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

by Peter G. Tsouras

  “Fuck you, you Limey bastard!” a seaman shouted back, waving his fist. Lamson looked up to the quarterdeck and only then realized just the dead occupied it. “Do you strike, Kearsarge?” came again from Dauntless. If any man had the ability to take in a situation at a single glance and cut to the heart of it, it was Lamson. A glance at the Topaze saw the Aleksandr Nevsky cutting across the British frigate’s bow and raking her with the larboard battery. She had come to join the fight after leaving the Gannet adrift and burning. The Marine sergeant, his head bandaged, reported to Lamson. “Sergeant, it’s time for the Marines to be infantry. Use your Spencers to kill everyone on that deck.”

  Turning back to the Dauntless, he cupped his hands and bellowed, “Double canister! Double canister, sir! That is my answer!” He sensed what was coming next, could see with his mind’s eye the Dauntless’s gun deck crews climbing the ladders to the decks armed with pikes, cutlasses, and pistols to board. “Prepare to repel borders!” he shouted again.

  Dauntless lurched closer; the men massing on her deck were visible. Among the blue jackets and their pikes were the red coats of the Royal Marines, their Enfields with fixed bayonets. Lamson’s Marines rose from their concealment and fired their repeaters into the packed crowd as bodies pitched forward over the side or backward into the crowd. “Sergeant! The carronade!” Lamson grabbed him by the arm and pointed at the fat, blunt gun on the Dauntless’s forecastle. This naval shotgun would sweep his deck with musket balls. The sergeant dropped the gunner with a single shot and then with a smooth cocking of the handle, he shot the next man who grabbed the lanyard. By then his men had dropped the rest of the gun crew.32

  Dauntless was now a bare yard away, and the British were still massing on the side. The forward XI-incher swung on its pivot to point at a sharp angle down the side of the enemy ship. The British were flexing their legs to make the leap from their greater height as the ships closed that last yard when the gun captain yelled, “Fire!” The gun leapt back on its lines, spewing two large tins of small iron balls into the crowd. The ships ground against each other. The remaining members of Gettysburg’s crew raced up the ladders to repel borders, but there was only silence from the British ship. They watched the blood pour out of the Dauntless’s scuppers onto the Kearsarge’s deck and then cascade out of the wreckage as the British ship drifted away, leaving a pink stain in the water.

  From this moment, the Kearsarge became only a spectator to the last stage of what would be called “the Battle of the Upper Bay.” The Topaze and the Nevsky continued to throw broadsides into each other, with the Topaze clearly getting the upper hand. The Peresvet was locked in a slugging match with the smaller but deadly Alert. Time had run out for the British. A swarm of harbor defense gunboats were steaming down the East River from the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Alone, none of them would be a match for any of the British ships. In a swarm they could hem a larger ship in and strike from any direction. The end was inevitable, especially since more powerful warships were also coming to their aid. The first of them was the Oslyabya, rushing to Lisosvky’s aid.

  Captain Spencer was no romantic; he knew when the game was up. He did take intense satisfaction to see the Kearsarge listing badly from the water rushing in through the colander that was her hull. She would go down and soon. His mission was all but accomplished. Now Spencer must save what he could. He signaled the Alert and Dauntless to break off action and steam for the Verrazano Narrows and escape. Gannet was adrift and in flames. Dauntless limped south escorted by Alert. Running the gauntlet of the forts at top speed Topaze and Alert made it through with heavy damage. Dauntless’s slowness was her doom as the shot and shell from the forts hailed down on her. Slowed even more, she was caught by Oslyabya and the gunboats and pounded to pieces. She refused to strike and went down fighting.33

  As Lamson watched the battle recede, the surviving engineer reported the damage below. The ship was taking water too fast. The pumps had been destroyed with the boilers. A gunboat came aside and asked if Kearsarge needed assistance. “I need a tow to the Navy Yard before I sink,” he called over. It would be close. The ship was settling fast.34

  BRITISH EMBASSY, WASHINGTON, D.C., 12:44 AM, SEPTEMBER 24, 1863

  The Foreign Office special courier was rushed into the office of Ambassador Lord Lyons. He knew what news the courier brought, and it confirmed his worst fears. After Moelfre Bay, it could only be war. He imagined the news had spread immediately from the ship to the docks and must at this moment be flying through Washington.

  Lyons called for his secretary and instructed him to personally request an interview with the Secretary of State. Then he carefully examined his instructions.

  The halls of the State Department were crowded when Lyons entered just before two in the afternoon. The whispers that announced his identity silenced the crowd but did not quell their angry looks or the occasional hiss. Wretched manners, these Americans. He was ushered through open doors directly into Seward’s office. Seward was facing the open window, hands clasped behind his back. He cut such a slight figure, but when he turned he seemed to grow from the anger in him.

  Lyons did not betray his concern as he bowed. “Mr. Secretary, it is my sad duty to inform you that as of September 10 a state of war has existed between the British Empire and the United States of America.” He went on to describe the justifications of Her Britannic Majesty’s government for taking these much-provoked steps, reading from his instructions the precise language directed by the Foreign Office. When he had finished, he bowed once again and presented the declaration to Seward.35

  “Lord Lyons, is it the custom of Her Majesty’s government to attack before delivering its declaration of war? Even for Britain, that is a new and yet unfathomed perfidy.”

  “Attack, Mr. Secretary?”

  “Lord Lyons, don’t play games with me!”

  “I assure you, sir, that I do not understand what you mean.”

  Seward’s skinny face had flushed red. Lyons could not help thinking that with his shock of unruly white hair and great Roman nose, he looked nothing more than a fighting cock ready to strike. “The telegraph from New York has been on fire for the last two hours with news of a great naval battle in New York Harbor. A British fleet pursued a U.S. warship escorted by two Russian ships into the Upper Bay in a running battle that rages as we speak.”

  Lyons blanched. He was aware from his instructions that a squadron had been sent in pursuit of Kearsarge, but not in his wildest imagination did he dream that they would hunt their prey into the heart of America’s greatest city, much less than it would happen before the formal declaration had been delivered. He could only keep an impassive face and hand Seward his letters.

  Seward snatched them from his hand. He spat on them, threw them on the floor, and ground them into the carpet with his heel. Looking directly at Lyons, whose eyes had gone wide at the act, he said to his aide, “Show this gentleman out the back door.”36

  RAILROAD STATION, NEW YORK CITY, 5:25 PM, SEPTEMBER 24, 1863

  As soon as Lisovsky’s ships docked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard they offloaded their wounded into the eager arms of ambulance crews. Mayor George Opdyke immediately saw to the provision of a train to take Lisovsky to Washington shortly after the admiral had broken the seal on his orders, written in the hand of the Czar himself, and read them. The progress to the station had been impeded by the huge crowds of cheering New Yorkers, hailing the savior of their city from British surprise attack. As the police cleared the way to the station entrance, a police captain ran up with a telegram and thrust it into the mayor’s hand.

  Opdyke’s face turned white. He handed it to the admiral and stood up to wave the crowd silent. “Good people of New York, I have just been handed a telegram from the President of the United States.” The buzz of the crowd hushed in expectation. “I am informed that today, as the battle raged in the Upper Bay, the British ambassador delivered a declaration of war.” He paused for the impact to sink in. The silence held, then bur
st into a wave of anger from thousands of voices that grew into a howl of incandescent rage.

  The tracks were cleared for the train’s run all the way to Washington. Ambassador Stoekel and a naval guard of honor were there to greet it. The ambassador and he spoke quietly before the Russian party climbed into their waiting carriages with a cavalry escort to lead the way. Crowds had gathered at the news of Lisovsky’s approach and broke into wild applause as he sped to meet Lincoln and Seward.

  They were immediately ushered into Lincoln’s private study. Stoekel had never seen two graver men than Lincoln and Seward. He introduced Lisovsky, and after warm greetings, Lisovsky bowed and recited the orders Czar Alexander had written him. “Your Excellency, my Imperial Majesty has instructed me that in the event of an attack by a foreign power, particularly Britain or France, upon the United States or upon the recognition of the Southern Confederacy by either of those powers, I am to put my squadron at the disposal of Your Excellency. I have three frigates now in New York. Two more corvettes and a clipper are expected within a few days. I am also instructed to say that a squadron of the Imperial Navy will shortly be arriving at the port of San Francisco under the same orders. I am at your command, Your Excellency.”37

  Stoekel now spoke. “Mr. President, I am instructed by His Imperial Majesty under contingent orders that should the United States be attacked by these powers, I am to confirm the admiral’s orders and state that upon notification of such an attack His Imperial Majesty will declare war on the attacker. I am empowered to conclude a treaty of alliance at once.”38

  10.

  A Rain of Blows

  FORT GORGES, PORTLAND HARBOR, MAINE, 2:00 AM, SEPTEMBER 30, 1863

  The British sailors pulled slowly on their muffled oars through the fog. They had left the iron screw troopship HMS Dromedary some distance back. In the boats between the oarsmen sat Royal Marines, still and silent. In their blue greatcoats and shakos and with the Enfield rifles in their hands, they could easily be mistaken for American troops, especially in the thick fog.

  A light, wan and struggling against the fog, appeared ahead. A clutch of guards, wrapped in their own greatcoats against the chill and huddling against a fire in an iron basket, could be made out under it. At last one cried out, “Who goes there?”

  “Garrison relief,” answered a voice in a good New England accent.

  “Come in, then,” answered the guard. Capt. George Bazalgette, the officer of Marines, sighed in quiet relief. They had surprise on their side. He silently thanked Providence that the worsening situation had snatched him out of the back-of-beyond station on San Juan Island on the Pacific coast south of Vancouver after the aborted confrontation between Britain and the United States dubbed “the Pig War.” An assignment like this was bound to ensure that he was not remembered as the officer who almost fought in the Pig War.1

  The plan had relied on the laxness of the Maine home guards who provided the garrison of the fort on rotation. The huge fort appeared as a shadowy mass in the fog. The officer had seen it before on a special visit he had made in mufti a week before. Build on a man-made island on Hog Island Ledge, it was a granite-built, six-sided fort with two tiers of casemates, designed for 195 guns, at least half of which had been installed.2

  The first boat came up to the stone pier. The guards looked on in curiosity as the officer stepped out followed by his men. Bazalgette’s pistol appeared in the face of the sergeant of the guard as his men quickly overpowered the guards. More boats began unloading Marines. One of them carried a team of Army sappers who rushed along the stone pier to the thick iron-reinforced oak door of the main gate. They were planting their explosive charge when the small access door in the larger doors opened and an officer stepped out followed by the guard relief. The three sappers reacted quickly and bayoneted two of the guards. The officer, bolder and more quick witted than would be expected at two in the morning, pulled his pistol and shot two of the sappers. The third sapper killed the officer with a single cleaving blow of the engineer’s heavy bayonet and bolted through the open door. Another shot came from within. Bazalgette came running, followed by the fifty men who had disembarked. He saw the open door. Another shot from within echoed. He jumped over the bodies and rushed through to find two dead men on the floor and the sapper struggling with a third. A Marine rushed past to plunge his bayonet into the guard. Other men unbolted the great gate doors and pushed back the leaves. The Marines poured in.

  Bazalgette and the Army sappers had carefully studied the plans of the fort that had come his way courtesy of Lieutenant Colonel Wolseley. Armed with this knowledge, the Marines fanned out through the fort as more ships’ boats unloaded the rest of the three hundred–man battalion assault force assembled from the ships of Admiral Milne’s command at Halifax. The shots had started to rouse the garrison, but sleepy, inexperienced men on a foggy night were no match for Royal Marines. Men stumbling out of their barracks were shot down or bayoneted. The Marines stormed inside. In less than a half hour, Fort Gorges had fallen. In the morning the good people of Portland would see British colors flying from it as the Royal Navy entered the port in force. The greatest port in northern New England had all but fallen. The most careful intelligence had reported that the only troops in Portland were the home guard garrisons of the harbor forts. It would all be a matter of formalities.3

  ST. JOHNS RAILROAD STATION, QUEBEC, CANADA, 2:00 AM, SEPTEMBER 30, 1863

  For the last two days and nights, the Grand Trunk Railway in Canada had been filled with troop trains converging on Montreal, the nexus of the railway’s connections with New York and New England. From the ancient site of royal France, the might of the British Empire was marshaling rapidly. Most of the forces that had been ostentatiously concentrating between Detroit and Buffalo entrained at night and sped east. The remainder, reinforced by the mobilization of the Sedentary Militia, had occupied the fortifications on the Canadian side. From Montreal the troop trains went south toward the New York and Vermont borders. Just south of St. Johns, the Grand Trunk Railway split to travel on both sides of Lake Champlain and then reunite south of the lake straight down to Albany. From there both Boston and New York City were a bare hundred miles away. Another force of regulars and Canadian Volunteers had concentrated east of Montreal at Sherbrooke along the Grand Trunk and struck southeast through the sleepy small towns of upper Vermont and Maine toward Portland.4

  Wolseley walked the platform at the railroad station as the troop trains sped through south. Already the lead elements of the invasion of New York had crossed the border and seized the first American stations, brushing aside the militia units that had been called up a few days before and cutting the telegraph wires. With the railroad in British hands the invasion forces eschewed the roads and sped south by rail through the night. This time the red-coated regiments ensured that no one would be riding ahead to alert the country that the British were coming. Washington’s eyes had been on Detroit and Buffalo, just as Wolseley had planned. The divisions they had sent north were defending borders the British had no intention of attacking. Militia and home guard units had been deemed sufficient for less threatened areas, the very places the British invasion force was pouring through as fast as their trains would take them. A few Maine regiments were to return home to recruit, he learned in the last week, but they would be dispersed across the state and of little military value.

  There were any number of British generals and full colonels leading their men in the first invasion of the United States since 1813, but it was Lt. Col. Garnet Wolseley who had been the brain and energy behind the plan they were executing. Wrapped in his greatcoat against the deep chill of an early Canadian fall, he expounded to the eager clutch of staff officers around him. “We will strike Brother Jonathan so hard that it will drive any thought of attacking Canada right out of his head.” It was exciting to be a part of the exercise of England’s might against an upstart power, but in the presence of a true charismatic leader, the experience was intoxicating. Wolsel
ey went on, more to fill the time than to elucidate. All he could do now was to wait for the first reports of the execution of his plan to deliver such a blow that Union morale would crack wide open.

  He continued, “By seizing Albany and Portland we accomplish four essential objectives. First, we are too weak to defend, so we must attack. They cannot threaten Canada if they are threatened in their heartland. Second, by seizing Albany, the capital of New York, we disrupt the richest and most powerful of their states and threaten their greatest port. Third, by seizing Portland and the rest of Maine, we eliminate a geographical salient between Canada and the Maritimes, detach an entire state from the Union, and add it as a buffer to the Maritimes. Fourth, at the same time we acquire the use of another first-rate port south of overburdened Halifax from which the Royal Navy can base its blockade.”5 He struck his fist into his open palm, letting the pop of cold leather on leather punctuate his exposition. “Gentlemen, we are on the verge of the greatest war to take place in our time. Mark me—it will dwarf the Crimea and the Sepoy Mutiny. For those of you who think promotion slow, your troubles are about to end.

  “There’s another thing, gentlemen. You will find man shooting is the finest sport of all; there is a certain amount of infatuation about it, that the more you kill the more you wish to kill.”6

  Privately he admitted that they would have “toughish work of it.” The Americans would not be an easy victory. They had too much experience after two and half years of war, and they were not shy about fighting vast, bloody battles.7 That was why audacity had to be thrown in the scales to redress British America’s geographical vulnerability. Audacity, yes, aided by indirection. The Americans must be so distracted by fires at the back of the house that they would not be able to give full attention to his breaking down their front door.