Bayonets, Balloons & Ironclads: Britain and France Take Sides With the South

by Tsouras, Peter G.

Rouse’s Point was alive with moving men. By sheer coincidence, the American division commander was inspecting the garrison brigade when the courier galloped into the town just as rumble of guns and rifle fire became audible. Maj. Gen. John W. Geary was not a man to sit idly by in an emergency. He ordered the garrison brigade forward with its two remaining regiments to the stem the British advance and completely missed the fact that the Lancers were now miles south of him. He had sent a rider to the brigade in Champlain three miles to the west to summon help, but the man had been snatched up by the Lancers. He was just riding out with the brigade as the military telegrapher ran out to tell him the wires were down. His alert to Hooker and his order for his third brigade at Chazy to march could not be sent. He would have to fight it out with what he had. He waved his hat to the two regiments, “Give ‘em hell, Buckeyes!”

  The men of the 5th and 7th Ohio Regiments needed no urging; the core of them were hard-bitten veterans who had rushed to the colors within weeks of the attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861. They knew their business. The enemy had driven the 29th Ohio out of the woods and were following close on their heels. The retreating Buckeyes passed through the intervals of the advancing two regiments. Their line of battle emerged from the crowd of retreating men and hit the Rifles and Canadians hard. A thick cloud of black powder smoke enveloped both firing lines. Geary decided to leave the brigade commander to do his job as he spurred off to personally bring up the brigade at Chazy.

  Even though no messenger had got through to the brigade at Chazy, the sound of guns carried so well that even a deaf man could have heard. Yet its commander, Brig. Gen. George Cobham, waited for orders that never came. His regimental commanders implored him, but he waited and the men, all in marching order, grumbled. Forty minutes later, he ordered them forward. The relief of tension was such that the first regiment almost broke into a run to get started. In minutes the brigade of Pennsylvania regiments was rushing to the fight only a few miles away.

  The country through which they advanced was rolling farmland and woods. Ahead of them was Prospect Hill, over which their road ran. It was the point to which Geary had headed with a few aides and a signal team, but the oncoming Lancers had forced them to hide in an orchard. For Geary it would be a long day. At that moment, Cobham rode ahead with an aide and reached the crest at the same moment as a dozen Highlanders, advance guard of the 78th Foot. Cobham promptly surrendered as a Highlander ran back to tell McBean of what they had seen coming up the road.

  The British brigade commander was struck with the same indecision that had earlier afflicted Cobham. McBean, who had seen more active campaigning as a private in India than the lord commanding the brigade, drew his sword in an act of decision, and said loudly, “Send in the Tartan, man!”21

  Shocked out his stupor, the man nodded. “Yes, of course. Off with you, McBean.”

  The Scotsman stood in his stirrups and shouted down the length of his column, “Cuidich ‘n Rhi!” The men thundered back, “Cuidich ‘n Rhi!” The 78th stepped off at the double quick, its companies moving from column to line lapping over both sides of the road as it climbed to the crest of the hill. Behind him a Royal Artillery battery lashed their horses forward to the top of the hill.22

  The first the Pennsylvanians knew that the enemy was close was when the tide of Scots poured over the hill straight for them. McBean riding at their head ordered the charge, and now the Americans heard for the first time, the wail of “Cuidich ‘n Rhi!” and the skirl of bagpipes. The lead regiment, the 109th Pennsylvania, tried to deploy into line, but the Highland tide with its leveled bayonets swept into them. They had hardly got off a shot before the impact. Then they were fighting for their lives against the best bayonet men in the world. They broke and fled to the rear pushing through the ranks of the next regiment trying to form, masking the pursuing Scots.

  “On, laddies, on!” shouted McBean as he rode with the tide of his regiment. He did not see the battery of coffee mill guns unlimbering ahead of him. The retreating enemy masked them as well. The last of the fugitives had pushed themselves through the ranks of that part of the 29th Pennsylvania just ahead of him. The coffee mills now had a clear field of fire. Their click-bang staccato screamed as the Highlanders began to fall.23

  3

  “Press on, McBean, Press on!”

  GARDINER’S BAY, LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK, 2:10 P.M., MARCH 18, 1864

  Fifteen ships rode at anchor in the bay. The six warships of the Russian squadron were by far the most powerful.1 Most of the rest were fast screw transports. The only American warship was the USS Kearsarge. The Brooklyn Navy Yard had repaired the damage she had taken in the battle of the Upper Bay where the Royal Navy had pursued her. The British had taken it amiss that the Kearsarge had sunk a British warship that attempted to snatch back the British-built commerce raider it had just seized off the Welsh coast, the spark that had ignited this war.

  Her captain, Roswell Hawk Lamson, had become a national hero for bearding the lion in his den and been jumped to the exalted rank of full captain, almost unheard of for a twenty-five-year-old. He had commanded the USS Gettysburg and sent off to intercept the Confederate commerce raider as it left Liverpool.2 He did indeed seize it, but a British frigate thought otherwise. Gettysburg was getting the worst of it when Kearsarge appeared and put a lucky shot in the frigate’s magazine. Aboard the Kearsarge, Lamson took command when her captain fell in the battle of the Upper Bay of New York. A grateful President had confirmed him in that command.3

  Lamson was thin and dark haired with a vandyke beard he grew to make himself look older than he was. His youth made no difference to the Russian Naval Infantry who saluted him as he came over the side of the Aleksandr Nevsky, the squadron flagship. He was greeted by Admiral Lisovky’s flag captain who was to escort him to the meeting of ship’s captains. He had not taken two steps when an American colonel stumped through the crowed of officers, calling out, “Roswell, Roswell!”

  A handsome blond young man, even younger than Lamson, came up and stuck out his hand. It was Ulrich Dahlgren, a colonel at twenty-one for his deeds at Gettysburg. The son of Rear Adm. John Dahlgren, he had lost a leg in the pursuit of Lee’s army after Gettysburg and now dragged along a cork leg. He had been the best dancer in Washington, but a cork leg took the fun out of that. As it turned out, he was not the only beau to sit out the dances. All the girls flocked over to him and left the rest of the young men without partners. Losing the leg had interfered with his dancing, but he forced himself to learn to ride again and became again a fine horseman.

  That leg had not stopped him from shimmying over a fallen mast to board HMS Black Prince at the battle of Charleston and accepting the surrender of its captain. He had been recuperating from the loss of his leg and visited his father commanding the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron off Charleston and had volunteered to help man a Marine gun crew on USS New Ironsides, his father’s flagship. The U.S. Navy had been overjoyed to capture one of the two largest warships in the world, but it grated that it was an Army officer who had had the honor of its capitulation.4

  Dahlgren and Lamson had met while the Gettysburg was under conversion to a warship the previous August. Lincoln had taken an interest in the ship and given it its name and dragged young Lamson off to meet Dahlgren as he was recuperating at his father’s house near the Washington Navy Yard. They had hit it off immediately. Lincoln had commented that he liked his young stallions to run in the same pasture; each made the other run faster. Now they were in that proverbial pasture.

  The object of their meeting today had been set in motion months ago. They had been called to Washington by Lincoln’s direct order, all very mysterious, and met at the Willard Hotel in early December. As per their instructions they left the hotel at ten in the morning to find an enclosed carriage waiting for them. A lieutenant introduced himself and asked them to wait in the carriage. He said they were waiting for one other officer.

  Sgt. Maj. William McCarter finally found him in Kelly
’s Saloon three blocks from the Willard. Maj. Gen. Thomas Francis Meagher was holding court to an admiring crowed of Irishmen. One of them was proudly reciting Meagher’s grand speech to the English judge that had condemned him for his part in the Young Ireland rising of 1849.

  “Pronounce then, my lord, the sentence which the laws direct, and I will be prepared to hear it. I trust I shall be prepared to meet its execution. I hope to be able, with a pure heart and perfect composure, to appear before a higher tribunal, a tribunal where a judge of infinite goodness will preside and where, my lord, many of the judgments of this world will be reversed.”

  Hearty applause and cheers filled the saloon as Meagher raised his glass to the crowd. His face was flushed, and McCarter had seen this before in his chief before. Then Colonel Meagher had resigned in despair at the hard use of his old Irish Brigade. Now he was the glory of both America and Ireland, the man who had saved the day at Clavarack commanding the once reviled XI Corps.

  McCarter pushed through the crowd to gently take Meagher by the arm and whisper to him. “They are waiting for you, General. You must not be late.”

  Then to McCarter’s distress, Meagher spoke expansively to the crowd waving his glass. “Men of Ireland, it will be but a few short months until Canada falls to the grand Army of the Hudson in which ten thousand of our countrymen serve. If you could only be with us when an Irishman hauls down England’s flag from the fortress at Montreal!” The crowd went wild with a roar that shook the windows.

  “And I tell you that when that day comes, England will have to free Ireland to get Canada back!” This time the crowd surged to Meagher and lifted him on their shoulders carrying him in vivid procession around the saloon. It was all McCarter could do to finally pull Meagher away and out the door. His walk back to the Willard was none too steady.

  McCarter had to help him into the carriage. Meagher grinned. “Well, Col. Dahlgren, what a surprise. The last time we met was before Gettysburg, you were still a captain and one of my aides, and now if the newspapers are only half correct, by rights you should be a general.” Dahlgren introduced him to Lamson. “Ah, another hero!” He heartily shook Lamson’s hand. He leaned back and said, “We heroes three! Yes, there must be some desperate business about for the three of us to be in the same carriage on confidential orders.”

  Meagher glowed with an easy charm that attracted other men to him. Above all he was what the Irish called a proper gentleman: a faultless education, a gracious manner, and a poetry about him of ancient Irish heroes and their bards.5 He had recruited the Irish Brigade and led it sword in hand to bloody glory on field after field. His men had called him Meagher of the Sword, an epithet he treasured more than any other. A superb battlefield commander, he was always where danger was the thickest, some said. Others said that his nerve had failed at Fredericksburg, where he lingered in the town while his men marched into slaughter.

  He had come to America in probably the most dramatic fashion possible. His sentence to death was commuted to life exile to the western fastness of Australia. An American ship, the Elizabeth Thompson, chartered by his Young Ireland friends in America, had swooped down at a prearranged time and snatched him from the shore of Van Dieman’s Land. In America his cause remained the freedom of Ireland, and when Civil War came, he recruited the famed Irish Brigade to lead it through a hail of lead to earn a reputation for high-flying bravery second to none. One familiar observer noted, “Other men go into fights finely, sternly, or indifferently, but the only man that really loves it, after all, is the green immortal Irishman. So there the brave lads from the old sod, with the chosen Meagher at their head, laughed and fought, and joked as if were the finest fun in the world.”6

  Suffering an emotional breakdown at the sight of some much blood and carnage after Fredericksburg, Meagher resigned his commission.7 That had been a mistake, and he came to abase himself in the corridors of power to be returned to the colors, but no one had time for this washed-up Irishman. That is, until the British attacked up through the Upper Bay of New York and fought a battle for all the city to see. He had recruited fifteen thousand Irish in two days and received in thanks a major general of volunteers commission. Hooker chose him to command the XI Corps, which he led gallantly at Clavarack.

  Now he was in the closed carriage with two of the most famous young men in America. As the carriage clattered up Vermont Avenue, Meagher said to the escort, “And let me ask the obvious question, Lieutenant. Where is it we are going?”

  “Sir, we are going to the President’s cottage at the Old Soldiers Home.”

  “And now that you are in a talking mood, young man, could you be telling us why we are going to the President’s cottage at the Old Soldiers Home?”

  “I am not at liberty to say, General.”

  Meagher just smiled as Dahlgren and Lamson looked at each other in expectation of an adventure in the making. The carriage turned onto Rhode Island Avenue and in a few minutes onto 7th Street. In a few more minutes, they had left the city behind them and were driving through the country. There was not much traffic on the road. They passed a small broken-down one-pony cart on the side of the road and around a bend two men walking on the road gingerly trying to avoid the mud holes. One was a bearded civilian, the other was a soldier on crutches. Dahlgren stuck his head out of the window and ordered the driver to stop. The lieutenant looked flustered and said, “Gentlemen, my orders were that we were to stop for nothing.”

  But Dahlgren was already stepping down from the carriage, stepping awkwardly with his cork leg. The two men had stopped and were looking at them. The soldier saluted, and the civilian said, “Good day, sir.” Dahlgren noticed that the civilian’s blue eyes shone with a sympathy he had seen in few men.

  Dahlgren asked, “Was that your cart back there?” The bearded man said yes. “And where are you going?”

  The bearded man replied, “I was taking this soldier back to the Harewood Hospital nearby when the cart broke down. It looks to rain, and I thought we could not wait for a ride that might never show.” He went on to say that he was a volunteer helper at the military hospitals in Washington. The young soldier had been lost in the shuffle of being transferred up by rail from the Army of the Potomac.

  “Well, then we are your ride,” Dahlgren said. The escort started to insist on not being diverted, but Dahlgren put him his place. An officer took care of his men, and they took care of him. More than that, a soldier was in a profound sense responsible for every other soldier.

  It took only a few minutes to find the hospital to drop off the two men. The civilian extended his hand to Dahlgren. “Thank you kindly, Colonel.”

  Dahlgren replied, “It has been our pleasure. It is good work you do for the men, Mr….”

  “Whitman,” the man said. “Walt Whitman.”

  HEADQUARTERS, ARMY OF THE HUDSON, PLATTSBURGH, NEW YORK, 2:15 P.M., FRIDAY, MARCH 18, 1864

  Hooker’s military telegraph noted the break in the wire the same time as Geary’s. They did not think it ominous. The severe winter had brought wires down before, and everyone knew active campaigning was at least a month away. The first Hooker and U.S. Grant heard of the downed wires was when an aide rushed back to tell them that the order to alert Geary could not be sent because of a break in the wire somewhere between them. By then, though, the orders had already been rushed to Brig. Gen. Thomas Ruger to move his first division by train to reinforce Geary.8 Bugles were echoing through the town just as the men were lining up to eat.

  Hooker was on the first train, and to his surprise and annoyance, so was the General-in-Chief of the Armies of the United States. Grant had intended to accompany one of his major field armies in the upcoming campaign season, and now was as good a time as any. Sharpe and his small staff also climbed aboard. It was already dark when the train pulled out with its command car and a full brigade loaded in the cars behind. Hooker ordered the engineer to open the throttle wide. It would take less than an hour to get to Fort Montgomery at this speed.


  But for the mischief of the Royal Guides it could have done just that. Six miles north of Plattsburgh, a heap of brush and deadwood gathered under a railroad bridge was fired. The flames shot up to curl around the sides of the bridge and lick up through the open ties.

  PROSPECT HILL, CLINTON COUNTY, NEW YORK, 2:35 P.M., FRIDAY, MARCH 18, 1864

  As soon as the last Union soldier from the regiment shattered by the Highlanders had run past, the coffee mill guns opened up on their pursuers. The front ranks of the Scots went down as if they had been tripped by a wire. That was the moment as well when the commander of the Royal Artillery battery on Prospect Hill could direct his guns accurately. The press of the retreating enemy had masked the coffee mill guns. Now that they were clear, the flash of their muzzles in the growing dusk picked them out. The British gunners had despaired that the enfolding gloom would make them useless, but now they had just enough light left. The captain shouted, “Fire!” Projectiles from the six steel breech-loading guns spat down the hill and right into the enemy battery. The Armstrong guns were the most accurate in the world, and the British gunners were unequaled. Now that they had learned that the delicate pieces demanded constant attention to keep the breeches clean in order to seal properly, they were like Jupiter hurling thunder bolts.

  The American regiment recoiled as the coffee mills guns in their center were shattered or blown into the air. They were only able to get off a ragged volley at the charging 78th before the Highlanders were among them with the bayonet. At that moment the 73rd and 26th Foot flooded around the American flanks. The American regiment collapsed and fled into the dark.

  McBean was organizing his men for a pursuit when Hope Grant rode up to him and said, “Let them go.” He turned to the brigade commander who had made an appearance at last. “Your Canadian battalions can pursue. Put the rest on the road. Now, sir!”

  HEADQUARTERS, IRELAND’S BRIGADE, CHAZY, NEW YORK, 4:30 P.M., FRIDAY, MARCH 18, 1864