Britannia's Fist: From Civil War to World War

6

LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND, 11:15 AM, SEPTEMBER 1, 1863

It was a grand sight, sailing up the Mersey River with the great entrepôt of Liverpool to larboard and the smaller shipyards of Birkenhead to starboard. Lamson allowed the crew to line the decks to enjoy the sight. It was exciting, and he tried not to let it go to his head that not even a month ago he had been chasing down this very ship he now commanded. Then she was a swift blockade-runner; now she was the USS Gettysburg, and her fleetness was in the service of the United States Navy.

Fox had pulled out all the stops to convert her in record time; the Navy Yard made it top priority, and the crews had worked in round-the-clock shifts to strengthen her hull and decks to take the huge soda bottle-shaped Dahlgren guns. Her belly had been filled with all the ammunition and other naval accoutrements of war as well as the stores and the best of hard anthracite coal to see her on her way. Lamson had requested and received his old crew from the Nansemond, plus the pick of seamen then in Washington and Baltimore. The voyage across the Atlantic was blessed with good weather, and the Gettysburg’s fine engines sped her in record time. Gunnery practice and battle drills had filled the days and made them short.

Lamson was thankful that the breaks had all gone his way; he was also worried that they had all gone his way. He wondered if he had he used up all his good luck on the way to England. He was normally a young man who acted on the belief that you made your own luck through working hard, knowing your job, and being bold. If anything, his success had come as a result of boldly bending luck to his will. But he also knew her to be a fickle goddess, apt to burst a boiler at a critical moment as to throw a laurel in your path. Overlaying this premonition were his confidential orders-“At all costs you will ensure that the rams do not escape.” At all costs.…

The English pilot who was enjoying himself, pointing out the details of the great port, temporarily distracted his thoughts. The city was unique among great ports in having a system of enclosed docks. Liverpool was the child of the North American trade and an immigrant gateway as well. It was unlike London or New York, where the steady flow and depth of the Thames and Hudson allowed their docks to line the rivers. The city was so close to the Irish Sea that the tidal Mersey, which had a difference of thirty-three feet between high and low tide, would have left ships beached on her mudflats at low tide. Strong winds, a swift current, and twenty thousand acres of shifting sandbanks contributed to the necessity of building Liverpool’s enclosed docks, where ships could be kept permanently afloat in deep water.

The pilot began pointing out the individual docks as they passed, each filled with masts, and connected by Wapping Dock, which allowed ships to move within most of the dock system without having to exit and reenter the system through the river. Lamson’s ears pricked up when the pilot pointed out Albert Dock, where his quarry was in the last stages of fitting out. The pilot was explaining that the Albert Dock was used for only the most valuable cargoes, such as brandy, and that its seven and a half acres was surrounded by bonded, fire- and theft-proof warehouses of brick and iron. The docks were less than twenty years old but already becoming too small. Built for sailing ships, its entrance was too small for the new side-wheelers and difficult for the large, screw-propeller ships.

“Captain!” Lamson turned to see Lieutenant Porter touching the brim of his cap. “The Royal Navy is coming down the river.”

“Prepare to present full honors, Mr. Porter.”

The crewmen who had been lounging by the railing were sent into a bustle of action by the executive officer’s shouted commands. In less than a minute the men had gone from a gaggle to neat lines on deck. As the first British ship came even with Gettysburg, Porter shouted, “Present arms!” The sailors’ hands shot to their caps, and the Marines presented arms. A keen eye would have noticed that the Spencer rifles they carried had no fittings for bayonets.

The first British ship was the wood screw frigate HMS Liverpool, dwarfing Gettysburg at two thousand six hundred and fifty-six tons.³She was two hundred and thirty-five feet in length and fifty feet in the beam, not even three years old but already obsolete, some might say, in this new age of iron. She carried the standard armament of the Royal Navy. Pride of place was given to the breech-loading 110-pounder Armstrong gun, issued widely to the fleet in 1861; eight 8-inch rifles; four 70-pounders; eight 40-pounders; and eighteen 32-pounders. The Royal Navy had been so impressed with the Army’s tests of the Armstrong breech-loader that it had ordered almost two thousand guns of sizes that the manufacturer had not even designed, and later accepted them without trials. Liverpool was followed by the much smaller Albacore class wood screw gunboat HMS Goshawk with four guns. As the stern of Goshawk passed, Porter’s commands sent the crew back to work to prepare for docking.

Aboard the British frigate, there was no perceptible change in the normal activities of the crew as it passed Gettysburg. The officers on the bridge ostentatiously looked the other way as if the American honors were their due and not worth their notice.

Liverpool did not neglect the minimum customary honors that were owed to any warship of a recognized state. The British naval jack was dipped in salute. The U.S. Navy never returned such customary European honors on the principle that the Stars and Stripes bowed to no other flag. It was an irritation among other navies, especially where an irritation with the Americans was preferred.

When Porter dismissed the crew after Goshawk passed, there was a notable mutter as the men broke ranks. The snub had not gone unnoticed.

Attention soon shifted to the marvel of the enclosed docking system, fascinating everyone from captain to cabin boy. The pilot directed them through Queen’s Basin and from there down a short channel into King’s Dock. Lamson was pleased at how well Gettysburg handled in such tight places.

No sooner had they docked than a civilian gentleman left his waiting carriage to wait for the gangplank to be lowered. As soon as it touched the stone pier, he dashed across it and said to the guard, “Permission to come aboard. I must speak to the captain immediately.”

Lamson shouted from the bridge, “Permission granted. Mr. Henderson, show our visitor to the bridge.” The man who climbed to the bridge was middle aged with a well-trimmed, graying beard and the serious look of New England about him. He exuded an alert competence. He extended his hand introduced himself. “Good day, Captain. I am Thomas Haines Dudley, United States Consul in Liverpool. We had word that you had arrived and would be docking here this morning. We must speak privately.”

Once they were in Lamson’s private cabin, Dudley came right down to business. “Captain, I have been informed of your instructions; you have arrived not a moment too soon. I am convinced that the quarry has wind of Ambassador Adams’s presentations of evidence to the Foreign Office proving that the rams have been built for the Confederacy. Not a moment to lose, not a single moment, sir. They moved Number 294 across to the Albert Dock last week and fitted the two turrets on the 28th and 29th. Half of Liverpool was there to see the biggest cranes in the port lift those great cylinders. They’ve been working feverishly ever since to rush her to completion.”

Lamson had looked forward to meeting the man who had sent such detailed reports on the rams, tracking their every stage of construction. He obviously had the trust of Seward and Fox. More important, he had the trust of Lincoln. Fox had explained that it was Dudley’s timely and critical support at the 1860 Republican convention that had secured Lincoln’s nomination. As a reward he had been offered the consulships in either Yokohama or Liverpool. Dudley had chosen the latter to be near expert medical care for a chronic illness. Whatever the illness was, it was not apparent in his urgent attitude now.

“Ambassador Adams had instructed me to inform you to report to him immediately upon your arrival. There is a train for London leaving this afternoon. I took the liberty of buying your ticket. I will escort you through your registration with the Custom House here and then see you off at the station.

“You must not lose a minute, literally a minute. As the warship of a belligerent, British law allows the Gettysburg only a forty-eight-hour stay in any British port to water and victual. That forty-eight hours begins when your papers are filed at the Custom House. You must get to London, see Adams, and take the next train back here. You will have just enough time. Thank God the British trains are so fast and dependable. They’ve built their tracks and grades with such care that there is almost never a derailment or delay. Unfortunately, that is something we cannot say at home.” Dudley did not wait for Lamson to comment but stood up and said, “Let’s go!”

Along the way to the Custom House, they were stopped in traffic by the open windows of a grog shop. The words of an enthusiastically rendered drinking song were clear.

Dudley ground his teeth. “Even in song, the popular sentiment of this country favors the rebels. They should be singing her praises; after all, her crew is made up, almost to the man, of former Royal Navy sailors. This country might as well be at war with us.

“No, Captain, I must correct myself. If they are war with us, it is only with their little finger. We must keep them from using both fists. I have been here over two years now, and I am aware of the industrial might of this country. No one will come well out of such a fight.”

ALBERT DOCK, LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND, 2:35 PM, SEPTEMBER 1, 1863

Bulloch prowled the dock as if his presence would speed the already desperate pace the Laird Brothers’ work crews were setting. The arrival of the Gettysburg in Liverpool, now docked barely a quarter mile away, had driven him from his normal behind-the-scenes station. His friends at the Custom House had reported immediately on Lamson’s presentation of his papers and keyed on the fact that he had stated his ship was to replace the purpose-built sloop, USS Kearsarge, as the single American warship on the U.S. Navy’s English Channel Station. He had mentioned casually that every purpose-built warship was needed in American waters to close the noose tighter on Charleston and Wilmington. That only momentarily reassured Bulloch. He would feel better when Gettysburg actually left for the Channel Station, and given British rules on belligerents, that should be in two short days.

Anything that was not absolutely essential to get the ship simply seaworthy enough to escape the harbor and cross the sea to the Azores had been abandoned. Bulloch had arranged for the last work to be completed in those islands before the guns and stores were fitted. He could feel the minutes slipping away as if they were grains of sand in his own life’s hourglass. This time he had avoided the last-minute commotion with the Alabama’s crew. The men that would take her out of the harbor were a skeleton crew, only enough men to run her trials at sea if anyone looked closely. The rest of the crew had already been quietly paid in advance and sent due west to wait in Moelfre Bay off Anglesey in Wales.

Bulloch’s presence had not escaped notice of Dudley’s horde of agents who buzzed around the Albert Dock. Not a bolt or mouse could enter or exit the dock without being noticed. John Laird had paid a gang of local toughs to clear them off, but Dudley had paid even more for a bigger gang. Club-wielding bobbies had more than once had to break up the street battles. It was no wonder that Bulloch was feeling besieged. He felt that he held the last hope of the Confederacy here in Albert Dock. The Confederate armies had suffered major defeats at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, and he realized it was only a matter of time before they wasted away. The South was consuming itself while the resources of the North only grew. The rams had to live up to their fearsome reputation in order to break the blockade and let new life flow into the Confederacy. The rams would then be free to trail the Confederate Navy’s coat up the entire Yankee coast all the way to Canada and back, destroying the North’s shipping and savaging their ports. He had no doubts because he had no more hopes but these. There was nothing he would not do to see that they lived.

Those hopes had flared when the Laird officer in charge of outfitting North Carolina-and that was what Bulloch called her now that her mighty turrets had been fitted-reported that the ship would be ready for sea trials on September 4.

FOREIGN MINISTRY, LONDON, 3:14 PM, SEPTEMBER 1, 1863

Lord John Russell sat in his office deep in thought as he realized that the diplomatic ground was shifting beneath him. His undersecretary, Layard, sat silently, waiting for him to speak.

The twin Union victories that summer at Gettysburg and Vicksburg had a dramatic and sobering effect on the pro-Confederate British establishment. Ambassador Adams had written his son, Charles Francis Adams, Jr., who was serving with the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry, that the news had filled the London salons with “tears of anger mixed with grief.”

Adams’s relentless pressure was supported by a flurry of affidavits and intelligence on the Confederate provenance of the rams. Its cumulative weight was having an effect, albeit a very reluctant one on Russell. In August, while on vacation in Scotland, Adams had informed the Duke of Argyll, the Secretary of State for War, that the French consul in Liverpool had denied that the rams were being built for the French. On his return he passed that information to Russell as well.

The British ambassador in Paris confirmed that Adams was telling the truth. Inquiries to Egypt also revealed that the previous ruler had ordered two ironclads from Bravay, but his successor had canceled the order in 1862. Despite this information, Russell responded in a letter dated September 1.Her Majesty’s government are advised that the information contained in the depositions is in a great measure mere hearsay evidence and generally is not such as to show the intent or purpose necessary to make the building or fitting out of these vessels illegal under the Foreign Enlistment Act… Her Majesty’s government are advised that they cannot interfere in any way with these vessels.

Yet on the same day that letter was written, Russell was convinced by Adams’s efforts that where there was all that smoke, there was probably a good fire. The message did not indicate that change of mind because Russell and the Crown’s legal authorities had become fixated on the letter of a badly written law, the Foreign Enlistment Act. It had been suggested in the cabinet that this recognizably flawed legislation be amended, but even that drew opposition from those determined not to give the appearance of succumbing to American pressure.

That change of mind made Layard decidedly uncomfortable. His friend Bulloch had begged for any indication that the government was about to act. Now it seemed that the manifest need to take action was gathering momentum.

Russell put the issue squarely, “Layard, so much suspicion attaches to the ironclad vessels at Birkenhead that they ought not to be allowed to go out of Liverpool until the suspicion about them is cleared up.”

“Then, do you still want to send Adams this letter?”

“Yes, indeed, but I will not give him the satisfaction of our taking precipitous action. I will not act until the Law Officers have supported such action.” He believed that they would, but pride forbade him keeping Adams abreast of changing perceptions.

By now, both governments were seriously talking past each other. Inexplicably, that letter was not delivered with any dispatch. Adams, however, would take the letter at face value in the absence of clarification from Russell.

AMERICAN EMBASSY, LONDON, 11:50 PM, SEPTEMBER 1, 1863

The cab from the station dropped Lamson at the embassy barely before midnight. He rapped at the door with the brass knocker until a young man in rumpled clothes appeared with a lamp. He seemed unhappy at being awakened.

Lamson introduced himself. The young man yawned. “You are expected. Come in.” He introduced himself as Henry Adams, the ambassador’s son and private secretary. “Wait here. I will let the ambassador know you have arrived.” He disappeared upstairs, leaving Lamson standing in the dark.

Lamson sized up the young man in a glance in the way that a fighting man does other men. He was not impressed. There was something soft in Henry Adams, something that would give if leaned on.

While Lamson waited, he was turning over in his mind everything Dudley had told him and how that information would affect his mission and what the ambassador would have to say to him.

Eventually the light reappeared at the head of the stairs followed by young Adams, lamp in hand. “The ambassador will see you shortly. Please, make yourself comfortable in the parlor here.” He motioned into the dark with the lamp and led Lamson into a room furnished with New England simplicity but quality. Lighting another lamp, he asked if he should rouse the servants to put on some tea. Lamson declined. He discovered to his dismay that young Adams had the gift of small talk to a great degree and, even more, could carry on without much of a response. The content was certainly consistent-Henry’s travails in getting introduced into British society. He prattled on in tones of enervated boredom, aping a cultivated English accent that Lamson found more than annoying.

Bored is he? thought Lamson. I’ve got a cure for that-holystoning a deck soaks up a lot of boredom.

Not more than ten minutes later, the ambassador mercifully entered. Charles Francis Adams, U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, was an American institution. His position was practically an inherited office. His grandfather, John Adams, and his father, John Quincy Adams, had both preceded him to represent the United States. He himself had served as his father’s private secretary, as his father had served his grandfather. Lamson considered Henry Adams and thought to himself that the tradition had no future. The Adams line seemed to have watered down considerably in this latest generation, but that was not true for the father. Charles Adams was all Massachusetts-obdurate, stoic, outwardly cool, duty driven, and humorless. He was a spare old man, balding with a thin remnant of white hair driven to the edge of his scalp. A carefully trimmed white beard ran under his chin. His greatest talent was the ability to relentlessly represent the interests of the United States to the British government with great force against a gale of slights, insults, and hostile acts. He was ever at Lord Russell’s heels with another remonstration or argument.

Unfortunately, he failed to detect the true character of the senior members in the British Ministry. Russell had completely deceived him for two years. Unbeknownst to Adams, he had previously been the leading force in attempting to organize joint British, French, and Russian intervention to stop the war, which would have secured the South its independence. Russell firmly believed that a reunited United States would pose a long-term threat to British world hegemony and so British interests should be on the side of a dismembered Union. Palmerston, whom Adams blamed for the government’s hostility to the Union, had actually been a check on Russell’s rush in 1862 to force a negotiated peace on the North and South.

Charles Adams greeted Lamson politely but to the point. He made no small talk. Henry’s talent in that regard must have been inherited from the female line. Undoubtedly the lack of the convivial nature of diplomacy was a hindrance to his role as minister, but he did not seem to care. He paused only a moment to appraise Lamson.

“I have already been informed of your mission by Secretary Seward. Since he stated that your arrival would be cut very fine, I took the liberty as well of informing Captain Winslow of the Kearsarge, which is lying off Vlissingen (Flushing) in the Netherlands, in case you did not arrive in time.”

“Sir, I believe that the Navy Department was to inform Kearsarge as well.” Lamson was not going to plan on being assisted by the Kearsarge, the one thousand and thirty-one-ton, eight-gun sloop cruising the U.S. Navy’s Channel Station. All well and good if she appeared, but he must act as if that would not happen. Besides, Winslow would rank him if the ships met and garner all the glory.

Adams came to the point. “Dudley has briefed you on the situation with the rams in Liverpool. His daily reports indicate that they are nearing completion. I have submitted to Lord Russell the most damning proofs of Confederate complicity in the building of these ships.

“You see what we are up against. Palmerston had tied Russell’s hands completely. There is not a single important instance in which the British government has not interpreted these issues in the favor of the Confederacy. I will take you into the strictest confidence, since your actions may well have to be guided by this information. Secretary Seward has instructed me to inform Her Majesty’s government that the United States has no choice but to issue letters of marque and will pursue Confederate vessels into neutral ports that ‘become harbors for these pirates.’

“Moreover, there are strong elements within the British ministry that desire a war be initiated by the United States. That will be the signal for the European dismemberment of the United States. Louis Napoleon only awaits Britain’s lead. Their only break, and it has its limits, is Russia, which has consistently offered its advice and goodwill and its diplomatic support. We are not entirely alone in Europe.”

It was clear to Lamson what the stakes were. The British government was about to connive at the escape of the rams. If they were not intercepted, the United States would have no other choice than to go to war.

For the first time, Henry Adams spoke. “You forget the Germans, Father. Don’t forget the Prussian king coldly refused to receive a Confederate agent or allow any of his officials to have anything to do with him. And I can hardly believe the Prussian prime minister, Otto von Bismarck, would see any advantage in supporting France in such a war, when it is France, and Austria, of course, that stands in the way of German unification, the chief strategic objective of the Prussian Kingdom.”

His speech was another surprise for Lamson. The fop could think. He must have learned something in the last two years. Lamson was slightly impressed.

The ambassador turned to Lamson. “My son has shown you why I am sending him with you.”

“Father!”

“He will be… as a political and diplomatic observer and adviser. You will be facing one of the most difficult and complex situations ever to confront an American naval officer. I have no doubt of your abilities as a naval officer, but this situation would daunt a man more than twice your years and experience.”

The ambassador turned to his son. “Henry, pack quickly.”

USS GETTYSBURG, KING’S DOCK, LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND, 8:35 AM, SEPTEMBER 3, 1863

Lamson and Porter were waiting for their guest to join them. They turned when they heard footsteps but only the cabin boy approached. “Well, where is he, Tom?”

“Sir,” the boy touched his knuckles to his cap diffidently, “I knocked and knocked on his cabin door and explained that the captain wanted him on bridge.”

“Yes?”

“And, sir, he just yelled at me and told me to go away.” The boy was scandalized that even a guest aboard the ship should treat the captain’s request so. “Three times I tried, sir, and I even opened the door a bit to peak in and tell him, but…”

“Yes?”

“He threw his chamber pot at me, Captain!”

Lamson stifled a laugh. Porter bit his lip and turned away. “Carry on, Tom.” The boy fled. “It seems, Mr. Porter, that our guest finds life at sea not to his taste.” They both laughed, looking out at the placid surface of King’s Dock. Lamson’s opinion of Henry Adams had reverted to his original impression on their early morning train ride to Liverpool. He did not know that a man could whine without interruption for so long. The complaints only let up when Adams turned to name-dropping in his obsession with English “society.” He had even found fault with his accommodations aboard ship. The USS Gettysburg’s origins as a mail packet had left her with a number of comfortable cabins, not all of which succumbed to the ship’s conversion for war. The best, of course, was the captain’s, but the executive officer’s was still handsome, and he had graciously given it up for the representative of the ambassador.

“Mr. Porter, I’m afraid this mission is beyond poor Tom’s diplomatic ability. Please, see what you can do with our guest. Mr. Dudley will be here shortly.”

The consul arrived only moments after Porter escorted a very unhappy Adams into the captain’s cabin. He winked at Lamson as Adams threw himself into a chair and asked when breakfast would be served. “Why, Mr. Adams, the officers have eaten already. My cabin boy notified you in plenty of time. I believe your answer was, ‘Bugger off.’ An English endearment, isn’t it?”

Adams groaned.

“But there will be coffee for our meeting with Mr. Dudley.”

“No tea?”

The consul was prompt. He was surprised to see Adams and raised an eyebrow when Lamson noted the ambassador had sent him as an official observer and adviser. Dudley obviously knew young Adams and had no higher opinion of him than Lamson had. Adams just sat there glum faced. Dudley tactfully changed the subject as the coffee was being served. “Coffee! Wonderful.” Dudley exclaimed. “I have become so tired of tea. You can tell when an American has been here too long. He becomes a tea drinker.”

Adams rolled his eyes.

“Well, to business, Captain,” Dudley said as he put down his cup. “My agents report round-the-clock work on the North Carolina. The work crews are happy for the extra pay and the fat bonus promised by Laird. Bulloch himself haunts the ship as if his presence will speed its completion. He’s scared that the ambassador has put so much pressure on the British government that even his friends in high places will not be able to save him. Their only chance to escape is to try the same ploy as they did with the Alabama and pretend that they are going out only for a trial run. I would not believe that would work twice if I did not know how blindness suddenly afflicts British officials where the rebels are concerned.

“He is also very afraid of you, Captain. My agents tell me his men have been asking about you everywhere.”

“Well, Mr. Dudley, I am sent here to provoke just that reaction from him.”

“But, Captain,” Dudley barely stopped himself from calling Lamson a young man, “fear must be carefully applied to be useful. Too much fear will make him become too watchful and circumspect. Too little fear and he may just become careless enough to make mistakes.”

“That is just what I intend to do, sir, calm the man enough so that he takes an eye off the weather gauge. Our forty-eight hours in port are just about up; I have notified the Custom House that we shall be departing on the afternoon tide. Our pilot shall be here shortly. I shall wait beyond the three-mile limit. But I shall have only a small chance to catch him unless I receive word from you of his departure. Can you do that?”

“Yes, I will have a dispatch boat ready to receive a signal the moment North Carolina leaves Albert Dock.”

FOREIGN MINISTRY, LONDON, 10:38 PM, SEPTEMBER 3, 1863

Russell was reading Layard’s account of his discussion with Solicitor General Roundell Palmer of the day before. Palmer had suggested that the Liverpool Custom House detain the ships temporarily while proof was gathered of their ultimate destination. Russell immediately telegraphed Layard, “I quite agree in the course suggested by Roundell Palmer. I have made up my mind that the vessels ought to be stopped in order to test the law and prevent a great scandal.” He then ordered Layard to write to the Treasury to advise that the vessels be prevented from leaving the port of Liverpool till satisfactory evidence had been given of their destination. Layard waited until late that afternoon to write to the Treasury, ensuring that the letter would not be delivered until the following day.

Before he did that, he had slipped away for a few moments. As he returned to write the letter, an anonymous party was sending a telegram to Bulloch. It read: “Flee! There is no more time.”

USS GETTYSBURG, OFF LIVERPOOL IN THE IRISH SEA, LATE AFTERNOON, SEPTEMBER 3, 1863

To Lamson’s distress, Liverpool had followed Gettysburg out of port the day before and had pointedly followed her as she attempted to prowl across the Mersey’s mouth. The Royal Navy did not appreciate such an overtly predatory statement so close to the lion’s den and was making that known.

“Mr. Porter, set a course for Dublin. We have to put distance between us to make him think we’ve departed these waters. Dudley has not notified us of North Carolina’s escape. If they have not left now, they can hardly leave at night if they are to maintain the pretense of sea trials. We shall return in the morning to catch her if she comes out.”

CSS NORTH CAROLINA, MERSEY RIVER, ON THE MORNING TIDE, SEPTEMBER 4, 1863

Bulloch felt the power of the engines through the deck as North Carolina followed the tug out through the river’s fast-running current into the Irish Sea. The tug was the normal accompaniment for a trial run in case the ship had to be helped back into the harbor. His bags were stored in the captain’s cabin. It had not been hard to conclude that should he succeed in slipping the ram out of British waters, he would surely have outworn his welcome in that country. He was not thinking of that now. They would soon cross out of British territorial waters and be beyond the reach of British law. There was not a hint of alarm, no fast harbor craft speeding after to overtake him. It was a normal morning tide on the swift Mersey.

There was the excitement of knowing that it would be his command. The Alabama had been originally promised to him, but his value in building ships for the young Confederate Navy was deemed more important. As a man more dedicated to the success of his country than his own glory, he had not complained.

There was only momentary relief when the ram passed out of British jurisdiction because he knew that was not the end of his problems. He still had his crew to pick up in Moelfre Bay, and that would put him right back in British waters. He would have to be quick about it.

USS GETTYSBURG, IN THE IRISH SEA, EARLY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 4, 1863

“Damn that ship!” Lamson exclaimed. Yesterday he had had Gettysburg stretch her legs to lose Liverpool as night fell across the Irish Sea. He had thought to swing wide to the north and come down to resume his station off the Mersey’s mouth in time for the North Carolina to come out on the morning tide, if she were coming. Unfortunately, the British frigate was across Gettysburg’s path that morning as well. “That captain has brains, Mr. Porter. He’s anticipated me and has turned up like the proverbial bad penny. Touché, Captain!” he said as he touched the brim of his cap in the direction of Liverpool.

He was more distressed than he let on. The Mersey’s mouth was filled with ships leaving Liverpool on the morning tide. The frigate would ensure that he did not sail among them easily or at all.

The last ship out was a dispatch boat that made straight for Gettysburg. When it came up alongside, Lamson could see Dudley on deck. He shouted across, “She’s flown on the early tide. Gone to Moelfre Bay off Anglesey Island to pick up her crew. Moelfre Bay!”