  Lambert knew he had won. The American ship was crippled and could not escape. It was only a matter of time. He must strike, but he didn’t. Instead that ship continued to send those deadly XI-i
nch shells into Liverpool’s guts, turning his gun deck into an abattoir. “Strike, damn you, strike!” Lambert shouted in rage. The Liverpool’s crew was so focused on its death struggle with the enemy that another ship was able to approach without notice—until a shell struck the frigate’s port battery. Kearsarge had arrived.

  Capt. John Winslow had taken Adams’s letter seriously. Kearsarge arrived at the Mersey’s mouth an hour after Liverpool and Goshawk had departed after Gettysburg. Dudley, still in his dispatch boat, had informed Winslow, who followed the other ships pouring on the coal. He had heard the battle and seen the smoke in plenty of time to come to battle stations. With an American ship in battle with another ship, he did not trouble himself with the niceties of international maritime law, but came to the rescue of the flag.

  Aboard Gettysburg, Lamson shouted to the gun crews that it was Kearsarge. A cheer went up as the British ship turned to meet its new opponent. Kearsarge had the element of surprise, but it was still a big frigate against a smaller American 1,550-ton Mohican class sloop of war. Lamson and his crew were now spectators as their ship carved a slowing arc away from the British ship. Liverpool’s 32-pounders had been no match for the Dahlgrens, but at the close range they had been fighting, they served more than well enough to hull Gettysburg in a dozen places. The hull’s iron plates had not absorbed the shock of shot as a wooden ship could but had sprung their rivets along their seams. The ship’s carpenter reported that she was taking water faster than the men could pump it out.

  “Well, Mr. Porter, at least we don’t have to strike. Now she dies well.” He struck the railing with his fist. “Bring the wounded up and prepare to load them into the boats that have not been smashed. Keep the forward pivot crew at their gun. I want it to keep in action whenever it can bear.” The ship’s arc took it away from the duel between Liverpool and Kearsarge. Winslow was keeping his distance and using his superior mobility and guns to strike the larger wounded frigate with little chance of being struck in turn.