11. Angus Konstam, Duel of the Ironclads: USS Monitor & CSS Virginia at Hampton Roads, 1862 (London: Osprey, 2003), 93
12. James L. Nelson, Reign of Iron: The Story of the First Battling Ironclads, the Monitor and the Merrimac (New York: William Morrow, 2002), 173.
13. Eugene B. Canfield, “Civil War Ordnance,” Dictionary of American Fighting Ships, vol. 3 (Washington, DC: Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Naval History Division, 1968), 6, 12.
14. Vol. 2, Entry 99, Record Group 74, National Archives, cited in Robert J. Schneller, Jr. “‘A State of War Is a Most Unfavorable Period for Experiments’: John A. Dahlgren and U.S. Naval Ordnance Innovation During the American Civil War,” (monograph) U.S. Naval Historical Center; John Dahlgren, “Report to the Navy Department,” November 22, 1862, box 27, Library of Congress.
15. Robert J. Schneller, Jr., A Quest for Glory: A Biography of Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1996), 204, 226.
16. Robert M. Browning, Jr., Success Is All That Was Expected: The South Atlantic Blockading Squadron During the Civil War (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2002), 206.
17. Schneller, “‘A State of War.’”
18. William H. Roberts, USS New Ironsides in the Civil War (Annapolis, MD: US Naval Institute Press, 1999), 70–71.
19. London Times, July 8, 1863. Wainwright’s previous command was the HMS Shannon, which steamed in the Second Division.
20. *Nigel Haythorne, ed., The Papers of Adm. Alexander Milne in the American War (London: Albright & Midgely, 1922), 103–110.
21. Only the Powhatan was a side-wheel ship; the rest were all screw driven. OR Navies, series 1, vol. 16, South Atlantic Blockading Squadron From October 1, 1863 to September 30, 1864 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1902), 7.
22. *Alfred Thayer Mahan, Crossing the T at Charleston: Dahlgren and the Revolution in Naval Tactics (New York: The Neale Publishing Co., 1895), 163.
23. OR Navies, series 2, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1921), 7, 113–14.
24. *Mahan, Crossing the T, 166. These gunboats were the Seneca, Conemaugh, Mahaska, Sonoma, Ottawa, Cimarron, Paul Jones, and Unadilla. The gunboats Chippewa and Nipsic, Port Royal guardships, were accompanying the three monitors from there. They would add another sixteen IX-inch and nine XI-inch Dahlgren guns to the fight.
25. Both of the following sources cite the size of the crews by ship. Colledge, Ships of the Royal Navy, 51, 95, 272, 352; http://pdavis.nlMidVicShips.php?page=1, or Ships of the Mid-Victorian Navy. This website offers a mass of detail, including the size of crews and names of captains. Paul H. Silverstone, Civil War Navies 1855–1883 (New York: Routledge, 2006), 16.
26. Thucydides, trans. Richard Crawley, The Peloponnesian War (New York: Everyman’s Class Library, 1914).
27. Alfred Thayer Mahan, From Sail to Steam (New York: Harper, 1907), cited in Peter G. Tsouras, ed., The Book of Military Quotations (St. Paul, MN: Zenith Press, 2005), 238.
28. “The Hellenic Crisis from the Point of View of Constitutional and International Law,” The American Journal of International Law 11 (1917): 60–61.
29. *Ulric Dahlgren, ed., The Letters of Rear-Admiral John A. Dahlgren (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1885), 335.
30. *Lafayette A. Rhett, Beauregard and the Defense of Charleston (Charleston: Charleston University Press, 1976), 256. It is a major controversy of the war how much effect the entry of Ingraham’s two ironclads would have had on the outcome of this battle.
31. Colledge, Ships of the Royal Navy, 51, 95, 272, 352. The entry for each ship in this source lists the number and type of guns. http://www.pdavis.nl/ShowBiog/php?id+760. Chamberlain’s previous command was HMS Racoon in the First Division.
32. *Julian Corbett, The Battle of the Bar and Its Effect Upon Naval Strategy (London: Wilson & Sons Ltd, 1896) p. 76.
33. OR Navies, series 2, vol. 1, 51, 104, 159, 172, 234. Silverstone, Civil War Navies, 16. The Wabash also had a crew of 640, almost 30 percent of Dahlgren’s fighting line strength.
34. *Mahan, Crossing the T at Charleston, 172. Dahlgren’s tactics at Charleston were the beginning of the era in naval history and tactics in which the ability to concentrate a superior weight of firepower on an enemy by sailing perpendicular to his advancing columns became paramount. Corbett, The Battle of the Bar, 83–87. The conclusions reached on this battle by Mahan and Corbett were remarkably similar, and those hoping for a transatlantic duel between naval strategists were to be disappointed.
35. *Charles H. Moody, Death of the HMS St. George and Death of an Era (London: Baker & Windemeer, Ltd.), 176.
36. Colledge, Ships of the Royal Navy, 96.
37. *R. B. Casterbridge, “Chesapeake Avenged! The Atlanta versus the Shannon,” Journal of Naval History 17 (June 23, 1963): 35.
38. *Andrew Cochrane, Sailor of the Queen: The Life of HRH Alfred (London: Gossett & Sons, Ltd., 1912), 141.
39. *Ulric Dahlgren, Victory at Charleston: Admiral Dahlgren and the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron (Boston: Appleton, 1880), 301–2. Dahlgren’s account is unabashed hero worship of his father both as a naval commander and as a man.
40. Unidentified newspaper article entitled, “The Warrior,” dated May 11, 1861, found in the Dahlgren Papers, Library of Congress.
41. *William R. Thomas, With Colonel Dahlgren and the Marines: Adventures on the New Ironsides at the Battle of Charleston (New York: The Century Company, 1888), 206.
42. *Ulric Dahlgren, New Ironsides and Black Prince: Duel of the Titans (New York: The Sheldon Company, 1879) p. 229.
43. *Wilfred C. Baimbridge, HMS Black Prince at Charleston (London: Tinsdale & Williams, 1892), 324.
44. London Times, July 8, 1863.
45. *Mahan, Crossing the T at Charleston, 240.
46. *Aaron C. Davis, Sinking the Black Prince : First Victory of the Submersible Service (Annapolis, MD: Naval Academy Press, 2004), 192.
47. *Duncan Ingraham, “The Loss of the Resistance in Charleston Harbor,” Historical Society of the South 4 (January 1876): 83–85. Chance had it that the Resistance sank at Ager Dock, which had a depth of twenty-six feet. The ship’s twenty-five-foot draft meant that the ship merely settled on the bottom and did not go under; its upper decks were still above water. Nevertheless, the Resistance was out of the war. http://www.colonialwargames.org.uk/Miscellany/Warships/Ironclads/EIroncladsRN.htm. The draft of the Warrior class (the Warrior and Black Prince) ships was twenty-six feet and that of the Defence class (the Defence and Resistance) twenty-five feet.
APPENDIX A
1. Personnel of the trains were not Maine troops but drawn from the logistics establishment of the Army of the Potomac.
2. John W. Busey and David G. Martin, Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg (Hightstown, NJ: Longstreet House, 1982), 241, 243, 246, 248, 251, 255, 259, 261, 262, 263. The strength of the Maine Division on arrival at Portland is calculated by subtracting Gettysburg losses and then allowing for 50 percent of losses to be returned to duty either through recovery of wounds or missing returning to the ranks.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A former U.S. Army officer, Peter G. Tsouras is an intelligence analyst, a military historian, and the author or editor of two dozen works of military history and alternate history, including Gettysburg: An Alternate History, Dixie Victorious: An Alternate History of the Civil War, Disaster at D-Day: The Germans Defeat the Allies, June 1944, and Military Quotations from the Civil War: In the Words of the Commanders. Many of his books have been selected by the History Book Club and the Military Book Club as primary selections and have been translated into numerous languages. A regular guest on the History Channel and similar venues in Britain and Canada, Mr. Tsouras is an analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency and lives in Alexandria, Virginia.
* An asterisk before a name denotes a fictional character.
* The eighth ship of the Passaic class, the USS Sangamon, was at Newport News during this battle
.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Maps
Dramatis Personae
1 . Cossacks, Copperheads, and Corsairs
2 . Russell and the Rams
3 . George the Contraband and One-Eyed Garnet
4 . Gallantry on Crutches
5 . Sergeant Cline Gets a New Job
6 . “Roll, Alabama, Roll!”
7 . French Lick to Halifax
8 . Battle at Moelfre Bay
9 . Pursuit Into the Upper Bay
10 . A Rain of Blows
11 . Treason, Frogs, and Ironclads
12 . Cold Spring and Crossing the Bar
Appendix A: Order of Battle of the Armies at the First Battle of Portland
Appendix B: Order of Battle of the Fleets at the Third Battle of Charleston
Notes
About the Author
Britannia's Fist: From Civil War to World War: An Alternate History Page 34
