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

by Tsouras, Peter G.

  Time, time, time. How long would it take Meade and Hancock to figure out what he had done and react? Every minute they tried to make sense of what was going on was that much further out of harm’s way. It could not be long now since Stuart had made contact with their cavalry late yesterday, but would they think it was a feint or a raid by Stuart, or more, he wondered. His chief of staff, Colonel Charles Marshall, put words to that same thought. Lee could only say, “It is always proper to assume that the enemy will do what he should do.”5

  It was prudent that he should bear that in mind, for Grant had been well-served by John Babcock and his BMI.6 Babcock’s scouts had found the tail of Lee’s withdrawing army, followed it south as some rushed forward to find Grant and Hancock and others to the rear to inform Meade. Putting this information together with Wilson’s reports of Stuart’s movement, Grant gave Hancock the order to prepare to intercept Lee. At first light as Lee’s men woke on the hard ground, Hancock’s balloons began to ascend. His own men had already been on the road in the last dark hours of the morning. By the time the sun rose, the head of the long blue column was already past Hanover Junction.

  Longstreet had also wasted no time, and with the dawn had sent his brigades forward against Sheridan’s dismounted cavalry. Only then did an exhausted courier from Lee find him. The possibility of crushing Hancock between them was gone, and it was now Longstreet’s mission to hold open the door by which the Army of Northern Virginia would escape. He immediately dispatched his two cavalry regiments to make contact with Stuart, and then turned his attention back to smashing Sheridan.

  That was not going well. The usual trickle of wounded that staggered rearward in any fight was a freshet then a flood. He could hear the high volume of fire from the enemy and the new machine-like buzz of the Gatlings. But push Sheridan back he did. His artillery laced the lines of the dismounted cavalry and savaged the Union horse artillery. Slowly Sheridan gave ground.

  CHESAPEAKE BAY, 9:45 A.M., SATURDAY, MAY 7, 1864

  The submersible squadron left Fortress Monroe at midnight and ran on the surface into the bay. What sparks had come from their small funnels were swallowed by the night. And no one saw them to bobbing to the rear of the British fleet, as all eyes were forward in the direction of Farragut’s main battle fleet. If that were not enough to rivet their attention, the sudden appearance from the direction of Norfolk of the four aeroships certainly did. Admiral Hope commented to his flag lieutenant, “Now we shall see what these new balloon guns can do.”

  His own attention switched to the approach of Farragut’s ships in four parallel divisions each steaming line ahead. In the easternmost division were seven frigates and sloops. The other three divisions were all ironclads. To either side of each of the ironclad divisions were gunboats and sloops.

  The British batteries and gunboats opened fire immediately as the American ships came in range. With his glass Hope watched the hail of projectiles converging with great accuracy on the leading monitors. They seemed to steam on as if they were nothing but clouds of gnats flying them. When the monitors fired in return, their huge projectiles disintegrated every floating battery they hit in a spray of shattered armor plate, bodies, and guns. They could not miss for the British batteries and boats were in a deep formation, and those shot were bound to hit something.

  As the lead monitors broke into the British formation, the Bazalgetters sprang forward. HMS Speedwell and Dart, 570-ton Philomel-class screw gunboats closed in on USS Dictator from either side, on their decks the boarding parties of armed sailors and Marines. The only slightly larger USS Penobscot rushed ahead to intercept Dart on Dictator’s larboard side. At one hundred yards its 11-inch 172-pound shell blew through the Dart’s hull to explode in the engine spaces. On Dictator’s starborad side, her escorting gunboat had itself been intercepted by several British gunboats. Speedwell churned by to ram the huge monitor and ride up on its deck. The tactic had worked well on the smaller Passaic-class monitors, only one quarter Dictator’s size, causing them to list dangerously. Dictator, though, at over 4,300 tons showed hardly any list with the small gunboat beached half on its deck and half in the water. The boarding party was jumping down when the turret swung forward and literally blew Speedwell off the deck with the blast of both its 15-inch Dahlgrens. Dictator plowed on trailing the gunboat’s debris.

  At the tail of the left column HMS Lee and Landrail converged on the small Passaic-class monitor, USS Sangamon. The U.S. gunboat Monticello was already drifting on fire, knocked to pieces by the gun batteries it had passed. Sangamon’s turret was desperately shifting to bring its guns to bear on Lee when Landrail struck it, riding up on its aft deck, depressing the guns as the ship was pressed down on its port side. Marines and armed tars leapt over the side and onto the deck. Its hatches flew open and men scrambled out pistols and cutlasses in hand to defend the ship. It was hand to hand on the deck when Lee rode up on the forward deck. The two gunboats equalized the pressure on the deck righting it as water swept over the deck. Its guns now were stabilized on a level plain. They swung slowly to Lee and fired. The gunboat was blown back into the water, sending its boarding party flying through the air. HMS Snipe now came alongside as the turret crew hurriedly tried to reload. Snipe fired its 7-inch Armstrong gun directly into the 15-inch gun aperture just as the crew was lifting the powder charge. The 110-pound shell exploded just inside the turret as it struck the gun muzzle. The powder bags ignited, and blast shot out of the twin apertures in two orange jets, burning the turret crew alive. Sangamon was dead.

  No one noticed far to the rear of the fighting the small smokestacks of the submersibles being retracted as the boats prepared to slip under the water.

  SACO, MAINE, 10:30 A.M., SATURDAY, MAY 7, 1864

  However much Wolseley had wished that Hope Grant was on the spot, he now put that aside. A courier had come rushing from the fighting west along the river to report that Doyle was dead and that the enemy was pressing them hard. The mantle of command fell easily on his shoulders. He assessed what he knew—the enemy in strength was driving back the army’s 2nd Division toward Saco. This was the division that had conducted the siege of Portland and won the battle of Kennebunk last October. A majority of its men were Canadians whose nine months of hard service had turned into more than adequate soldiers. The Americans appeared to still be occupying Biddesford and were keeping up a heavy sniping and artillery fire. Their damn balloons hung in the air south of Biddeford and for several miles east and west of it. To the east, there was no information, and that was what was troubling. If there was nothing going on there, then Denison’s scouts should have reported just that. Instead, they simply disappeared.

  Wolseley turned to Denison. “George, take your remaining Guides and find out what is going on to the east of us. For God’s sake, hurry, man. I have to act within an hour or two at most, and I await your report.” The sound of battle to the west was getting louder.

  A few miles east of Saco, a half–dozen nondescript men hid in some woods. “Well, I’ll be damned,” Hogan muttered as he peered through the branches behind which Knight and he watched the road. Then he grinned and said, “Isn’t it grand!” more a delighted statement of fact than a question. Knight watched as a four Royal Guides in their nickel-plated Greek revival helmets (which by this time they had learned to hide with a burlap cover) trotted toward them. Hogan knew that Knight would have been perfectly happy to let them ride by. He was not a believer in bushwacking the other side’s scouts. In this case, Hogan thought, he will be glad to make an exception. He leaned over. “That’s my former host, the one that promised to hang me. It is himself, Colonel George Denison, commander of the Royal Guides. Imagine, a representative of Her Majesty’s government wanting to hang an Irishman!”

  He was right about the bushwacking. Knight was eager to make an exception for the man who was the counterpart of both McEntee and himself. He drew his pistol and looked at his companions. “Prisoners, boys, especially the colonel.” They burst out of
the woods within yards of the Guides, whooping and hollering and firing. The lead Guide pitched out of his saddle and another lurched forward, clutching his shoulder. By the time Denison drew his pistol, Hogan was on him and smashed him across the face with his own revolver. The man swayed in the saddle as Hogan brought the pistol down on his face again, again, and again until he slid to the ground. Hogan looked down and said, “Well, saar, forgive me the lack of a rope, for I would dearly love to return your hospitality, but Colonel McEntee would like a little talk with you.”7

  TAYLORSVILLE, VIRGINIA, 10:35 A.M., SATURDAY, MAY 7, 1864

  It was not just five thousand exhausted dismounted cavalrymen who held off Longstreet’s First Corps for three long hours that morning grudgingly giving ground. It was Sheridan and five thousand cavalrymen. He rode up and down the firing lines oblivious to the fire as the bullets and shells thinned his staff until he was carrying his own general’s flag and waving it over his head, doubling the fighting spirit of each unit as he passed. Of course, the Spencers and Gatlings helped too, but his men had taken fearful losses from Longstreet’s artillery battalion ably commanded by Col. E.P. Alexander, and the fact that the Confederates outnumbered him five to one, which tended to equalize the firepower advantage of the repeaters, as did Alexander’s fine new English guns. Still, Longstreet’s mighty First Corps, called even by its enemies the most powerful offensive formation in American history, had only been able to push Sheridan back a mile, just outside small town of Taylorsville, four miles south of Hanover Junction.

  Longstreet himself was fighting off a living nightmare. The firepower of the enemy cavalry reminded him of every one of those blood-soaked days when men were thrown at the massed firepower of the enemy—first there was Malvern Hill, then Fredericksburg, and that most evil of all days, July 3, at Gettysburg when he had begged Lee not to march into the jaws of that fire trap. Worst of all in its own way was the spinning barrels whirring and glowing in the night of those infernal Gatlings as he led his corps on the flank attack at Chattanooga.8

  Sheridan was so intent on the battle that he did not see the big man on a big horse ride up behind him with an army commander’s flag whipping in the breeze. Hancock watched him for a moment and took in the field with that single quick glance, the gift of the great commander. In another moment U.S. Grant joined him and then Maj. General Wright commanding VI Corps. It was only then that an aide tugged on Sheridan’s sleeve to point to the grove of commander’s flags that had sprouted. Sheridan turned Rienzi and trotted over to them. “Stopped him cold, the great Longstreet, we did

  Grant reached out to shake Sheridan’s hand, as did the others. Wright then rode off quickly to see to the deployment of his corps. Hancock laughed. “Sheridan, you’ve given Longstreet a very bad morning. Now let Wright have a turn, and we shall ruin his whole day.” They watched for a moment as Wright’s lead brigades double-timed onto the field, their rifles over their shoulders in a undulating hedge of bayonets, peeling left and right and moving up behind Sheridan’s men who were only too glad to fall back through them.

  Information now seemed to fly at this group of generals—couriers from Wilson telling of his desperate fight with his small division to hold Stuart from getting past Hanover Academy and reach Ashland Station five miles to the southeast on the RF&P Railroad. Hancock’s chief of his BMI reported what the analysis of interrogations and scout reports as well as his company of balloons. “Lee is definitely behind Stuart. If Stuart gets past Wilson, he will take Ashland Station and then reestablish his supply lines on the railroad and be able to withdraw into the defenses of Richmond.” He then pointed to the west and said, “Hanover Academy is over there about two miles.9 If Lee passes it, he can also come right up on Longstreet’s flank and fight with a unified army again. He can execute either or both of these options, General.”

  Grant said, “The last thing we want is for Lee to get his army into the defenses of Richmond. We must avoid a siege at all costs. Where the hell is Meade?”

  The officer replied that some of Meade’s scouts had come into his lines with the news that Meade was now half a day behind Lee. Grant turned to Hancock. “I think II Corps would be of real use to Wilson about now.”

  Hancock said, “It will take him hours to get there in strength. His corps is behind Wright’s.”

  Sheridan seemed to crackle with energy. “My Reserve Brigade is fresh. I can get there before II Corps.

  “Do it,” Grant said without hesitation. Sheridan was already galloping away. “Hancock, I think you should send the next division to back him up until II Corps arrives.”

  At that moment just north of the Hanover Academy Lee rode up to Stuart, who was intently watching the fighting. “General Stuart, what is the delay?” Stuart had not heard that sharpness in his voice since that painful afternoon on the second day at Gettysburg when he had ridden up with his exhausted cavalry behind him only to be coldly reproved for being late to the field. For a man who loved Lee like a father it was wounding beyond all measure. For a man who loved Stuart like a son, it was no easier. “I will have them on the run shortly, General. They have been uncommonly resolved to fight it out today.” Just then a solid shot struck the tree they were under, showering them with leaves, branches, and splinters. Lee calmly picked a six–inch splinter from the back of his hand. With that same hand he patted the neck of his splendid gray-white mount, Traveler, as blood soaked his gauntlet. “Thank God, old friend, you were spared.”

  CHESAPEAKE BAY, 10:30 A.M., SATURDAY, MAY 7, 1864

  The roar and thunder of two great fleets in action dulled the senses to everything else. Even had it been a peaceful watch on a calm sea, it was not likely that the attachment of mines by the divers of the submersibles would have been detected. Large magnets jumped from the divers’ hands to the iron hulls, the slight ring lost in the noise of battle. The torpedo was than affixed to the magnet. That is how it was supposed to work. The submersibles had had a far more difficult time keeping up with the British battle line even though it was moving at only a few knots. The divers had had even greater trouble in floating across the space between a moving hull and their own boat, hoping against hope that their air hoses did snap. But in the end all four found a target. Two of the torpedoes were successfully mounted and their long wires back to the boat and their ignition batteries let out. To the surprise of the other two divers, instead of iron hulls they found the copper sheathing of wooden hulls. The torpedoes could not be mounted. They had been unlucky enough to find HMS Prince Consort and Royal Sovereign, both built originally as wooden ships-of-the-line and then cut down and converted to ironclads, their hulls sheathed in copper.10

  Farragut’s plan had been for each division as it penetrated the floating battery and gunboat screen to turn to starboard and form a single line ahead paralleling the enemy’s. He had driven home to his captains the necessity of keeping this formation, and they pulled it off, though with some gaps. As they broke through the enemy’s small vessels, the heavy fire from Hope’s ironclads and wooden ships converged on the lead ship of each division. British gunnery was excellent, but even at that close range, the monitors were small targets. Still, the turrets rang with hit after hit, sending vibrating shock waves through the metal armor. A lucky hit from HMS Royal Sovereign on the gun aperture of USS Saugus struck the muzzle of one of its 15-inch guns, breaking off a good six inches and throwing fragments through the turret, wounding a half–dozen men. The surviving gun fired, and its shell exploded on the enemy ship’s deck, bringing down its mainmast. Farragut’s captains were following his orders to initially demast the British ships so that the broken masts and sails would fail over the sides and act as a slowing drag on them and mask their guns.

  Barely five hundred yards separated the ironclad battle lines, thick black clouds of powder smoke hanging in the space between punctuated by the darting red tongues of discharging guns. The two battle lines were steaming slowly parallel. The bay was too narrow a field of fight for high–spee
d maneuvers. It was now two boxers in a small ring pounding away at each other as they slowly steamed east to the wider part of the bay. Hope was pulling the battle into more open water where his speed advantage could come into play. Two more British ironclads saw their masts come crashing down in the first ten minutes of the fighting. Even if Hope wanted to increase speed as he reached more open water, he could not unless he wanted his formation to break up as the demasted ships fell behind.

  Hope took heart from good effect of Captain Cowles’s tactics of plunging fire that had already smashed through the deck of USS Montauk and left it dead in the water, smoke pouring out of its torn open deck. Another of the smaller Passaic-class monitors, the Weehawken, was also put out of action. Deadly accurate British gunnery from HMS Wivern’s four 9-inch rifled guns had found a flaw and cracked her turret armor, and another round had penetrated, killing everyone inside. The powder bags inside exploded, bursting the turret.

  Farragut broke his own battle line to bring New Ironsides up against HMS Warrior, Hope’s flagship and the first and largest of the British ironclads at 9,200 tons. New Ironsides’s crew took enormous pride in having sunk Warrior’s sister ship, Black Prince, at Charleston the previous October and was now determined to inflict the same fate on the pride of the Royal Navy. New Ironsides seriously outgunned her opponent, her 11-inch Dahlgrens against the 7-inch Armstrongs and smaller old 68-pounders. Although the breech–loading Armstrongs were accurate and quick firing, their 110-pound shot simply bounced off the angled, rolled steel armor of New Ironsides. Warrior’s own armor was quickly torn open along its entire length, as the 172-pound American shells exploded inside the gun compartments. Only its innovation of interior armored bulkheads prevented the exploding shells from causing even more mayhem.

  Farragut’s wooden division at the head of his battle line suddenly increased speed to pass around the head of the British lead division, pounding its lead frigate, HMS Aurora, to pieces with the converging fire of almost all its seven ships. Aurora fell out of line exposing the next ship HMS Galetea to the same converging fire with much the same result.