A Rainbow of Blood: The Union in Peril an Alternate History

by Peter G. Tsouras

  The wrath of outraged England at the loss of HMS Liverpool had not flared so brightly in Ireland outside the Protestant Anglo-Irish world. But the country by and large was still loyal, if only out of habit, and would shoulder the burden of this new cousin's war. But not all. Underneath the veneer of loyalty, the seeds of fifty years and more of the growth of Irish nationalism were sprouting. "Ireland's centuries-old dream of independence materialized in the collective form of a body of Irish rebels on 'the old sod and the new sod-America-alike."' They came to be called Fenians by the British, a blanket term for any of the Irish who advocated independence. But the British were inexplicably blind to the spread of the movement.

  They were especially blind where their own power concentrated. The British garrison of Ireland was shot through with Fenians. Just before the war, a quarter of the garrison's twenty-six thousand men had taken the Fenian oath "to free the Irish people from seven hundred years of oppressive British colonial rule or to die in the struggle."6 So many Irish in the garrison of their own country was not unusual, for Ireland had been the prime recruiting ground for the Crown. Only a few decades earlier, before the Great Famine winnowed the Irish so cruelly, Ireland supplied fully half the enlisted strength of the British Army. Only the loss of half of its population since then had allowed that figure to drop below fifty percent for the first time. Now, ten thousand men of that garrison were on at sea on their way to Canada, some of them serenaded by the music of hymns, Mozart, and Bach.

  OFFICE OF THE SECRET SERVICE, WASHINGTON, D.C., 4:47 PM, OCTOBER 24, 1863

  "Well, Miller, you're in luck. The president's bodyguard has gone missing, and I'm short a man to fill that post." Lafayette Baker normally had quite a pack of agents at hand, but he had run the cupboard bare with the explosion of enemies, except for this new Midwesterner. And the man had done well in the assignment he had been given. That sniveling, noisy actor had shut up most ostentatiously.

  Yes, luck was not what Big Jim Smoke had counted on when he had knifed the bodyguard and dumped his body into the Potomac River after the two stumbled out of an Alexandria dockside tavern two nights ago. He counted on the odds. If they ever found the body, it would be unrecognizable. The Copperhead organization in Washington had not been decapitated as it had been everywhere else. It was used to lying low in the den of the enemy, but its links farther south into Rebeldom had not been neglected. Shadowy orders had flowed north: weaken or penetrate the security around Seward, Stanton, and Lincoln.

  Baker went on, "It's actually the easiest duty in Washington. Just sit outside his office or follow him around and keep the office seekers off him. And there's some free entertainment. He likes to go to the theater a lot."

  KENNEBUNK, MAINE, 10:18 AM, OCTOBER 25, 1863

  As soon as Hope Grant caught up with the British Portland Force marching south to meet the American VI Corps, the column picked up its pace. As commander of all of Her Majesty's forces in British North America, he immediately assumed command. As an old cavalryman, he knew the value of speed. In this he was much like the late Stonewall Jackson. He pushed his Imperial and Canadian battalions down the Portland Road. Scouts reported the advance of the Americans coming north also on the Portland Road. John Sedgwick knew how to hard-march his men as well as Grant. The forced march of the VI Corps to Gettysburg on July 2 had been an achievement by any standard. They numbered fifteen thousand men and forty-two guns. They were tough as nails.'

  Grant's study of the map pointed to the little town of Kennehunk, bisected by its eponymous river, as the likely point where the two columns would meet. The river was crossed by Durrell's Bridge, which connected the two halves of the town, and seven shipyards clustered down both banks. Kennehunk was a major shipbuilding center, and building materials lined the streets and roads leading to the river. Doyle could tell him little of the enemy that he faced other than its high reputation as a fighting formation and its commander as a fighting general. Almost immediately, Grant sent a courier off to the coast to make contact with whatever Royal Navy ships were blockading Kennehunk at Kennehunk- port, a few miles downriver.

  For Sedgwick's part, he had no idea that he was about to meet the foremost British general of the age. His last information had Doyle still at Portland. Grant had had the foresight to cut the telegraph and race ahead of any warning. The Brunswick Regiment of Yeomanry Cavalry was effectively screening his advance -until they were hit hard by the small cavalry brigade attached to Segdwick's corps. At the first sound of gunfire to his front, Grant deployed his battalions and moved forward. It was not long before the Canadian cavalry came flying past. The Union cavalry were close behind, but the closely wooded road had masked the red lines from them until the last moment. A volley from the 17th Foot brought down the head of the column in a tangle of bodies and screaming, flailing horses. Grant ordered them forward, and the red ranks surged ahead, bayonets at the level.

  Sedgwick's first knowledge of the British was when some of his cavalry came tearing back through Kennehunk to tell him that they had run into redcoats only a few miles north. No one ever accused Uncle John of being a Napoleon, but he was steady and unflappable, attributed by some to an utter lack of imagination. But he knew what to do in a fight. His first division was approaching the bridge over the Kennehunk River. The others were strung out for miles to the south. He sent couriers after them to hurry the pace.

  The first men over the bridge would be Horatio G. Wright's 1st Division. Sedgwick wanted his best to land the first punch. Wright had only recently been given division command after a brilliant record in the West. The man was slated for a corps command one day, and Meade had been eager to find him a division. Meade had other reasons. Wright would be senior to the 2nd Division commander, Brig. Gen. Albion P. Howe, who had the great talent of alienating just about everyone above him in the chain of command. Howe and Sedgwick simply did not get along. Howe was also a partisan of Hooker's, whom Meade has succeeded, and then a partisan of Sickles in the controversies surrounding Gettysburg, going so far as to testify against Meade before the House's witch-hunting Committee on the Conduct of the War. It was inevitable that Howe would come to be called "Perfidious Albion."

  PORT HUDSON, LOUISIANA, 12:33 PM, OCTOBER 25, 1863

  It had been the retreat through a green hell. The exhausted survivors of Franklin's XIX Corps struggled into the defenses of Port Hudson as the black faces of the Corps d'Afrique looked on their shambling ranks with wide eyes. It had only been a fifty-mile march, but miles down roads that were barely tracks through the great stinking expanse of swamp, marsh, and bayou. One by one its wagons and guns had been abandoned and at last even its ambulances full of groaning misery. The wounded had been mounted on the horses or carried in litters.

  On the road north from Vermillionville to Opelousas, Franklin had gone northeast to Leonville to cross Bayou Teche, then back south to Araudville and from there the great "muck march," as the men would call it, to the Bayou Grosse Pointe and across. It was there that Franklin heard the news of the fall of New Orleans and the imminent fall of Baton Rouge. That dashed his hopes of taking the railroad from Rosedale to West Baton Rouge. He would have to take his worn-out men another fifteen miles north through more hellish swamp country to safety in the fortifications of Port Hudson. Along with Vicksburg, Port Hudson had been one of the two strong fortresses keeping the Mississippi out of Union hands. It had fallen four days after Vicksburg. Now he realized it would have to serve the Union, hopefully better than it had served the Confederacy.

  Franklin was thankful to find the river below Port Hudson filled by the U.S. Navy. A good part of the river squadrons that had fought so hard to free the Mississippi were there. The sailors was glad of the chance to do something useful in the midst of catastrophe and ferry Franklin's men over to Port Hudson. It was a nervous post commander, Brig. Gen. George A. Andrews, who met Franklin at the landing. All he could talk about was how the French army and fleet were about to march upriver and overrun the fort. Franklin smelle
d the man's panic and pulled him by the arm over to a quiet place. "General, this fort will hold, by God. This fort will hold. And you are going to help me do it." All Andrews seemed to need was someone to take charge, and Franklin had done just that. "First thing, I need to get my men fed and the wounded to hospital." Andrews's panic had not let him neglect the military administration he was very good at.

  "I've already given orders, sir. Every cook at this post is slaving away, and more tents are going up at the hospital. We've already been overrun by refugees up from New Orleans, so we were doing a lot of this anyway. The Navy's brought thousands to here and Baton Rouge."

  "What is the strength of the garrison?"

  "Besides four artillery batteries and a cavalry regiment, I have a brigade of infantry of the Corps d'Afrique-about three and half thousand men in all."

  "I have one of my own brigades at Baton Rouge, "said Franklin, "but the place can't be held against a superior force. The last I saw of Banks, he was with XIII Corps as it was being crushed by the French. Do you have any word from him?

  "Nothing, General."

  "Then who is in command of the Department of the Gulf?"

  "Why, I expect you are, sir."

  KENNEBUNK, MAINE, 1:29 PM, OCTOBER 25, 1863

  Big white flakes were falling in the first snow of the season as the command group galloped along Main Street north of the bridge. The sound of gunfire up ahead seemed muffled by the falling white blanket when a shell burst overhead in an orange spasm that spewed black iron fragments. Sedgwick rose up from the saddle and then toppled over to the ground without a sound. His staff rushed to him, but the gaping hole in his forehead told them there was nothing to be done. He had been riding beside a regiment pushing forward to the fight and was waving them on with his hat. They had seen him go down and groaned as one man. VI Corps loved "Uncle John" and would not take this kindly.'

  The 1st Division had barely passed over the bridge when the British hit the head of the column on the edge of town. Hope Grant's map reconnaissance told him the bridge was key terrain feature, a choke point that delayed passage of large bodies of men and vehicles. If he could catch part of the enemy's force on the near side and smash it, then the remainder would retreat. He did not need to destroy the enemy, just keep them from relieving Portland. Without Portland, Canada could not be held.

  His timing had been flawless. He had driven back the enemy cavalry and then marched so quickly that he was able to catch the Americans before they were even halfway across the bridge and still in column. That had been the easy part. Speed, surprise, and the grit to slug it out toe to toe had been the secret of his success against Sepoy and Chinaman. Against the Americans it might not he enough.

  Speed had brought Grant's red battalions sweeping up to Kennehunk. The British hreechloading Armstrong guns were very accurate at a long distance, and their first volley killed Sedgwick and burst over the stone spans of Durrell's Bridge, which was packed with men of the 49th Pennsylvania and the guns of the Battery F, 5th U.S. Artillery. The bridge exploded into a bloody shamble, clogged with dead and wounded men and horses, and guns, caissons, and limbers overturned by their dying and wounded animals.

  Wright now found himself on the north side of the river with only two brigades. His last brigade and the other two divisions were stacked up on High Street on the other side of the river as men desperately tired to clear the bridge. Wright was ignorant of both Sedgwick's death and the severing of the corps column because he was urging on Brig. Gen. Alfred T. A. Torbert's New Jersey Brigade in the lead. He knew the enemy was ahead from the reports of the cavalry and was determined to get his division out of town and deployed. Grant had the opposite purpose. The last thing he wanted was for the Americans to deploy outside the town; then they would be able to feed their entire force into the fight and have numbers on their side. No, he must hit them in the town and force them back to the bridge. It was a race, pure and simple.

  That was why Wright rode past the 1st New Jersey, his lead regiment, to personally reconnoiter the ground ahead for the battle. Behind him rode his escort, a hundred men of the 1st Vermont Cavalry. Almost as soon as they turned off Main Street to the Portland Road, they ran into the Canadian 54th Sherbrooke Battalion blocking the road. Their volley ripped into the head of the cavalry column, tumbling men and horses in a kicking, screaming knot on the road. As the survivors turned back, skirmishers went forward to round up prisoners. Pinned under his horse, Wright found himself looking up into the blued point of a Canadian bayonet. Beyond the honor of capturing a general officer, the Sherbrooke men had done a great service to Grant. They had decapitated VI Corps. With Sedgwick dead and Wright captured, command would have devolved on Albion Howe, had he known of the fate of the other two. But he was still south of the bridge with his division. VI Corps would fight that day without a commander.'

  Sweeping in from the south, the 17th (Leicestershire) Foot, almost a thousand men strong, struck Wright's lead regiment, the 1st New Jersey, just as it exited the town. The British were known as the Bengal Tigers from their service in India, and an apt nickname it was. Their volley shattered the far smaller New Jersey regiment, and their bayonet charge finished them off. They pushed down Main Street to collide with the next regiment, the 4th New Jersey, which stubbornly blocked the road. Two more Canadian militia battalions came up to feel the flanks.

  Grant himself led the 63rd (West Suffolk) Regiment of Foot known as the Blood Suckers, with its three Canadian militia battalions of the Niagara Brigade to attack into the town from the west. They drove straight to the bridge to run into Wright's third brigade, which had just cleared the wreckage and was beginning to stream across. The 5th Wisconsin double-timed off the bridge to wheel into line to face the Niagaras.

  Wisconsin regiments were particularly tough. Wisconsin was the only state to keep its original regiments up to strength rather than raise new regiments as the old ones shrank due to casualties and illness. Regiments were kept strong, and the fighting skills and spirit of the old hands was passed to the new men. Now, seven hundred Wisconsin men, flanked by battery of the Rhode Island Light Artillery, leveled their rifles and fired into the red-coated column coming down Stover Street. The six guns followed in ten seconds to catch the men in the back of the column. The 58th Compton Battalion disintegrated from the blows. The Wisconsin men pushed up the street in pursuit where they ran into the Blood Suckers coming their way. Both columns fired at the same time. The 5th Wisconsin's colonel and lieutenant colonel both went down, as did the commander of the 63rd. Now it was a soldier's fight as the men spread out among the houses and yards. A company was too big to control as the fighting went house to house. It was close-quarters work with pistol, rifle butt, and bayonet as groups of men broke into a house or fired from its windows, and rushed across small yards. The 119th Pennsylvania fed into the fight just as more Canadian militia were flanking through the alleys.10

  For Grant, it was just like the fighting in the Great Mutiny, storming one position after another, except that the Americans gave as good as they got, and often as not threw the British out of a house and were thrown out in turn. This was his first time fighting a Western opponent. He didn't count the Russians; they were just blond Orientals, but brave and stolid. And this opponent spoke English, for which Grant allowed himself a moment of pride in the descendents of his own land. Only a brief moment. He had a more pressing problem. The Sherbrooke Brigade had been stopped, soaked up in the house-to-house fighting. The town and its shipyards, filled with wood, were already beginning to burn. His only reserve was the remnants of the 62nd Foot that Chamberlain had savaged at the First Battle of Portland-only four hundred Imperial troops. His Canadian battalions were doing well in their first action, but they were no match for the veterans of VI Corps.

  At the same time, the head of Third Division was approaching the bridge with the Second Division right behind. They were double-timing forward, rifles over their shoulders, bayonets a flowing blued-black ribbon above
the moving columns. They moved with a veteran smoothness, ten thousand men, more than enough to tip the scales against Grant's force.

  Grant saw all this from the steeple of a church and knew that his gamble had failed. It was only a matter of time before the enemy crossed the bridge in such numbers as to overwhelm him. His face set as he turned to an aide to give the order to disengage, when a shrill whistle rent the air. He looked south and saw a warship approaching, its funnels streaming black smoke. It seemed to fill the river as it turned the bend. She was the screw frigate, HMS Bacchante, and never was the arrival of the Royal Navy more opportune." All through the noise of battle, everyone stopped to hear the whistle shriek. Grant had a bird's-eye view as the wooden ship came up to within two hundred yards of the bridge and swung amidships in the deep river to present her broadside. The whole ship shuddered when she fired her portside battery of fifteen 8-inch naval rifles and ten 32-pounders. The bridge blew apart, scattering stone and men into the air. Its spans collapsed into the river with hundreds of men and horses. For a brief moment, the noise of the battle died, but only for a moment, for again Bacchante's whistle shrieked in triumph 12