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

by Tsouras, Peter G.

  Meagher had been pacing the deck all morning as the green coast of Ireland had appeared. His staff had busied themselves with the last of their preparations for landing, but now clustered along the railing to drink in the smell of the Old Sod as it blew off the land.

  Leaving three of his ships to guard the river mouth channel, Lisovsky escorted the gaggle of transports with the Irish Brigade aboard up the river on the morning tide. A customs boat hailed them but was ignored. The captain of the vessel wondered why Royal Navy warships would fly the Scottish flag. Dublin began to spread out on both sides of the river, one of the great cities of the British Empire, its skyline a field of church spires. Sunday morning it was, and this city rested, as God intended, as the land had begun to bud and flower in the embrace of an Irish spring. Most officials would be at home, their offices shut. The gates of the garrisons would be open for the one free day of the week. Those soldiers not still lounging the barracks were out and about.

  The decks of the transports were packed with men in full kit and bayonets fixed staring in wonder as the city flowed by. Home. Many had been born and raised here. For many others it had been the port of emigration to America. Five thousand men seemed to hold their breath in expectation.

  The Nevsky, the 1,800-ton SS Northern Light, and 2,300-ton Ariel the pulled up to Essex and Wellington Quays on the south side of the river.2 The other ships pulled past to continue upriver into the city. Their targets were farther away. Meagher was the first man down the gangway as soon as it thudded onto the stone quay. A dozen gangways on the Northern Light were emptying men of his old 69th New York with the same speed that had been practiced again and again on Long Island. The color guard of the regiment formed in front, the Green Flag of Ireland hanging next to the American flag. Beyond them, the 28th Massachusetts had flowed out the Ariel just as quickly.

  Meagher did not look back as Russian Naval Infantry secured the quay.3 He plunged down Parliament Street with the 69th at his heels at double time aimed straight for the main gate to Dublin Castle, their bayonets at port arms creating a swaying blued-bayonet hedge on the formation’s left as their feet thudded in time on the cobbles.

  Within minutes they were at the gates of Dublin Castle to the astonishment of the two guards in their sentry boxes. They wore RVC green. If they had been British regulars, their reaction would have been swift—bayonets leveled and shoulder to shoulder as they died in place. But RVC lads were as green as their uniforms. Their rifles were snatched from dumbfounded hands as they were pulled from their boxes and pushed up against the wall.

  The column broke in two and flowed through the Gates of Fortitude and Justice flanking the Bedford Tower and into the great Upper Yard. Companies peeled off, each with its special mission, but Meagher continued across the yard with Companies A, B, and C straight for the official apartments of the lord lieutenant of Ireland.

  Down the Liffey, the other ships were sending their streams into Dublin’s streets on both sides of the river. From Wolfestone Quay on the north side, the 63rd New York split, one half for Royal Barracks and the other for Marlborough Barracks a little farther away. The gunners pulled their Gatlings and 3-inch guns behind them. On the south side of the river, 83rd New York and 116th Pennsylvania struck out for Islandbridge and Richmond Barracks. The 28th Massachusetts, despite landing near Dublin Castle, had the farthest to go of any regiment, splitting itself in two to take Beggar’s Bush and Portobello Barracks deeper south in the city.

  Dubliners stood in bewildered silence as the columns flowed past them, their powers of observation dampened by the seeming impossible. Troops, not in any uniform they recognized, were in the heart of Dublin. This had come out of the blue, no forewarning, made all the more shocking by shattering the calm of a Sunday morning. Then the eye went upward to the flags at the head of every column. For many of the Catholics, sight of the long-forbidden Green Flag of Ireland with its golden harp of memory and next to it the American banner meant hope for the many kin that made the crossing. For the Anglo-Irish, and the English, Scots, and the loyal Catholic Irish, recognition ignited a far different reaction—absolute shock, then an inchoate rage that caused them to rush about in an uproar while the bolder among their Catholic neighbors cheered. But most people were filled with a natural dread and rushed home to bar their doors and await events. Somewhere church bells began to ring again and not for mass, church, or chapel.

  For the two captains in scarlet riding south down Infirmary Road bordering Phoenix Park, the appearance of the column in blue marching toward Marlborough Barracks was announced by that sudden, discordant pealing. Then the gunfire from the storming of the nearby Royal Barracks added its “harsh sharps and discords.” They spurred toward the column to ask the RVC what on earth was going. They had that unarticulated unease that something was amiss; RVCs wore mostly green and not dark blue. The Royal Artillery wore dark blue but not as plain as this, and the gunners would not be caught dead marching like the infantry.

  They pulled up just as the breeze unfurled the colors. This time the recognition was immediate and direct. Perhaps it was the leveled rifles of the first two ranks. An officer stepped forward, and in a clear Irish voice announced, “You gentlemen have the honor to be my first prisoners of the day. Please, dismount. It is not fitting that I should walk while prisoners ride.”

  The bolder of the two replied, “The hell you say!” The officer shot him. He jerked the rains as he clutched at the hole in his chest. His horse pulled right and reared toward the head of the column, which instinctively drew back. The other officer spurred his horse to the right and took the wall into the park in clean jump.

  HEADQUARTERS, ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, BRANDY STATION, VIRGINIA, 5:30 A.M., SUNDAY, APRIL 3, 1864

  George Meade’s sharp tongue did not faze John C. Babcock, his dapper chief intelligence officer. The commander of the Army of the Potomac, unaffectionately known as the “Snapping Turtle,” was notorious for his intemperate outbursts to his staff. He had alienated Sharpe, to whom he had owed so much for his victory at Gettysburg. Only Lincoln’s transfer of Sharpe to form the National Intelligence Bureau had prevented an open break.

  Babcock traveled in less exalted circles and had only accepted a commission at Sharpe’s urging. He had been the most famous enlisted scout in the Army of the Potomac when George McClellan commanded. Tardy George was so impressed that he had as a favor to Babcock released him from military service and had Pinkerton hire him as a civilian employee. After Lincoln relieved McClellan, Pinkerton departed, and between the two of them they took all of the intelligence files of the army. The new commander, Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside, retained Babcock as the only element of Pinkerton’s intelligence operation that remained. He painstakingly recreated the Confederate order-of-battle from file copies of reports received by the War Department.

  When George Sharpe was ordered to create the Bureau of Military Information in March 1863 by Hooker, Burnside’s successor, he found in Babcock a master of order-of-battle, that art of intelligence that determines the enemy’s organization and strength, not only from captured documents, enemy newspapers, but also from interrogations of Confederate prisoners, for which he had an extraordinarily fine touch. Within six weeks Babcock’s analysis had pegged the strength of the Army of Northern Virginia’s to within 1,500 men, a breathtaking level of precision. At Gettysburg his analysis was crucial on the second day to inform Meade that they had identified every regiment in Lee’s army except those in Pickett’s Division, thus identifying his only reserve, information that steeled Meade to fight it out.4

  Meade’s outburst could not last forever. Babcock just waited for the man to stop and catch his breath. At last the moment came. “General, I thought you would like to know that Lee is detaching Longstreet again.”

  “Damnation! Where is he going this time?” Whenever Lee needed to send a corps on an independent mission, it was his “Old Warhorse” Longstreet that he chose. Last year had sent him on a campaign to overrun Union forces a
t Suffolk across the James River from Fortress Monroe. Only the Navy’s gallant defense of the river line frustrated his attempt. His second mission was more attended by success. He took two divisions to reinforce Bragg’s Army of Tennessee and arrived in time to crush the Union flank and win the blood-soaked battle of Chickamauga.

  “The James Peninsula.”

  “You’re sure?” Meade was a commander who liked to go over the sources of intelligence himself.

  “We’ve had a dozen deserters in the last five days who have told some version of the same story.

  “Well, you know Lee has sent deserters to us with misleading information before.”

  “But he’s never sent us slaves to do that. He has no idea they are some of our best informants. And we have two officer body slaves, both from Longstreet’s First Corps, who have told us the same thing as well as word from one of our best agents in the enemy’s rear.”

  “General Sharpe has also authorized me to inform you of a new source of information from within Richmond itself, for your ears only. A certain lady in the enemy’s capital has contacted us with a desire to provide information for the sake of the Union”

  “A woman?”

  “Our Rose Greenhow, but much better, according to Sharpe.”5 Babcock replied. “She’s already proven her bona fides by arranging the escape of so many of our officers in Libby Prison. Col. Paul Revere, you will remember, was one of them.”

  It had been an enormous black eye for the Confederates that more than fifty Union officers had escaped. Meade thought back to his conversation with Revere and the man’s undying devotion to this “ministering angle” who had not only seen to their escape from the pesthole of Libby Prison but had smuggled them from one safe house to another and then out of Richmond and down to Fort Monroe. She was already well-known to the prisoners for her visits to provide them with food, clothing, and medicine. He revealed her name only in the strictest confidence: Elizabeth Van Lew, a blue-blooded member of Richmond society and an ardent Union patriot.

  He said, “Oh, the Van Lew woman.”

  Babcock was surprised. “Sir, I must emphasize that her name is not be repeated to anyone. She is at great risk, and Lee has spies in our camp as we have in his.”

  “Of course, of course.” He thought for a moment. “Lee is gambling that Longstreet can reach Monroe before we are able to begin our campaign. He thinks we will wait for the new grass to feed our horses and for the roads to dry enough in late April. He’s taking the risk of detaching one-third, and I would say the best third, of his army. If there was one Confederate I would like to be gone from Lee’s army, it is Longstreet.” Meade’s interpersonal skills may have been lacking, but he was one Union general whom Robert E. Lee respected. He had said of Meade just before Gettysburg when he learned of his appointment to command the Army of the Potomac that Meade would make no mistake of which Lee could take advantage but would be sure to take advantage of any mistake Lee made.

  THE VAN LEW TRUCK FARM OUTSIDE RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, 6:12 A.M., SUNDAY, APRIL 3, 1864

  Van Lew watched the Confederate cavalryman ride slowly up the road toward her farm with the sun rising at his back. He was nondescript save for the red hair and beard, and in his greeting his accent was pure Virginia. Yet, Van Lew knew immediately from the password he dropped in his greeting that he was the Union contact she had expected.

  He identified himself as Maj. Milton Cline. Sharpe could think of no one more able to make contact with Van Lew. Cline had been the Chief of Scouts of the Army of the Potomac and worked directly for Sharpe. The man was a phenomenal scout, able to blend in among the Confederates with a butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-his-mouth coolness and a great actor’s skill of living his part. Before Chancellorsville he had passed himself off as a Confederate soldier to an officer touring all the brigades of Lee’s army, adding vital information to Babcock’s order-of-battle. At Gettysburg he acquired the information, again by impersonating a Southern cavalryman, that vital dispatches from Richmond were expected at a certain time and place. That led to Sharpe’s plan for a snatch-and-grab raid led by Ulrich Dahlgren and Cline that delivered the dispatches to Meade and further hardened his resolve to stand and fight at Gettysburg.6

  Although Cline could go Southern with ease, he was New York born and raised and had moved to Indiana where he joined the 3rd Indiana Cavalry at the start of the war. Hooker had used these Hoosiers for special operations and after they captured a Confederate ship on the Potomac had earned the name of Hooker’s Horse Marines. Sharpe had acquired his services for the CIB, found an Indiana state volunteer commission for him, and sent him there with the Horse Marines to ferret out the rising Copperhead conspiracy, which he had done with great success. That had shown that Cline could operate not just as a lone scout but also with the most delicate of situations. So when Sharpe considered who best to send to make contact with Van Lew, only Cline, the human chameleon, would do.

  Van Lew showed him to the little parlor in the farmhouse. She did not usually live there but in Richmond where she owned a distinguished home, columned Greek front and all, in the heart of the city. She waved to him to sit. “May I offer you coffee or tea, sir?” Her thin face with sharp features did not make her a pretty woman, but she was what they called handsome, the special accolade for a woman of presence and character. Before he could answer, she said, “Now that the English are filling Southern harbors, nothing is in short supply.” Cline chose coffee and remarked that in the North it was now in short supply also due to the English.

  As the coffee was served, Van Lew said that he could speak freely around her people. Cline said, “I don’t worry, Miss Van Lew. In my experience no slave has ever betrayed a Union soldier behind the lines.

  “I’m sure that is true, Major, but my people are not slaves. I freed them all as soon as my father died. They work for an honest wage. Most of our soldiers who have escaped from Libby Prison could only have done so with the aid of my people. They are in this war as much as any soldier.”

  “Indeed, ma’am, indeed.” He leaned over to emphasize that it was time to do business.

  “General Sharpe wishes me to thank you in the fullest terms for the information you sent through General Butler. We have confirmed it through other sources as well, but as he said, it is better to drink directly from the well. He asks me to inquire of your sources.”

  This was obviously something she did not want to do. “I must protect those sources, Major. Surely, you understand that the more people who know, the more risk they suffer.”

  “I must be frank, madam. Our knowledge of your sources allows us to gauge their credibility and your usefulness. I assure you, though, that that knowledge is shared with only the most trusted officers of General Sharpe’s organization.” He paused, and then added, “And General Grant and the President.”

  She seemed to brighten up at that. “We have had difficulty acquiring a trusted agent in Richmond, madam, and General Sharpe believes you fill that bill. Your own bona fides, in your gallant help to our prisoners, have more than established that.” He did not mention that Grant had almost immediately from his appointment as General-in-Chief had told Sharpe to “get me inside Richmond.” It was almost a God-sent miracle that shortly thereafter General Butler had forwarded Van Lew’s information, which she had had smuggled through the lines to Fort Monroe.

  “You must understand, Major, that despite all the bravado here about loyalty to the Rebellion, there are many in Richmond who have remained loyal to the flag. Virginia did not go easily into secession. It has been my honor to hold this loyal community together, though they are hunted and oppressed. Let me just say that loyal men work in the Army and Navy Departments who risk their lives for their true country. Then there are others, such as Samuel Routh who runs the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad (RF&P) and who directly supplies Lee. His information is of the utmost accuracy. He can also, shall I say, prove incompetent, when necessary.

  “Richmond leaks like a sieve. The l
oyal community just laps it up and brings it to me, and I am determined to pass it on to our government.”

  “I must ask, though, how you can do so when you have so clearly stated your loyal opinions in public and have become such an open relief to our prisoners?”

  Van Lew smiled. “I have cultivated a certain eccentricity to the point where I am dismissed simply as Crazy Bet. I put on a pretty good show of it too, I must say.” As a member of Richmond society, she also profited from a degree of elite tolerance. “But I don’t want you to think that I rely solely on that. I have taken on a border whose presence is proof of my harmlessness as well as my loyalty.” She sipped her coffee, and her eyes twinkled over the cup. “I offered free room and board to General Wyndham, the Provost Marshal General of the Confederacy as my patriotic duty to the cause, and he accepted, the greedy, little man. Who then would question the lady who boards the chief jailer and spy-catcher in the Confederacy?”

  SOUTHEND-ON-SEA, ESSEX, ENGLAND, 11:15 A.M., SUNDAY, APRIL 3, 1864

  The small resort community had been locked down tight. The Marines quickly seized the telegraph office and the railway station, while other squads blocked all then roads leading out of the resort. The half-dozen unarmed constables were locked up in their own jail while the mayor was found and brought in state of jabbering hysteria to the station where Dahlgren had set up his headquarters. There he joined the station master, a tower of stone-faced British reserve. One look silenced the mayor into only an odd whimper.

  They faced Dahlgren, who had found a chair in the station master’s office. He was reading the train schedule and then looked up. The station master immediately fixed on the sky-blue eyes. They were the reflection of a blue gas flame. He sensed without even forming the conscious thought that this was a dangerous man as a man senses the snarling power of a sleek hunter. When he did speak, his voice was clipped and to the point. “My name is Colonel Dahlgren. Your town is now under the military jurisdiction of the United States Army. Any attempt at resistance by the civilian population will result in the full application of the laws of war, meaning, gentlemen, anyone bearing arms or assisting those who bear arms will be summarily shot. Do I make myself clear?”