Britannia's Fist: From Civil War to World War

3

THE WHITE HOUSE, 4:00 PM, AUGUST 6, 1863

Dana and Sharpe had their heads together when Fox and Lamson passed through the anteroom. “Dana,” Fox said, “the President approved my plan.” He patted Lamson on the back and grinned. “This is the young man who is going to pull it off.”

“Well, congratulations to you, Gus, and better yet, good luck to you, Lieutenant. You’re going to need it to pull off any of Fox’s schemes.” Dana said good-naturedly. Lamson and Fox left deep in conversation.

Dana shook his head. “Sharpe, I want you to know that Gus Fox saved the Navy, and its successes stem from his drive and judgment, but there are times when Gus Fox’s grasp exceeds his reach.” He sighed. “Well, I have enough to do looking after Mr. Stanton’s office without worrying over the Navy.” Sharpe would have loved to inquire what Fox had meant about the plan that the President had just approved, but common sense told him to stay silent.

A secretary then announced that the President would see them. They had just stood up when Lincoln himself walked into the room. “Hello, Charlie,” he said as he extended his long arm to shake Dana’s hand. Sharpe had never met the man, but he had seen him on his visits to the Army as commander in chief. “I have been sitting too long and wanted to stretch my legs, and since they’re longer than most, they need more stretching than most.”

Lincoln turned to Sharpe, taking his hand as he said, “You must be the shadow man I keep hearing about from the Army of the Potomac. I make it a point to read every one of your reports that General Meade sends to the War Department. They make for lively reading, Colonel, lively reading. Especially one in particular.”

Sharpe was studying the man intently. He had rarely been put at such ease so quickly by another man. He had heard sneers about President Lincoln’slack of sophistication and dignity. But there was a warmth and kindliness to his face and a humble self-assurance that was strangely comforting. Sharpe had spent his life in the most exclusive circles in New York and Europe, and their manners, pedigrees, and protocol had become second nature. Yet Sharpe found that Lincoln had not affronted those preconceptions. In his work as a lawyer and as a first-class interrogator, Sharpe had become able to detect the smallest hint of affectation or deception. There was none of that in this man. He was what he presented himself to be. Sharpe was even flattered that the President had heard of him. He realized that in these few short moments, he wanted to please this man more than just duty or personal ambition required.

“Well, gentlemen, let’s go into my office and talk,” Lincoln winked. “We can’t keep Mr. Stanton and Mr. Seward waiting. They are mighty important people.” As they walked out, Sharpe noticed that Lincoln was wearing well-worn slippers. Amazing.

Lincoln’s office was where he held his most intimate conversations. He had adjourned the full cabinet to confer with his two senior ministers over the implications of Sharpe’s report. “You know Colonel Sharpe, don’t you, Stanton?”

“Of course,” Stanton smiled at seeing Sharpe. “How can I forget Sergeant Cline and those dispatches from President Davis he dropped into our hands? Give my regards to the good sergeant, Sharpe. And tell him there’s more gold where that came from.”

He began to introduce Sharpe to Seward, but Seward said, “We know each other, Mr. President. His father and I were friends when we were young. I regret that he passed so soon. I was also the one who recommended to the governor of New York that he ask Sharpe to raise a regiment in ’62 when you called for three hundred thousand more men. And look how well he’s done.” Turning to his only rival in the cabinet, he said genially, “You see, he may belong to Mr. Stanton, but I take credit for him.” Stanton frowned. A sense of humor at his own expense was not one of Edwin McMasters Stanton’s finer points.

However, sticking to business was. “If you’ve finished patting yourself on the back, Bill, let’s get down to what we are here for.”

“Yes, Colonel, let us hear more about George the Contraband.” Lincoln was leaning back in a cane-backed rocker, one knee draped over the other, his slipper dangling half off.

Sharpe noticed that his sock was darned. It occurred to him that the precariously hanging slipper was not a form of rudeness but a compliment. He was trusted. That was a relief. After Gettysburg, Meade had turned his acid tongue on Sharpe and stripped him of his duties to coordinate all the collection resources of the Army outside those in his own bureau. Meade was a general of the old school in a new war. It was not a happy headquarters. How strange that the commander in chief was capable of spreading trust and calm, where so many generals could not.

“Tell us the story about how you found him.”

Sharpe was no mean storyteller himself. This was business, and the facts were what mattered, yet he had to convince, and that was the storyteller’s art.

“Mr. President,” Sharpe leaned forward. “Before you can understand George, you have to understand what we do in the Bureau of Military Information. Since we were formed in February, thousands of men, white and black, have passed through our hands-prisoners of war, deserters, refugees, and contrabands. My chief interrogator, John Babcock, and I have developed a fine nose for the truth and just as fine a technique to get at it. We are rarely deceived.

“Those who come to us willingly are apt to exaggerate or invent what they think we want to hear. It is a common thing and easily found out, for already we have such a body of information on the organization, strengths, leaders, and problems of the Army of Northern Virginia that a simple comparison will tell if the story rings true or false. We know every regiment in Lee’s Army, its commander, and its strength. We know the state of their horses, the rations and forage they receive or not, the arrival of reinforcements or not. We follow them when they move their regiments, brigades, and divisions from one place to another, and issue updated maps and orders of battle to the general commanding on a regular basis.”

Lincoln asked, “Do you mean you get all of this from simple interrogations?”

“No, sir, we take our information from any and all sources at our disposal-and that means, in addition to interrogations, reports of my scouts and agents, examination of enemy documents, even personal letters, reports from the Signal Corps, the cavalry, the agents of the Secretary of War, and even the Provost Marshal of Maryland, James McPhail. I even encourage the pickets to obtain information from their Confederate opposites. They exchange coffee, tobacco, and newspapers often enough, why not information? That reminds me-” and before he could get further, Lincoln smiled as Seward and Stanton rolled their eyes.

Sharpe took it in stride and pressed on, “Of the time one little private from Rhode Island took my admonition with great enthusiasm. As soon as he got onto the picket line, he called out, ‘Johnny Reb, what’s your regiment?’ The Rebel called back, ‘The 21st South Carolina. How about you, Yank? What’s your regiment?’ The little soldier responded proudly, ‘The One Hundred and Forty-Seventh Rhode Island!” That seemed to get the South Carolinian in a real twist, as he yelled back, ‘You’re a damned liar, Yank, there aren’t 147 men in that whole measly little state!’”²

Lincoln burst out laughing and slapped his knee. “By heavens, Colonel, I will just have to steal that one from you, if you won’t stand on copyright.”

“Consider it in the public domain, Mr. President.”

Lincoln chuckled, “I don’t make the stories mine by telling them. I’m only a retail dealer.”

Stanton had enjoyed the story as much as everyone else, but thought that one storyteller in the room was more than enough. “Let’s get back to George the Contraband, Sharpe. Did he pass your test?”

“Indeed, sir, he did so without a doubt. Mr. Babcock and Sergeant Cline like to chat up the occupants of the Bull Pen, the Provost Marshal’s prison pen, to see if they can skim any cream right off the top. Cline came to me. ‘I think you should talk to this one. He came through our lines last night, gave himself up to the pickets, and claims to be John Hunt Morgan’s body servant.’ He had my attention immediately. You will remember that Morgan was rampaging through Indiana at the time before his capture.

“I could tell at once he was no field hand. You could almost say that he carried himself like a gentleman; he was a light-skinned mulatto, about five feet and four inches tall and well dressed. I didn’t even get the first word. He told me point blank, ‘I have news for you, Colonel.’ His English had that Southern lilt, but it was clear and grammatical as any white rebel I have interrogated. He can read and write as well. He had a copy of Les Misérables in his pocket. In my line of work, I make it a habit of not interrupting a man who wants to share something. I encouraged him to start.

“‘Let me introduce myself, first,’ he said. He was a straightforward man, and his eyes remained fixed on me. There was no telltale of a lie in his unconscious up and rightward glance. ‘I am William George Morgan, and I was born in General Morgan’s household. They call me George. The general and I received the same education while we were boys so that I could become his body servant. Mr. Morgan was a generous man, perhaps because I have, by a most strange coincidence, an uncanny resemblance to the old gentleman.’” Sharpe paused with a smile and commented, “In my journeys south before the war, I gathered that the chivalry down there acted as if the profusion of mulatto children in their great houses seemed simply to have fallen out of the sky.”

Sharpe continued, “At this point, I asked him the obvious question: ‘Why weren’t you with Morgan on his raid?’

“‘You must understand, sir, that the general knows perfectly well that I am his brother, and he has done everything he can to recognize that unwelcome fact, short of acknowledge me in public. I can’t blame him; he’s trapped by slavery as much as I was — more so, because I can run away from it, and he cannot not. I went off to war with him proud to be a soldier and, strange as it may sound, fight for the South. After all, it is my home, too.’”

Sharpe interrupted his story to comment again, “This is not as strange as he makes out. General Lee’s Army could not function without its thousands of Negroes, although they are not officially enlisted in the Confederate Army except, strangely, as bandsmen. After Gettysburg, Lee’s white troops were so depleted in strength and numbers that he ordered our five thousand prisoners escorted South by armed Negroes from his Army. And I must say they were punctilious in their duties. There was more than one white backside poked along to Richmond’s Belle Island Prison by a bayonet in black hands. I have learned also that after Grant took Vicksburg, he offered the 400 slave body servants the opportunity to go North. Everyone went South with their paroled masters.”

Stanton asked impatiently, “Then why can we trust what he has to say if they’re so damned loyal? And how do you explain the hundreds of thousands of contrabands that come into our lines?”

“One thing I have learned, Mr. Secretary, in my years with the old Negro community in Kingston, New York, and here in Virginia in dealing with thousands of contraband slaves, Negroes are eminently secret people; they have a system of understanding amounting almost to free masonry among them; they will trust each other when they will not trust white men.

“Their actions, however, speak louder than words. I will defy anyone to claim that a Negro, outside a Confederate Army, has ever betrayed a Union soldier. The lives of my scouts and agents in the heart of Virginia have depended on the active goodwill of Negroes. They have come to the aid of my people to warn them of danger and guide them to safety countless times. Where fear made them dare not give overt assistance, they could be depended on to remain silent despite great reward. There is little in their immediate neighborhoods that they do not know, although most slaves’ knowledge does not extend beyond five miles of their plantations.”

“This George is no field hand,” Stanton replied.

“No, he is not, but he shares with his people the same dream.”

Lincoln spoke, “It seems you have learned exactly the same lesson that Mr. Douglass has been pressing. How many forget that freedom is the most intoxicating of all the works of man?”

He said this with such a humility that Sharpe was taken aback. Anyone else would have said it with a righteous flourish. Lincoln had said it as if the very idea was a precious marvel that one could only revere. The man dangling his slipper had assumed a glow that Sharpe had only seen in an El Greco saint in the Prado in Madrid.

The room was silent for a long moment before Lincoln leaned over and said, “Now tell us, Colonel, how Jeff Davis has his fingers all over this.”

Sharpe picked up his narrative. “Davis himself unwittingly provoked George’s escape. Morgan relied on George to act as his clerk, to do much of his paperwork and file his papers. In turn, Morgan’s adjutant depended upon George and was happy to pass paper to him. Carelessly, he passed the deciphered message to George. That is not as strange as it may seem. The chivalry are uniformly careless around their body servants and speak of the most secret matters around them. They are like the furniture to them. I have it on good authority that even Lee discounts them as useful sources of intelligence for us because of their simple natures. My experience is that they are often astute observers.

“Why, it was the contraband Charlie Wright, an officer’s body servant, who came into our lines and gave us the information that two of Lee’s corps were passing through Culpeper Court House into the Shenandoah Valley for the invasion of Pennsylvania last June. He had an almost encyclopedic knowledge of a good part of the Army of Northern Virginia, one in which Mr. Babcock could not find a single error. It was on this intelligence that General Hooker began to move the Army of the Potomac north to counter Lee. We actually crossed the Potomac before Lee did. Charlie Wright’s warning may well have been the deciding factor in our ability to meet Lee at Gettysburg rather than to our disadvantage on the outskirts of Baltimore or Washington.

“It was Davis’s deciphered telegram that made George realize what was at stake. His memory was quite good, and he told us that the object of Morgan’s raid was to raise the Copperheads in the Northwest and assist them in the overthrow of the state governments and the destruction of the authority of the federal government. Furthermore, Morgan was to liberate the prisoner of war camps within reach, especially the six thousand men held in the camp at Indianapolis and the eight thousand in Chicago. The Copperheads were to assist in this and bring sufficient arms to completely equip them. Morgan would have had the equivalent of several rebel infantry divisions at his disposal along with thousands of Copperheads in the heart to the Northwest. The message also stated that the strategic goal was more than overthrowing the authority of the government but to bring the Northwest-at least Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio-into the Confederacy.”

“Thank God, the rebels failed miserably,” Stanton said. “We have Morgan locked up tight as a tick.”

“Morgan is not the end of this, Edwin.” Seward added, “As I understand it, Morgan’s men behaved so badly that the damned disloyal fuse did not light. I can tell you, from the political end of this business, the Copperheads are in no way discouraged. They are biding their time. We nearly had an open revolt when that son-of-a-bitch Vallandingham was convicted of treason. I would not discount the rebels and Copperheads trying this again.”

Dana commented, “Morgan’s capture did not prevent them raiding an arms warehouse on the second and murdering the guards. We lost five thousand new Springfield rifles. That would be almost enough to equip all the prisoners in the Indianapolis camp.”

“Well, Sharpe,” Stanton added with a rare smile, “if Colonel Carrington’s man, Stidger, wasn’t doing such a splendid job for us, your Sergeant Cline would seem to be the perfect man to spy upon the Copperheads. And he’s a Hoosier, too, if I remember, 3rd Indiana Cavalry.”

Sharpe’s Excelsior College pride promoted him to throw in, “Actually, sir, he’s New York born and raised and has only recently made his home in Indiana.”

“It seems you New Yorkers are a thick lot,” Lincoln winked at Seward. “Why Seward here just recently hosted a dinner for the star of the New York stage, Edwin Booth. Have you seen him perform?”

“Many times in the city, sir. My wife adores him.”

“He was here at Ford’s Theater doing his Shylock in “‘The Merchant of Venice.’” Lincoln’s voice had gone sad and soft. “A good performance, but I’d a thousand times rather read it at home if it were not for Booth’s playing.”

Stanton spoke. “The President often goes to the theater and without any bodyguard at all. They let him quietly in the back.” Then assuming his official frown, he said, “Mr. President, I must again beg you to be not so careless of your personal safety. There are many who would do you harm.”

“Oh, Stanton, the fact is, I am a great coward. I have moral courage enough, I think, but I am such a coward physically that if I were to shoulder a gun and go into action, I am dead sure that I should turn and run at the first fire. I know I should.”

There was an awkward silence.

Lincoln smiled and said, “That reminds me.”

An hour later, as Sharpe and the others were leaving the White House, Stanton took him by the arm. “Colonel, I want you to stay in Washington for a few days; I think we haven’t heard the end of this.” Turning to Dana, he said, “Charlie, wire Meade to tell him we have kept him here on my orders.” Without waiting for a reply, he rushed off.

Dana said to Sharpe, “You should be able to find a room at the Willard. Washington empties out in August, even in wartime. This vile summer heat drives out all but the most hardy. Can I give you a ride? It’s not far, but no one should have to walk in this heat.”

Sharpe replied, “Well, my wife certainly would agree. At her insistence I took a house for the family here in Washington, but she fled to the Hudson Valley in June. I’m afraid I will have it all to myself. At least I don’t have to go far; it’s right here on Lafayette Square.” Sharpe pointed to it just beyond the rearing bronze equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson in the middle of the square. He was about to take his leave when he noticed two men walking up the path to the main door. One was a spare cavalry captain and the other a short, stocky, white-haired civilian. Dana smiled as they approached. On closer examination, Sharpe could tell the white-haired man was young, not old.

As they came up Dana said, “Charles, Andy, how the hell are you?” Turning to Sharpe he said, “Let me introduce you to two friends.” He nodded to the captain who saluted Sharpe. “Capt. Charles Francis Adams, Jr., 5th Massachusetts Cavalry.” Adams bore the natural self-possession of a man who knew who he was. Dana did not have to explain that he was the son and grandson of presidents. He only referred to it obliquely. “Charles’s father is our ambassador in London and a very busy man, as we have been saying, trying to get our British friends from building more commerce raiders for the rebels.”

The white-haired man broke in and said in a brogue so thick it could have been spread with a trowel, “British friends, indeed. Our only British friends are those who work for a living. And it is a thankless job in that royalty-ridden island, it is.”

Dana laughed. “I don’t want you to think that this sour-faced Yankee is all work and no play. He is quite the politician, though luckily not a very good one.” He winked at Charles, who forced a smile. “Charles was Seward’s campaign manager for the presidency, which is why Mr. Seward is now Secretary of State.

“And this,” he said, taking the white-haired man by the arm, “is Andy Carnegie or, as he is affectionately known, ‘that little white-haired Scotch devil.’”

Dana affectionately clapped a hand on Carnegie’s shoulder. “Andy here single-handedly opened the rail line between Baltimore and Washington in early ’61 as it looked like Maryland would secede along with the rest of the South. He organized the train that brought Ben Butler and his troops to Washington in time to save the city. Rode on the cow catcher, he did, to see that the tracks and telegraph were not broken up. See that scar on his cheek. He got it by trying to free some wires that had been sabotaged. They sprang back and sliced him good. Why, he is so modest, I must be the one to tell you he was the first man to bleed for his country.”

He turned serious. “All fooling aside, young Andy here organized the military telegraph and railroad for us early in the war, and they’ve been one of our great advantages. He rushed the trains to rescue thousands of our men wounded at First Bull Run. It’s just a pity he didn’t ask for a brigadier general’s commission; he would have had one at the drop of a hat, but he could not resist the money piling up in the Pennsylvania Railroad business. I tell you, Sharpe, if ever you need a keen organizer, call on young Andy here.”

Carnegie had waited patiently to get a word in. “Achh, noo, Charlie, you think you can dangle stars before the eyes of a poor Scottish weaver’s son. Shame on yea. I tell you I do more for the Union by running a railroad well than I would as a major general. Oh, and it’s a pleasure to meet you, Colonel Sharpe.”

“And did I tell you how modest he was,” Dana added. Carnegie blushed a bright red, quite a contrast to his light blue eyes and white hair. Dana was not through getting a rise out of him and added, “And how much reverence he has for the British crown?”

Carnegie’s entire demeanor changed instantly. The color drained from his face, and his eyes glinted like ice. “I came to this country to see the last of crowns. The sooner Britain is a republic, the better for the whole world.”

Dana pulled him by the arm. “Come on, Andy, you can damn the monarchy later. We have business.” Adams saluted and excused himself as well to deliver dispatches to the White House. Sharpe wished them all good evening and headed for home. He had walked as far as Jackson’s statue, when a White House secretary chased him down.

“Colonel Sharpe,” he said breathlessly, “the President requests that you attend him in the morning on his visit to the Navy Yard.”

EBBITT GRILL, WASHINGTON, D.C., 8:00 PM, AUGUST 6, 1863

Without his family, Sharpe’s big house echoed with silence. The servants had been let off for the summer, and there was no food. After washing, Sharpe sought out dinner. The Ebbitt Grill was close and among the best eating establishments in the city. He was lucky to find a table near the door and an open window; the city may have emptied out, but that left hundreds of officers tied to their duties who liked to relax over a good meal as the evening cooled.

He had just been given the menu when he noticed the maître d’ telling a British naval officer and another man with an eye patch that it would be at least an hour before they could be seated. Sharpe walked over, “Gentlemen, you are welcome to share my table.” Interesting company would compensate a bit for the cheerless house.

“Most handsome of you, sir. I am Capt. George Hancock, of Her Majesty’s Ship Immortalité, attached to our embassy as a temporary observer of this unfortunate war. May I present Mr. Garnet Wolseley, a visitor from our country.” The one-eyed man was about thirty years old, with a weak chin and a thin mustache. His single blue eye, however, was hawk sharp and intelligent. The man’s military bearing was unmistakable. Sharpe introduced himself as the commander of the 120th NY Volunteers. This was more than just company to pass the time, thought Sharpe. The one-eyed man was too interesting. “Mr. Wolseley” indeed. The captain’s skills at concealment were, to say the least, lacking.

The waiter recommended an excellent French wine and the roast quail stuffed with wild rice and creamed carrots. The wine instantly reminded Sharpe of the two delightful years he spent in Paris, where he perfected his French and refined his palate. In his mind, he upped the already generous tip he normally would have given.

As much as he looked forward to the wine, he was far more interested in his civilian dinner party guest. The one-eyed man was no other than Lt. Col. Garnet Wolseley, the Assistant Quartermaster General for the British forces in Canada. That alone made him a person of interest for Sharpe. During the crisis of the Trent Affair, the British had reinforced their garrison in Canada to more than eighteen thousand men, including a Guards Brigade of two battalions. Wolseley had not come by the position as reward for good breeding, but as a protégé of Lt. Gen. Sir Hope Grant, the hero of the Sepoy Revolt and the best general the British had. Wolseley had been one of Grant’s brilliant subordinates in the campaigns that had broken the Sepoys in India in 1857-58 and sacked the imperial summer palace outside Peking in 1860. He had ridden the glory path with Grant and was in Canada, considered with Corfu to be the best duty station in the British Army, as a reward for gallant service. He came from a military family and had lost his eye as a subaltern in the Crimean War. He was very much a man on the way up.

Of equal interest and the obvious reason for Captain Hancock’s flimsy cover story was Wolseley’s notoriety. Out of boredom apparently, he and another officer had taken leave to see the war among the Americans. They had drawn straws to see which side each would visit. Wolseley had drawn the South. He had slipped through the Union pickets and across the Rappahannock River to Fredericksburg and on to Richmond, where he was received at the highest levels and given handsome letters of introduction to Lee. The visit developed into an unabashed case of outright hero worship. For the rest of his life, he would hold Lee as the absolute paragon and say in his later years, “I have met two men whom I prized above all the world I have ever known, and the greater of these two was General Lee.” The other was the British general Charles “Chinese” Gordon, who would perish gloriously at Khartoum a generation later.

Wolseley’s visit to Lee might have gone unnoticed save for the article he wrote for Blackwood’s Magazine that received much notice not only in Britain but also in the States. It had given astute professional insight into the Army of Northern Virginia. His opinion was that he never saw an army composed of men who “looked more like work” than this one.¹⁷ The contrast with their ragged condition could not have been starker in the eyes of an officer from an army of sartorial splendor. In a review held of Hood’s Texas Division for his benefit, Wolseley was shocked to see so many trousers worn out at the bottom as the ranks passed. Noticing his surprise, Lee remarked, “Never mind the raggedness, Colonel. The enemy never sees the back of my Texas Brigade.” Sharpe could appreciate that because he had helped the Army of the Potomac prove Lee wrong at Gettysburg.

Wolseley’s escapade might have created less controversy had he not offered good reasons for a British alliance in order to safeguard Her Majesty’s possessions in North America. His statement that a defeated North could not attack Canada if threatened by Britain’s Confederate ally won him no thanks in the Union.

With all this in mind, Sharpe was most interested in what Wolseley was doing back in the United States. Wolseley seemed most interested in Sharpe’s experience at Gettysburg and his opinion of the battle. It was a safe subject to draw him out on, and Sharpe steered the discussion to the conduct of the battle in general. Wolseley’s disappointment in the outcome of the battle was clear. He could not believe Lee had blundered and kept quizzing Sharpe to discover some explanation that would exculpate his hero. Nonetheless, Sharpe had to admit that his questions were penetrating and his comments insightful. This was a man who knew the business of soldiering.

Wolseley snorted in contempt when Sharpe described the moving scene of the Irish Brigade kneeling to receive the benediction of Father William Corby, who blessed their heroic charge. He evidently assumed that Sharpe’s name put his ancestors on the Anglo-Saxon side of the Irish Sea. Wolseley asked, “Are you by chance related to Col. Richard Sharpe of the 95th Rifles?”

Sharpe saw no reason to tell him that it was the Anglicized form of the German Sherfe. “Not that I know of. My people have been in this country for almost two hundred years. I’m afraid I am not familiar with that officer.”

Woolsey was clearly disappointed. “Why, Richard Sharpe was one of Wellington’s favorite officers, risen from the ranks for gallantry, and a very prolific killer of Frenchmen, I might add.” It was evident that the latter quality was high on Wolseley’s list of martial virtues. But the subject of the Sharpe family name had only diverted him from this Gaelic distaste. “And as for the Irish, my dear Colonel, they are an ugly race with noses so cut away that you can see the place where their brains should be.”

Sharpe had to control himself as he thought of all the Irish boys in his regiment from Kingston who had fallen on that field as well as the daring and courage of his scouts, the Carney brothers, and young Martin Hogan just three years off the boat. Instead, he smiled blandly, “Well, sir, they don’t always present themselves to best effect. But I would think that a country that has made such use of the Irish in the building of its empire could be a bit more charitable.”

Wolseley brushed off the olive branch and went on, “They are a strange, illogical, inaccurate race, with the most amiable qualities, garnished with the dirt and squalor which they seem to love as dearly as their religion. I tell you, the Irishman soon takes his hat off when he finds a master who is not afraid of him and who is always ready to tackle him.”

When Wolseley had decided that he had chewed on that scrap of bile long enough, he asked, “Well, Colonel, what is the feeling in the Army now that the South has been set back on both heels-Gettysburg and Vicksburg?”

Sharpe considered that an honest answer would actually be the most useful. “It is only a matter of time. The South is exhausted and devouring itself to supply its armies just as the Union’s strength is redoubling. If it weren’t for blockade-runners bringing in British weapons and munitions, they would collapse in a month or two. All your country is doing is to prolong the struggle. Who knows what unforeseen incident could provoke another Trent Affair? Everyone knows that we came too close to war that time. It would serve no one’s interest to come that close again. I do not even mention the mutual catastrophe that a war would entail. British entry on the side of the Confederacy would only earn it the undying enmity of the United States but fail in the long run to secure independence for the South. Do you really want to create an enemy that for the next one hundred years searches out every enemy of the British Empire to make common cause?”

Wolseley fixed him with that single, hard, blue eye as the waiter cleared the table, “But you can hardly hold the support of your own population to continue the war. I understand there is extremely powerful, popular opposition. How then could you add the burden of a war with a great power,” he paused to add, “such as France? Forgive me for my bluntness, but you would go to pieces at the first blow.”

Sharpe just smiled, “A war with a,” he paused to emphasize the object of this preposition, “major foreign power such as France would kindle a fire that would weld our people into an implacable unity. Make no mistake of it.”

Sharpe let his message sink in. He had not been empowered by the government to speak at this level, but there was no time to ask, and he did not think that Seward would mind. He would report to Dana tomorrow on their interesting conversation. The silence continued until the waiter returned with a box of cigars and brandy, which immediately deflected the conversation. The Ebbitt offered an excellent array of cigars. Sharpe did not remark on how such fine Southern tobacco was so readily available in the Union’s capital. It was an embarrassment how badly the blockade leaked, not to mention overland trade, something his companions were no doubt aware of.

Sharpe coolly blew a ring across the table. “I must apologize for my bluntness, gentlemen. Please, forgive a simple colonel of infantry for a lack of subtly.” Perhaps that was laying it on too thick. Time to change the subject. “Tell me, Captain, what of the French? What does your government think of the French adventure in Mexico?”

Hancock had taken little part in the conversation concerning Army matters, but now he had something to say. “I would say that the British government considers Napoleon’s ambitions to be a measure of Gallic excess. Mexico is no place to stay. You Americans were clever to win quickly, take what you wanted, and get out. Your example was lost on the French, I’m afraid.”

“And you are not worried about the expansion of the French Navy?” That was fresh meat thrown to Hancock.

“By God, sir, afraid of the French? You do have a strange, Yankee sense of humor.”

“But the French Gloire class ironclads did steal a march on the Royal Navy in ’59, did it not?” Sharpe spoke in French. Hancock, not to be outdone, also switched, showing a remarkable grasp of French military terminology.

“Yes, I’m afraid the French were the first to build a serious ironclad, but they were following the example of the British ironclad batteries in the Russian War of the last decade. But our Warrior class put the French right where they belong-in second place. The HMS Warrior and her sister-ship, Black Prince, were designed and built in record time. They are so superior to the French ships that there is no comparison. The Warriors are completely iron ships while the Gloires are wooden hulls with only ironclad casements. Warriors are almost 65 percent larger and are meant for open-ocean sailing whereas the Frenchies would have a hard go of it anywhere but the Channel and the Mediterranean. Our armament is clearly superior as well with twenty-six 68-pounders, four 70-pounders, and eleven breech-loading rifled 110-pounders of Mr. Armstrong’s manufacture against the French thirty-six 6.4-inch rifled guns. All the British guns are superior as is our powder, the best the world.”

Sharpe thought that Admiral Dahlgren might disagree. He was not known as “the father of American naval ordnance” for nothing. His series of Dahlgren guns at IX, X, XI, and XV inches were considered by us to be the best in the world. The Royal Navy had tried to buy Dalgreen guns in large numbers, but the United States had declined to share such an advantage.

Hancock continued, “There is another area in which we completely outclass the French-no private French foundry can roll the armor necessary for such a ship; a number of British establishments can do that with ease. The French simply do not have the iron industry to support Napoleon’s ambitions of an ironclad fleet.”

Hancock’s tail was up as he listed every point of British naval superiority over the French, which had the unspoken message that that superiority applied to the United States as well. “Why, sir, if these facts do not impress you, perhaps the words of Mr. Dickens might give a more poetic impression. He said after a recent visit to the Warrior that she was, and I quote, ‘A black vicious ugly customer as ever I saw, whale-like in size, and with as terrible a row of incisor teeth as ever closed on a French frigate.’ Another gentleman described her as ‘a black snake among rabbits.’ Having seen her myself, I can attest that the Mr. Dickens has caught its menace most properly.”

Sharpe was enjoying the class on British naval technology, all grist for his intelligence mill. He had concentrated so much on the Confederate Army that it was refreshing to learn about the service of another country. He had scrupulously forwarded every bit of naval intelligence that came his way to the Navy and had learned something by way of it. He prodded Hancock further. “And our ironclads?”

“Why, sir, they are interesting designs, to be sure, but are dwarfed by the Warriors. Your Passaic class monitors have, indeed, proved to be a gallant, hard-fighting class but weigh in at 1,335 tons to the Warrior’s 9,210, and only two guns to forty. I wager that none of them would fare well in an open-ocean voyage either.”

“I’m afraid you have me, Captain. I’m just a soldier and no naval expert.”

Wolseley had been following all this carefully. His good eye widened a bit.