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

by Peter G. Tsouras

CHAPTER NINE: PERILOUS MORNING

  1. Knight, "Scouting for Hooker," 12.

  2. *Mark Serrano, "Intelligence and Reconnaissance during the Hudson Valley Campaign," Army Review, vol. 87 (June 1888): 60.

  3. *Martin Steinbach, The Washington Campaign (New York: Webster, 1979), 56-57. *Jackson O'Hara, "Running the Guns at Fort Washington, Battles of the Civil War Magazine, January 30, 1988, 23.

  4. John Buchanan (1791-1868), the last president of the United States to he born in the eighteenth century, Buchanan was blamed for taking no serious action to arrest the South's secession.

  5. Steuart acquired his nickname to distinguish him from the other Stuart-the dashing J. E. B. Stuart who commanded the cavalry of the Army of Northern Virginia. Steuart was a native Marylander and captain in the U.S. Army when the South seceded. Although Maryland did not follow that example, Steuart's loyalties were to the South. He resigned his commission, joined the Confederate service and was given command of the 1st Maryland Regiment, composed of other Marylanders expatriates.

  6. John Manchip White, Marshal of France: The Life and Times of Maurice, Comte de Saxe, 1696-1750 (New York: Rand McNally, 1962), 159. Attributed to a British sergeant of the Foot Guards (later Grenadier Guards) awaiting a volley from the French royal guard regiment Maison du Roi at the battle of Fontenoy on May 11, 1745.

  7. The War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, series 1, vol. 29, part 1 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1890), 817-23. This entry gives the order of battle of the Army of Northern Virginia as of October 31, 1863. Steuart's brigade consisted of the 1st Maryland, 1st North Carolina, 33rd, 10th, and 37th Virginia Regiments.

  8. Lowe, The Battle of Washington from the Air, 45-47. This was the beginning of a lifelong friendship between Lowe and Zeppelin who collaborated on many improvements in the construction and use of lighterthan-air ships. This led to the development and joint production of the American-German Von-Steuben class bomber airships. It was an air fleet of over 200 German Steuhens that raided London in 1890 so successfully in the great air raids of World War II.

  9. Heinrich Steiner, Per deutsche Tat fur Amerika: Per Mauer and die Deutseher in den grossen Krieg (St. Louis, MO: Ostmann Publishing Company, 1889), 101.

  10. The title of "Damned Dutch" persisted with XI Corps despite the fact that after Gettysburg, as an examination of its order of battle will show, many of its German regiments were replaced with other regiments. Although a significant German element remained, it was not as strong as before.

  11. *Russell Alger, "Train-Busting in the Battle of Claverack," Combat and Commanders of the Civil War (New York: The Century Company, 1890), 297.

  12. Longstreet had to go into battle with only the divisions of Hood and McLaws on the second day at Gettysburg. Pickett's division would not arrive until the evening of that day, long after the fighting stopped.

  13. *Arthur Freemantle, Paulet in the Hudson Valley Campaign: A Study in Command (Edinburgh, UK: Blackwood and Sons, 1885), 146. Freemantle, who had been an observer at Gettysburg, continued to show a great interest in the fighting in North America after the war had widened. He maintained a heavy correspondence with Wolseley, who provided him much of the information and insights that appeared in Freemantle's book.

  14. *George Armstrong Custer, The Cavalry at Clavarack (New York; Weh- ster,1880), 97.

  15. Edward G. Longacre, The Cavalry at Gettysburg: A Tactical Study of Mounted Operations during the Civil War's Pivotal Campaign, 9 June-14 July 1863 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993), 242. Davies had inherited Farnsworth's brigade; it was to the commander of the 5th New York that Farnsworth had said of Kilpatrick's criminal order, "My God, Hammond, Kil is going to have a cavalry charge. It is too awful to think of."

  16. *"The Destruction of the Washington Arsenal," Committee on the Conduct of the War, U.S. House of Representatives, July 1, 1868, 322-28. *Sir Hugh Dunlop, The Descent Upon Washington in the Great War (London: Collins & Sons, 1876), 265-67; John Rogers Cooke, Gallant Men: Cooke's Brigade in the War (Richmond, VA: Longstreet Press, 1882), 311.

  17. "Lowe, The Battle of Washington from the Air, 60. Lowe's panoramic description of the explosion and its effect on Washington is the most unique of the narratives of that horrific event.

  18. "John Rogers Cooke, Campaigning with Lee: The History of Cooke's Brigade (Richmond, VA: Tidewater Press, 1888), 266.

  19. *Joseph L. Cartwright, Sailor and Aeronaut: The Life of William Cushing (Annapolis, MD: Naval Academy Press, 1972), 132-33. William B. Cushing (1842-1874) had been expelled from the Naval Academy for his pranks and poor scholarship. With the attack on Fort Sumter, he pled successfully to Secretary Welles for reinstatement. He went on to win "a distinguished record, frequently volunteering for the most hazardous missions. His heroism, good luck, and coolness under fire were legendary."

  20. Emory Upton, The Nation in Arms: Hooker and the Military Revolution (New York: D. Appleton, 1887), 92-94.

  21. *Oliver P. Campbell, Old Slow Come: The Enigmatic Life of General John Slocum (New York: Xenophon Books, 1996), 258.

  22. "Upton, The Nation in Arms, 95.

  23. *Custer, The Cavalry at Clavarack, 110.

  24. * Upton, The Nation in Arms, 97.

  25. *Wolseley, The Great War in North America, 230-32.

  CHAPTER TEN: "PRETTIEST PARADE I'VE EVER SEEN"

  1. *George H. Sharpe, The Central Information Bureau in the Great War (New York: Collier's Publishing Company, 1884), 89.

  2. *Elizabeth Keckley, My fife with the Lincolns (New York: The Neale Publishing Company, 1875), 211-12. Keckley's is the only eyewitness account of the actual shooting, since the president downplayed it in his memoirs, and Mrs. Lincoln and Tad refused to ever comment on the incident.

  3. *Michael D. Wilmoth, Reminiscences of Lincoln (New York: Dodd, Meade, 1886), 178-79. Wilmoth's account of events after he entered the room is largely in agreement with Keckley's.

  4. *Keckley, My Life with the Lincolns, 212. *Jospeh R. Sanders, The Lincoln Plot (New York: Browning Books, 1955), 211-14. Sanders' hook is the first reference to a letter Lincoln wrote to his friend, Admiral Dahlgren, in which he discusses details of his fight with Smoke. The letter was only found in the National Archives in 1953 by the author while searching naval administrative records.

  5. Ralph W. Kimball, "Defending the Navy Yard: Sailors, Marines, and Balloons," Journal of Naval History, vol. 23 (August 9, 1912): 23-24.

  6. William B. Cushing, Naval Aero-Power in the Great War: The Creation and Combat History of the Naval Aeronautics Service (NAS) (New York: Appleton & Co., 1975), 24.

  7. Jason Martin, From the Brink of Oblivion: General Henry Warner Slocum (New York: Ultimate Books, 1977), 235. Slocum was reassigned to Sherman's command where he was given command of a corps, which he led with great credit against the French in the Second Battle of New Orleans.

  8. Official Records of the Great War, series 1, vol. III, part 2 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1878), 423. Alger had attacked the lead train carrying the 3rd Hamilton Brigade; in addition to the 932 prisoners taken, the wreck and subsequent attack had inflicted another 211 killed and wounded. Most of the casualties were in the 1/47 Foot and Canadian 11th Battalion Volunteer Militia. The remnant of the brigade was unable to take part in the fighting in Stottville.

  9. The War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, series 1. vol. 31, part 1 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1890), 801. The corps present for duty was 8,702. The day before the battle, a brigade of New York regiments from the defenses of Washington arrived, to include the 20th New York State Militia Regiment.

  10. *Wolseley, The Great War in North America, vol. 1, 225-26. Aldershot in Hampshire was the main maneuver area of the British Army in England established in 1854. Today it is known as the Home of the British Army.

  11. "Edward Swinton, The Battle for Washington: Lee's Great Gamble (Philadelphia: National Publishing, 1878), 217
-29.

  12. *Francis X. Sweeny, Hard Pounding: The XII Corps at Claverack (New York; Francis D. Tandy Company, 1984), 200-202.

  13. *John W. McGiver, The Battle of "Out, Out!" (New York: Scott & Sons, Publishers, 1886), 132-33. The nickname for the battle formerly known as the Battle of Claverack was the Battle of "Out, Out." McGiver wrote twenty years after the war and carefully interviewed hundreds of veterans to discover the origin of the shout. The best answer he could find was that a lieutenant of the brigade had tried to exhort his men with valor of the Saxons at Hastings who had shouted down at the Norman knights, "Out, Out!" The troops had overlooked the fact that the Saxons had lost, but had taken to the words. The reference to the magic arrow was the lucky shot that struck the Saxon king, Harold, in the right eye.

  14. *John W. Winston, The Royal Navy in the Battle for Washington (London: Biddle & Marston, 1923), 173. The captain of Spiteful was awarded the Victoria Cross for his intrepidity in this action.

  15. *Thaddeus Lowe, The Triumph of Aeronautics (Philadelphia: Henry T. Coates, 1880), 239. This hook is a paean to the capabilities of the military balloon. However, Lowe does not stint his praise of Cushing. The two became fast friends and later collaborators in the development of military and naval balloons.

  16. *Jacob van Dyke, With Sharpe and the 120th at the Long Bridge: A Corporal's Story (Albany: J. Munsell Publishers, 1875), 129. Surprisingly well-written, this soldier's-eye view of the action at the Long Bridge is a priceless part of the historical record for its close observation of Sharpe's skilled conduct of the fight as well as his portrait of Lincoln at the time.

  17. *Joseph Hooker, The Battle for New York in the Great War (New York: D. Appleton, 1872), 382.

  18. Peter G. Tsouras, ed., The Book of Military Quotations (London: Greenhill Books, 2005), 336.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: CLICK, BANG!

  1. *Cushing, Naval Aero-Power in the Great War, 57.

  2. "Sinking Ships from the Air," Harper's Weekly, October 12, 1863, 13. This article contained a lengthy interview with Cushing in the hospital and proved to he one of the most sought-after issues of the magazine during the war. Cushing was deluged with flowers, candy, fruit, and all sorts of knitted and embroidered items, not to mention hundreds of love letters from girls and young women across the North. The hospital commander finally had to put his ward off limits to female visitors.

  3. *Friedrich Graf von Heinzen, The Rise of German Air Power, trans. Oscar Ritter (Boston: Roberts Brothers Publishers, 1936), 125-130. This issue, which also contained the coffee mill gun article, caused a sensation in Europe and was widely reprinted. In Prussia the king ordered copies of the articles for every officer at the suggestion of his army chief of staff, Gen. Helmuth von Moltke. The arrival of the Harper's issue coincided with the arrival of a detailed report and analysis of balloon operations by von Zeppelin. Von Moltke also wrote a lengthy analysis that was published in the prestigious Berliner Beobacther, a clear signal of government approval. Von Zeppelin was immediately recalled and put in charge of the development of the newly created Aeronautics Bureau of the Prussian general staff, with orders to develop a program along American lines.

  4. *George H. Sharpe, "The Defense of the Long Bridge," Journal of the Ulster Historical Society, vol. xii (July 4, 1890): 36.

  5. Gerald S. Henig and Eric Niderost, Civil War Firsts: The Legacies of America's Bloodiest Conflict (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2001), 77.

  6. John R. Ivers, The Coffee Mill Gunners: The Modern Fighting Man (New York; Dodd, Meade & Company, 1870), 126-27.

  7. `The Coffee Gun Miracle," Leslie's Weekly, October 12, 1863, 25. "Lincoln's Coffee Mill Guns: Baptism of Fire," Harper's Weekly, October 12, 1863, 7. Both magazines rushed engraved illustrations of the weapon into print, Leslie's being the more accurate in the depiction of the scene at the Long Bridge. Mathew Brady, however, immortalized the scene by rushing down to the bridge as the fighting had just ended to take pictures of the actual guns as well as the detritus of battle. *Mathew Brady, Photographs of the Defense of Washington (New York: Charles B. Richardson, 1864), 22-27.

  8. *John R. Tappen, The History of the 120th New York State Volunteer Regiment (New York: Neale Publishing Company, 1876), 236-38.

  9. George Denison, Charge to Glory: The Canadian Cavalry at Claverack (Montreal: St. George's Press, 1868), 210.

  10. John L. Lambert, "Fighting in a Cloud: Close Combat at Claverack," Journal of American Military History, vol. 23 (July 7, 1966): 54-55.

  11. The battle of Lundy's Lane took place on July 25, 1814, near Niagara Falls, Ontario. It could be considered a "narrow American tactical victory and a questionable British strategic victory." Losses were almost identical at 878 British and 860 Americans.

  12. Joseph Lehmann, The Model Major-General: A Biography of Field Marshal Lord Wolseley (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1964), 12.

  13. *Wolseley, The Great War in North America, vol. 1, 259.

  14. "Captain Nigel Atherton, A History of the Scots Borderers (Edinburgh, UK: Douglas & Wallace, 1912), 239.

  15. Joseph M. Kelly, The Battle of Claverack (New York: D. Appleton, 1876), 198-99. Kelly's work was one of the most popular of the D. Appleton series, Battles of the Great War. His assertion that the charge of the 2nd New York Cavalry was decisive in the outcome of the action at Stottville has never been challenged, especially since Meagher was of the same opinion.

  16. Franklin Murphy (1846-1920) survived the battle to become a Republican politician and the thirty-first governor of New Jersey.

  17. Capt. Geoffrey Wilson Brown (1842-1930) of the Scots Greys was a younger scion of the well-known Brown military family. There were rumors that he was actually the son of the famous Brig. Harry Paget Flashman (1822-1915), one of the most remarkable of all Victorian soldiers, whose life was immortalized in a brilliant novel series by George McDonald Fraser. Those in the know insisted the Geoffrey Brown was perfect double for Harry Flashman both in appearance and character, though Flashman never acknowledged him.

  18. *Denison, Charge to Glory, 262

  19. -Ibid., 237.

  20. The modern Greek word for horse is alogos, which means "the creature without logic or reason."

  21. *James P. McKenzie, The Life of George Denison (Toronto: Northern Lights Publishers, 1927), 190. Denison went on to become a Canadian hero but immigrated to England rather than live in the newly acquired territories of the United States.

  22. *Edmund St. Bury, ed., British Military Poetry Through the Centuries (London: Carlisle & Sons, 1883), 211.

  23. *Thomas R. Foley, The Cavalry at Claverack (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Center for Military History Press, 1973), 187-192.

  24. *Williams. Johnson, Jr. Immortal Charge: The Cadets at Claverack (West Point: Press of the U.S. Military Academy, 1970), 261-63.

  25. *Garrett L. Lydecker, A Soldier's Tale: The Memoirs of Brig. Gen. Garrett L. Lydecker (Boston: Lee and Shepard Publishers, 1900), 75. Lydecker recovered from his wounds and was immediately commissioned and served with the Army of the Hudson for the rest of the war being brevetted to captain.

  26. The battle of Saratoga took place over September and October 1776 in Upstate New York, north of Albany, and resulted in the surrender on October 17th of the British army commanded by Maj. Gen. John Burgoyne.

  27. It was this cry, after Wellington had repulsed the attack of Napoleon's Old Guard at Waterloo, that had dissolved the French army in panic.

  28. To disengage from an enemy in combat is to retreat. To depart the field when not in contact with the enemy is to withdraw.

  29. Hooker, The Battle for New York in the Great War, 420.

  30. *Wolseley, The Great War in North America, 270. John Renwick Davies immortalized Wosleley's bayonet charge at Claverack in a painting that is still a favorite of the visitors to the National Portrait Gallery in London.

  CHAPTER TWELVE: THE SERPENT'S EYE

  1. *Daniel Sickles, The Life of Fighting Joe Hooker (New York: Tammany Publishers, 1888), 238.
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  2. *Joseph Hooker, Triumph on the Hudson: The Battle for New York in the Great War (New York: D. Appleton, 1872), 433.

  3. *John Geary, The Battle of Claverack (Boston: Liberty Publishers, 1873), 483-87. Hooker's estimate that night was not too far off. Losses for both sides, even by Civil War standards, had been enormous. The Army of the Hudson had suffered 6,487 casualties: 978 dead, 4,873, wounded, and 636 missing, mostly prisoners, totaling almost 32 percent. Enemy losses were 8,506: 1,311 dead, 4,830 wounded, and 2,365 unwounded prisoners. Wounded prisoners numbered 4,002. The British had had to leave almost all their wounded on the field to the clemency of the Americans. Total British losses were almost 42 percent.

  4. *John W. Whitman, Wolseley and the British Retreat from Claverack (Washington: Infantry Journal Press, 1944),199-200.

  5. At Malplaquet, on September 11, 1709, the French volunteers under Marshal Claude de Villars had gutted Marlborough's invincible British and Dutch infantry. Writing to Louis XIV, Villars said that he hoped God would grant the enemy more such victories. Marlborough's pyrrhic victory was his undoing. He fell from power, and his opponents quickly made peace.

  6. *Adam Lefleur, Franklin and the Corps d'Afrique (Baton Rouge: Louisiana University Press, 1986), 92.

  7. Georges Delaeroix, The Life of Bazaine: A Marshal of Napoleon III (New York: Chambers Publishers, 1933), 248.

  8. Richard Aldous, The Lion and the Unicorn, 153-54.

  9. William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield: Volume II. 1860-1881 (London: John Murray, 1929), 1366-7.

  10. Archibald Makepeace, The War Speeches of Benjamin Disraeli (London: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 1879), 38.

  11. Monypenny, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, 994.

  12. *Makepeace, The War Speeches, 39.

  13. *Nikolai A. Rimsky-Korsakov, My Adventures in the Great War (New York: Tudor Press, 1936), 82.

  14. *Andrei M. Walendowski, Muravyov the Hangman: The Man Who Made Poland Weep (New York: Dobson Publishers, 1949), 211.

  15. * Sharpe, The Central Information Bureau in the Great War, 198-205.