Britannia's Fist: From Civil War to World War

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THE BOWLES FARM, FRENCH LICK, INDIANA, 8:23 AM, SEPTEMBER 3, 1863

The Confederate cavalry company trotted into William Bowles’s farmyard with a jaunty air. The commander saluted a Confederate major who stood on the porch with a delighted Bowles. The major said, “As I told you, Mr. Bowles, the Confederacy has not forgotten its friends.”

“Wonderful, wonderful, Major Parker. Our people will be heartened to know that the revolution will have such fine support,” Bowles replied.

The assorted Union deserters, escaped Confederate prisoners, and Copperhead toughs who made Bowles’s farm their headquarters had filled the yard to enjoy the sight of their visitors. The only one not smiling was Big Jim Smoke, who stood in the back of the crowd cradling a shotgun in his arm. He didn’t like it, not one bit.

“This feller Parker comes waltzing in a week ago,” he thought suspiciously, with an altogether too merry young Irishman as an aide, to announce that he had been sent to pick up the pieces after Morgan had got himself and most of his brigade caught.

Sergeant Cline was playing the part of Major Parker coolly. He had worn Confederate gray so often and with such believability that it was second nature. He always enjoyed these performances, the mark of a consummate actor. His audiences never failed to appreciate his performance. His supporting actor, young Martin Hogan, played his part with Gaelic style.

Cline took off his hat with a chivalrous flourish to Bowles. It was the signal to the men from his 3rd Indiana Cavalry who were in disguise as well. Forty Colt revolvers whipped out of their holsters to point at Bowles’s guests. The muzzle of Cline’s pistol touched the wild white hair on the side of Bowles’ head. “You, sir, are my prisoner. I arrest you in the name of the United States.”

The troopers did not see Big Jim as he raised his shotgun and fired. It sprayed into the gray cavalry; two men fell and a blinded horse went screaming and kicking through the ranks. Everyone started shooting. Bowles snarled and pulled his own pistol, but Cline struck him across the face with his Colt, and he fell into the yard. Another man was on him, but Hogan shot him in the face. The rest of Bowles’s men on the porch were soon down, too.

The close-quarters gunfight had been as deadly as it was short. Despite Smoke’s surprise, the troopers had had the drop on the Bowles’s gang and shot them to pieces before many of them could fire back. The survivors had thrown up their arms or fled through the yard, pursued by the troopers not overly concerned to take prisoners. Big Jim’s position in the back of the crowd had saved him from the hail of lead. He threw away his empty weapon and was the first to turn and run. When he heard a horse thundering behind him, he sidestepped to let the trooper ride past, drew his pistol, and shot the man in the back. The dead man slumped in the saddle as Big Jim caught up to the horse, pulled the body off in one powerful leap, and threw himself on the saddle. He spurred the horse across the nearby field and into the woods beyond.

Looking about the bloody, corpse-strewn yard, Cline thought to himself that a lot had happened since he had reported to Sharpe last month in Washington.

BRITISH ARMY HEADQUARTERS, MONTREAL, CANADA, 10:20 AM, SEPTEMBER 3, 1863

Wolseley read the letter from Captain Hancock with great interest. As they had suspected, their American dinner companion in Washington had not been a simple colonel of infantry.My sources report that Sharpe was the officer charged with intelligence matters in the Army of the Potomac. He has been promoted to Brigadier since our meeting and is in charge of a new organization, the Central Information Bureau. He has been introduced around the government in Washington by the President himself. We know little more than this.

It was not difficult to surmise that Sharpe was carrying on his intelligence duties at a higher level. The extraordinary endorsement by Lincoln did more than indicate that Sharpe had the President’s favor and backing. The chief of staff to whom Wolseley reported, Col. E. R. Wetherall, was highly regarded in the British Army. Wetherall justified that opinion when he quickly recognized Wolseley’s abilities and gave him a wide-ranging planning charter. Wolseley himself was an experienced staff officer, despite his impressive combat record, and he was aware of the importance of intelligence. Unfortunately, those resources were meager in his staff. After the crisis of the Trent Affair had passed, Wolseley and the rest of the Trent reinforcements had settled down into what was considered, along with the Greek island of Corfu, to be the best posting in the British Army.

Wetherall’s and Wolseley’s posting to British North America had been no accident. The War Office did not have an overwhelming faith in the commander in chief, North America, Lt. Gen. Sir William Fenwick Williams, and had therefore provided him with a superlative staff during the Trent Affair. Williams was one of those Victorian generals of legend. During the Crimean War, he had been appointed as the British commissioner to the Turkish Army in Anatolia and had effectively commanded their Field Army in the heroic defense of Kars. His spirited defense, though it had ultimately ended in capitulation due to cold, cholera, and starvation, was a bright spot in Britain’s conduct of the war, and Crown and country were eager to shower honors on him. In 1859, at the age of fifty-nine, he had been offered the comfortable and quiet post in British North America. It had become apparent that however gifted Williams had been in a closely confined siege operation, he did not have the grasp to handle a command that stretched across half a continent.

Had the Trent Affair spiraled into war, it had been the intention of the War Office to replace Williams with another commander, most likely Maj. Gen. Hope Grant, Wolseley’s commander and patron in the Sepoy Mutiny and punitive expedition to China. Wolseley took some comfort that whatever Williams’s failure as a theater commander, the old man was combative and likely to approve a bold, aggressive defense planned by his subordinates.

The Army’s decision that Williams should have a first-rate staff was not particularly paralleled by the choice of subordinate commanders in Wolseley’s opinion. Maj. Gen. Sir Hastings Doyle, KCMG, commanded the British garrison in Halifax was well thought of, but he had reservations about Maj. Gen. Lord Frederick Paulet, a Coldstream Guardsman, who brought over the two guards battalions and was slated for a major command in wartime. It was another example of senior command reserved for the guards. Of the two officers designated for division command, Maj. Gen. Hon. James Lindsay was dependable, but Maj. Gen. George T. C. Napier was clearly incompetent. How Wolseley wished his mentor, Hope Grant, could have been sent over.

Wolseley’s trip to Washington and his subsequent return to Canada through Portland convinced him to remedy the Army’s inability to collect intelligence on the Americans. At the very least, it would be an excellent professional exercise for the staff. He sent agents to glean every bit of valuable information on the railroad network throughout Maine as well as detailed information on Portland and its defenses, particularly the harbor forts. Already he had obtained a comprehensive picture.

His new interest had shocked his staff out of their preoccupation with hunting, fishing, and the very pretty Canadian girls. Wolseley himself remembered a golden-haired girl in Kingston, Upper Canada, with Shakespeare’s “war of red and white in her cheeks,” but that was best put aside for now. They had to do some work for a change. They were a good lot and had done a remarkable job in December 1861 of distributing the arriving British reinforcements across Canada in the depths of a hard winter. Compared to the logistics debacle of the Crimean War, the staff had done wonders in making sure every man was properly equipped with cold-weather gear and transport, to include snowshoes, and with ample food and medical care. Almost eleven thousand troops had been spread out in small garrisons to reinforce the seven thousand regulars already stationed in the Canadas and the Maritimes.

Wolseley realized that the entire regular garrison was smaller than any of Lee’s three corps at Gettysburg and consisted of thirteen battalions of infantry, twelve batteries of field artillery, seven batteries of garrison artillery, three companies of Royal Engineers, and two battalions of military trains. These units would barely constitute two normal British divisions, numbering a little over nineteen thousand men in all, to include staff corps. They were all first rate. The government had wanted the quality of the reinforcement to be taken into account in American diplomatic calculations, which was why the two guards battalions-the 1st Battalion, Grenadier Guards, and the 2nd Battalion Scots Fusilier Guards-were included. The legendary Rifle Brigade had also sent its 1st Battalion.

Most of the regiments had their share of North American battle honors. The oldest was the Grenadier Guards, which had been sent to Virginia in 1677 to put down Bacon’s Rebellion.

British Army battalions, often referred to as imperial battalions to distinguish them from colonial units, were unparalleled fighting formations, known for their obstinacy in battle often to the point of suicide. They had a sense of themselves based on the regimental system that gave them a wonderful resilience and cohesiveness. Leavened with Crimean War, Great Mutiny, and China expedition veterans, they knew the bayonet end of their business better than another other army in the world.

“Battalion” was not necessarily synonymous with “regiment.” A regiment was the permanent organization that was organized into the tactical formation of a battalion with ten companies. Most regiments had only one battalion, though there were a number of exceptions when there were two or more battalions. The guards regiments all had more than one battalion. Battalions usually numbered about 1,000 men on paper, but actual strength usually varied from 800 to 950.

British regiments were also famous for their unique personalities and were often known by their nicknames. The 1st Battalion, Grenadier Guards, were known as “the Dandies,” no doubt from their parade functions in London and the fact that as all the guards, they were selected for height to make a grander appearance. More often nicknames were born in battle. The famous red coat of the British soldier was actually scarlet and a new and more practical tunic cut adopted as one of Crimean War reforms. Different facings distinguished the various regiments. Black trousers and a black shako completed his uniform. The only exception to scarlet was the rifle green and black of the rifle battalions. It was Richard Sharpe, hero of the 95th Rifles-later 1st Battalion, the Rifle Brigade-of whom Wolseley spoke in his dinner conversation with George H. Sharpe.

The British soldier was also armed with the superb.577 caliber muzzle-loading Enfield rifle of the 1853 pattern, only rivaled by the American Springfield rifle. Ironically, the Enfield rifle was produced on American machinery and according to the “American method” of mass production.

The Royal Artillery had also taken the lead in introducing a breakthrough artillery piece. The field artillery batteries had come equipped with the new breech-loading Armstrong guns. However, the average gunner and his officer could not deal with such a fundamental change and complained of having to rewrite the venerable gun drill “because the gun loaded at the wrong end. In the bloom of the industrial age, the British artillery was not yet prepared for the maintenance of delicate machinery.”

The Trent Affair had also given some impetus to the creation of an effective Canadian militia. The Canadians shared the mother country’s outrage over the Trent Affair, but many English-speaking Canadians had a deeper dislike for the United States than for the imperial smugness of the British. Many were the descendents of the one hundred thousand American Loyalists who either refused to live in the new republic or had been “encouraged” to emigrate after the Revolution. They also continued to describe Americans as unsophisticated braggarts, using the epithet they shared with the British-“Brother Jonathan.”

The outbreak of the Civil War followed by the Trent Affair had resulted in an initial burst of enthusiasm for defense by the provincial Canadian authorities. The new Volunteer Militia was quickly recruited up to its authorized strength and divided into small, organized units that drilled together on a regular basis. By 1862, there were thirty-four troops of horse, twenty-seven artillery batteries, 182 companies of rifles, and five companies of engineers. A Sedentary Militia, which theoretically included every adult male between the ages of eighteen and sixty years old, was also available, but they were not drilled and did not have weapons.

As Wolseley reviewed the situation, he found he could count on about ten thousand men in the Voluntary Militia from Lower Canada (Quebec) and about fifteen thousand from Upper Canada (Ontario). Several thousand more could be found in the Maritimes. The process of consolidating the many independent companies into battalions had begun.

Three Canadian militia infantry battalions were brigaded with one British battalion for wartime operations as well as for training. The British Army had also provided several hundred officers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs) to train the Canadians. Nevertheless, there was a limit to how much soldiering could be passed on in the short training periods the Canadian colonial government was willing to pay for.

BRITISH ARMY HEADQUARTERS, MONTREAL, CANADA, 2:00 PM, SEPTEMBER 3, 1863

That afternoon, Wolseley reviewed the strategic defense of British North America with General Williams, Colonel Wetherall, and the rest of the staff. He said, “We face the unique military problem of an immensely long border with no strategic depth behind it. The inhabited regions of Upper and Lower Canada are rarely more than fifty miles deep. At the same time, the British forces in Canada and the Maritimes would show clearly that all of our scattered regular forces do not amount to a single corps in General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Our Canadian militia has an effective strength of even less than that. Because of the necessity to defend key points, there is no possibility that these forces could ever be consolidated into a single, large field army.”

Although Wolseley considered his regulars more than a match for veteran American troops if war came, he also knew that the unblooded Canadians would have to be used very carefully until they had become seasoned. “We face another problem: Canadian officials tend to lose all interest in defense matters when the immediate cost is waved about. The attitude seems to be that since they are part of the British Empire, the empire will damn well have to defend them. If I remember correctly, that is one reason Brother Jonathan refused to pay his fair share for the Crown’s expenses in the Seven Years War. And we know where that attitude led.

“Case in point, gentlemen, let me read you this comment from George Brown’s newspaper, the Globe: ‘We cannot agree to the dogma that Canada should provide entirely for her defence when she is not the author of the quarrels against the consequences of which she is called to stand upon her guard.’

“On a more positive note, I am glad that the Canadian Volunteers are as splendid men as can be wished for. They are, after all, blood of our blood, bone of our bone. Unfortunately, the provincial authorities have been rather feckless in the selection of their officers. Social standing seems to be the primary consideration. They may well have considered Cromwell’s standards when he said, ‘If you chose godly, honest men to be captains of horse, honest men will follow them.’ So, gentlemen, a major task is to nurse along these provincial officers as best we can until they approach the quality of the men they lead.” As only British officers were present, there were no objections to his characterizations. If anything, there was knowing laughter.

Wolseley continued. “Luckily the authorities have authorized an increase to thirty-five thousand, but they have to be recruited, organized, and trained. The authorities have agreed to begin organizing the next wave of battalions, from number twenty-four to sixty, though this will depend on the Crown arming and equipping them. Most of the militia companies already exist to be consolidated into battalions, and we can expect about a dozen to be established this month. Seven will be from Lower Canada and five from Upper Canada. A majority of the first twenty-three battalions are from Lower Canada, but they consist mostly of Her Majesty’s English-speaking subjects; Her Majesty’s French are less inclined to serve, though they have contributed several fine battalions.

“But getting them in shape to fight will take time; an element the enemy always tries to deny us. So the question becomes, What form would an American war take? Upon that answer rests our ability to plan for the most effective use of imperial forces. The Americans won’t wait; they are an aggressive and even precipitous people. In 1776 and 1812, they immediately attacked Canada upon the commencement of hostilities. We cannot rely simply on history repeating their mistakes in those attempts.

“The Army’s 1861 war plan, devised during the Trent Affair, plainly took that history into account and worked on the premise that the best defense was a good offense. It had recommended a major landing to capture Portland and occupy the entire state of Maine as well. British-held Maine would then form a strategic shield for the otherwise vulnerable Lower Canada and the Maritimes. It had two vital advantages, gentlemen. First, we would gain complete control of the Grand Trunk Railway to secure British North America’s internal line of communications. Second, by offensive action we would put the Americans’ forces on the defensive, which otherwise would inevitably and immediately attack Canada.

“So far, so good. Then for some inexplicable reason, this political assessment was also included. I read it for your edification.The interests of Maine and Canada are identical. A strong party is believed to exist in Maine in favor of annexation to Canada; and no sympathy is there felt for the war which now desolates the U. States. It is more than probable that a conciliatory policy adopted towards Maine would, if it failed to secure its absolute co-operation, indispose it to use any vigorous efforts against us. The patriotism of Americans dwells peculiarly in their pockets; amp; the pocket of the good citizens of Maine would benefit largely by the expenditure and trade we should create in making Portland our base amp; their territory our line of communications with Canada.

Wolseley snorted in disgust. “What utter claptrap. Written, no doubt by some gentleman in London who had never been to North America much less Maine. I just hope someone in the American government is not making the same assessment of Canada.”

His recent trip to Maine indicated that its people would do more than resent an occupation. He had not forgotten Sharpe’s account of the stand of the 20th Maine at Gettysburg either, nor how proud the people of Maine were of him and the rest of their regiments.¹

He was also aware that if American politicians were assuming that the people of British North America would gladly look on forcible incorporation into the United States, they were equally delusional. The French had come to the conclusion that they would lose their exclusiveness that British rule allowed if absorbed in the huge sea of the Union. The Irish Canadians who had settled there in numbers as a result of the Great Famine were loyal to their new home; those who had hated the Crown had found the States more congenial and moved south. And as usual, the Scots were a bulwark to the Crown.

Though inclined to let others pay for their defense in the event of war, the people of British North America would fight. The Canadians had not understood the British outrage when the militia bill that would have funded much of the Canadian military expansion had caused the MacDonald government to fall in 1862. For them, the bill had simply been the proximate cause of the fall of a government that was on its way out. The Crown had swallowed its anger and provided a two million-pound subsidy that had allowed Canadian military preparations to continue. The new government was happy to spend that money, buying one hundred thousand Enfield rifles, uniforms, and ammunition, and using it to pay for the consolidation of militia companies into new battalions.

ROYAL NAVY BASE, HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA, 12:00 AM, SEPTEMBER 4, 1863

As they often did, the whale oil lamps burned late at the headquarters of the Royal Navy’s base in Halifax. The commander of the Royal Navy’s North American and West Indies Station, Rear Adm. Sir Alexander Milne, was known as the foremost administrator in the Royal Navy. The closest he had come to combat in his thirty-six years in the Navy was to escort British and French troop transports in the Crimean War, which he had done with an efficiency that was uncharacteristic of the war. He ran a taut organization and tolerated no slack work. He showed a genuine concern for the enlisted men of the station and made improvements to make their lot easier. Milne came from a Navy family; his father, Adm. Sir David Milne, had distinguished himself against the French in the Napoleonic Wars and had been impressed with the American naval performance in the War of 1812. The impression had had an ominous cast. He concluded, “I most sincerely wish to see their naval power nipped in the bud, for if they ever get it to any extent they will give us trouble enough.” The son had inherited his father’s ability, but his opinion of the Americans was more judicious. He would not over or underestimate them.

Milne’s exacting nature was not a surprise to the officers of the station. Naval officers were used to hard work; they had to know their profession to the smallest degree, or their warships, the most complex technological and organizational structures of the era, would simply cease to function. British Army officers were not, as a rule, so keen, especially in the aristocratic preserve of the cavalry regiments-work was too much like trade. It took more abuse to stop the functioning of a British infantryman or horse than the complex machinery of a ship. The Army officer, all too often, thought he had done his duty by dying well.

The late-working officers were surprised by the amount of work necessary to prepare for the Army’s assistant quartermaster general for British North America’s visit to Admiral Milne. The admiral’s flag lieutenant, Basil Hall, could have enlightened them on the purpose of that visit to guide their labors, but he considered it too confidential to be batted about the mess.

Instead, he had discussed it with Milne at tea that afternoon. Milne was a direct man, saving Hall from endless guessing games. The admiral leaned back in his stuffed chair by the great upper glass windows of the headquarters that looked out over the harbor and its sea of masts. It was a grand sight, the material evidence that Britannia did indeed rule the waves. Milne knew that that was a nice sentiment, but as an organized man, he wanted to add the numbers.

“Hall,” he said, “Wolseley has an uncommonly good head for an Army officer. I much appreciated his observations from Washington and his discussions with Captain Hancock. It is his opinion that the Americans and we are sailing right into another crisis, similar to the Trent Affair. I read the American newspapers closely, Hall. I wish Lord Russell did as well. I’m afraid we continue to act under a badly written law that only threatens to drag us into a war by the very provocations it tolerates.

“You were not with me in December 1861 when I prepared a plan to be employed if we had gone to war with the Americans then. The desire for war burned hot in London at the time. We would have crushed their Navy. Now I am not so certain. Their Navy has grown in size, ability, and with the number of monitors they have…” He did not finish the statement but stared out the window for a moment as he sipped his tea.

Milne turned back to the flag lieutenant and put down his tea. “I prepared a plan that would have driven their Navy and commerce off the sea, broken their blockade, and thrown a counterblockade across their own ports. But then, the gentlemen in Whitehall never answered my question of ‘what next’ if the Americans did not sue for peace immediately.”

“Oh, surely that would not happen, sir,” Hall replied. “What country could survive such a blow? The shock alone would bring them to their senses.”

“Really, Hall? And how many times did we do just that to the French and still have to fight long, grinding wars of exhaustion?”

Hall hesitated.

“And the Americans are not the French by any means. They spring from our own blood, as rude and arrogant a people as so many of our countrymen prefer to see them. In our two wars with the Americans, may I remind you of the number of ship-to-ship actions we lost?”

Hall began to look unsettled at the analogy.

“Cheer up, Hall, it is my job to see things without illusion. It is yours to be my sounding board. Now let me tell you of the improvements I have in mind for the war plan.”

Milne first reviewed the original plan. It was based on the strength of the North American and West Indies Station that currently had a compliment of forty-two ships (totaling 70,456 tons), 14,551 men, and 1,319 guns. Of this number, there were eight battleships or ships of the line and thirteen frigates and corvettes. Every ship was steam powered. All of Milne’s ships, however, were purpose-built warships whereas most American warships were converted commercial ships of one sort or another and armed with lighter ordnance.

Milne noted that the most common gun in the fleet was the old 32-pounder, outclassed by the new Dahlgren guns the Americans had been producing in great numbers. That brought him to the problem that had been gnawing at him for months now. In 1861, the rifled Armstrong gun in various calibers had been issued to the fleet. It was hailed as a technological innovation of profound importance with a 1.5-mile point-blank accuracy and a reach of 5 miles for the 32-pounder Armstrong, seven times better than the comparable muzzle-loader. It had solved the problem of the great stress in the powder chambers of old cast-iron guns by shrinking wrought iron spirals over a wrought iron barrel. Being a breech-loader, the Armstrong did not have to be run out, reducing the movement of the gun in action. It had proved in practice, however, to be a profound disappointment. For such an advanced concept, the Armstrong guns were useless against the armor on American monitors for which they had never been designed. There were technical deficiencies as well that made the guns unreliable. The gun carriages were too low and forced the crews to stoop to operate the gun. The breeching bolts in the ships’ sides were unable to resist the recoil of the gun, which Milne said was “so exceedingly violent that the gun and carriage was lifted bodily from the deck and came in with a crash, enough to tear everything to pieces, and the men were obliged to retire from near the gun.” The lead shell covering, which was meant to mold to the rifling grooves, sometimes “puffed out,” making it impossible to load. The heat of the tropics in which the ships of the station rotated tended to deteriorate the rubber fuse washers and the tallow-filled lubricators.

The biggest problem was the poorly designed vent piece that frequently blew out when the gun was fired. As one observer noted, “I believe it occurred more than once that the block [vent piece] found its way into the main top to the discomfort of the men there.” Milne had been unhappy when the Royal Navy purchased one hundred of the 110-pounders without trials, even though the manufacturer had stated that he did not think them suitable for such large calibers and for use at sea. Milne had more reason for his dismay with the guns as their deficiencies manifested, believing them overcomplicated and prone to malfunction in quick firing. He pointedly noted, “Americans won’t look at them.” Even Lord Lyons had noted to Russell that Union authorities relied on the “simplicity and stolidity” of Dahlgren’s guns and had no confidence in breech-loading weapons.

Milne had kept by him the report of Capt. George Hancock of the Immortalité, who had toured American ordnance facilities and spoken extensively with Admiral Dahlgren. The report was already eighteen months old but that only added to his disquiet. Even then, the Americans were producing more than thirty of the Dahlgrens a week. Milne had complete confidence in Hancock’s judgment, and when the captain characterized the American guns as the “most efficient weapons of the day,” he took it very much to heart. Dahlgren had devised a method to avoid the great weakness of all guns, the manner in which the trunions, on which the gun pivoted, were mounted. The shorter American gun carriage allowed the guns to be fired at a greater elevation than comparable British guns. The guns’ soda bottle shape also meant that their center of gravity was not so near the ship’s outer wall and reduced the ship’s rolling, especially in heavy weather. The muzzles also extended beyond the gun ports more than British guns, reducing the chance of igniting the wooden sides of the ship or, when on the upper deck, of setting fire to the rigging. That last danger was the subject of special complaints Milne had made to the Admiralty. Hancock also noticed that the Americans had cut a hole behind each gun up through which powder charges were passed, thus eliminating the frantic rushing up and down the main hatchways of men carrying powder charges.

With all this in mind, Milne was preparing a report to state that although the Armstrong guns were “admirably manufactured and of great precisions,” they were “not suitable for service afloat.” That conclusion was a constant worry for Milne. The Armstrong guns were a large proportion of the station’s guns. He had decided to request that they should be replaced with more reliable muzzle-loaders with particular emphasis on the 68-pounder that British testing had indicated would penetrate the 4.5 inches of side armor of American ironclads at two hundred yards.

The backbone of the fighting power of the station was its ships of the line with their three decks of guns, which seemed from another world, and indeed they were. Most were laid down more than twenty years before. They were typified by HMS Nile, Milne’s flagship. She had been laid down in 1839 and converted to screw in 1854. In 1862 she had been up-gunned with sixteen Armstrong guns of various calibers, though she still carried sixty-two of the venerable muzzle-loading 32-pounders.

Milne’s war plan had three basic elements: to destroy any American fleet or ship that dared to oppose the Royal Navy; to blockade the Union coast from Cape Henry, Virginia, to Maine; and to conduct powerful raids against coastal targets. He also wanted to seize sites in the vicinity of Martha’s Vineyard as coaling stations. Inherent in this plan was breaking the Union blockade of the South at Charleston and possibly Galveston. The First Lord of the Admiralty, the Duke of Somerset, had written him as the Trent Crisis mounted, “In the event of war I do not send from here any plan of operations as you have probably better means of judging what to do, but the first objective would probably be to open the blockade of the Southern ports and without directly co-operating with the Confederates, enable them to act and to receive supplies.”

Milne had also expressed a strong desire to control the Chesapeake Bay and make a descent on Washington itself, a tactic that the Royal Navy had used successfully in the War of 1812. An Admiralty report on the feasibility of attacking Northern ports concluded that the “intricacy of the channels and the strength of the forts made such attacks unfeasible.” Except for his pet project to strike at Washington, Milne himself did not favor operations against ports despite an Admiralty assessment that control of New York Harbor would probably end the war. As Milne went over these points with Hall, he explained, “The object of the war can only be to cripple the enemy-that is, his trade and merchant and whaling fleets.” He realized that Great Britain could never truly destroy the North. “No object would be gained if the ports alone are to be attacked, as modern views deprecate any damage to a town. If ships are fired upon in a port the town must suffer; therefore, the shipping cannot be fired upon. This actually reserves operations to vessels at sea.”

Hall countered that the Union had shown no such punctilious regard for civilian lives and private property in its bombardment of Charleston and other Southern coastal towns. Milne was clear on this point. “The usages of civilized nations do no permit such depredations any longer.”

“But, Admiral, would not such a prohibition also prevent an attack on Washington?

Milne replied, “That will not be a problem. Once the river forts are suppressed, the city is at our mercy.”

Hall could only look into his teacup at the rebuff.

Milne glided over the issue and went on. “Seizing coaling stations at Martha’s Vineyard is vital to maintaining a blockade of the North, but they do not have the advantage of fully functioning ports when the North Atlantic winters will limit communication with Halifax. Bermuda, our winter headquarters, and Nassau, are too far away to sustain a blockading fleet. For that reason, I believe we must support the Army’s plan to capture Portland. Colonel Wolseley is correct in his conclusion that for the Army to wait to receive an American attack would be fatal. A rain of blows is the only thing that will keep the Americans from conquering Canada. I am reminded of something my father said back in 1817. ‘We cannot keep Canada if the Americans declare war against us.’

“We must also have a more southern base on the American shore. I was thinking of the American Navy’s forward operating base at Port Royal, south of Charleston, which they have conveniently prepared. Wolseley recommended the four thousand-man garrison of Barbados as a landing force to occupy it once we seize it.

“Like the Army in Canada, we too in the Navy have our own vulnerabilities that are best defended with offensive operations. We have no dry docks able to handle our ships of the line. We have had to depend on the American naval yards for emergency repairs in the past. Although we have a ready supply of coal in Nova Scotia, the best coal must still be brought from Wales. You know, Hall, I have another worry. Our base in Bermuda is woefully defended. My recommendations to London have fallen on deaf ears.”

Milne stood up and began to pace before the great windows. “We must plan for the long war, Hall, if our initial strike does not bring the Americans to their senses. I fear that if that first blow fails, we will only have roused these people to even greater efforts.

“What was feasible in 1861 is fraught with problems today. The strength of this station to undertake such an operation teeters, Hall, teeters on the jagged edge of adequacy. I cannot recommend to the Admiralty that it be attempted with the forces we have. If such an issue ever arises, I would insist on powerful reinforcement. We must have all four of our broadside ironclads and a good part of the Channel Squadron itself. We shall also require the naval siege train, the ‘Great Armament,’ that was assembled for the capture of Sebastopol.”

He stopped pacing. “I think such a war will make us long for the French as enemies.”

GOVERNOR’S MANSION, INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA, 12:20 PM, SEPTEMBER 4, 1863

Governor Oliver Morton was a happy man as he raised a glass of wine. “Gentlemen, I toast the good Sergeant Cline.” Sharpe was happy to comply, as was Col. Henry Carrington, the officer detailed to be the Copperhead catcher in Indiana. Cline’s raid on Bowles’s farm and the recovery from his barns of all the Springfield rifles stolen the last month had been a signal success in a difficult and shadowy fight against disloyalty.

Sharpe had sent Cline immediately out from Washington to report to Colonel Carrington. A week later, several companies of Cline’s old regiment, the 3rd Indiana Cavalry, had followed. Sharpe had secured their detail to his bureau for special operations. This regiment had what was called “personality.” Unlike most Union cavalry regiments it had never had to go through long periods of training simply to learn how to ride; its volunteers were already accomplished horsemen and owned their own horses and equipment. Hooker had put them to good use when he commanded a division in an almost independent command on the Eastern Shore of Maryland earlier in the war. Always eager for intelligence, Hooker had called on the services of Lafayette Baker, who was glad to train the regiment in aspects of counterespionage. They responded with such enthusiasm that on one occasion they captured a Confederate sloop loading contraband supplies on the Chesapeake Bay, earning the title of “Hooker’s Horse Marines.”

With a crack unit like the 3rd at his disposal, Colonel Carrington approved Cline’s suggestion to clean out Bowles’s nest. Now Bowles was safely in prison without the protection of habeas corpus, his band was dead or captured, and his farm no longer served as a locus of subversion. Morton was in a very good mood. Sharpe thought it a good time to hand him a letter from General Meade. He requested a promotion to captain for Cline. Morton read it and huffed. “Captain! He thinks I hand out captains’ commissions like candy. Why, sir,” he said with a slight twinkle in his eye, “those are scarce as hen’s teeth.” He paused, “But I have a surplus of commissions to major at hand. While Captain Cline is a pleasant alliteration, I think Major Cline would be far more useful to our cause.”

Sharpe had every reason to be as positive as Morton. He had set up his bureau successfully. McPhail was in Washington, assembling a staff. He had secured the detail of his “Horse Marines” for very special operations, and he had personally attended to the lancing of a festering boil in a state important to Lincoln for the sustenance of the war effort.

On the train the next morning he let his thoughts range in a stream of consciousness, which he had come to learn could be most useful at finding new perspectives. The Washington Arsenal came to mind, that complex of weapons munitions and storehouses and assembly factories on the southern tip of Washington where the Potomac and Eastern Branch rivers met. He had been intrigued by Lincoln’s references to the coffee mill gun, and a few inquiries had revealed that all fifty the President had encouraged McClellan to buy were there. He paid a visit and found them in a shed, all neatly lined up and oiled, and looking with their hoppers very much like the coffee mills that Lincoln had named them after.

He had put in a requisition for ten of them and had been turned down flat by Ripley. Sharpe had stormed into Ripley’s office. The old man had actually lied to his face that there were no coffee mill guns stored at the Arsenal. “I was there three days ago and saw them with my own eyes!”

Caught in a bold-faced lie, Ripley blamed an administrative oversight. Then finding another argument, he said, “But in any case, you are not authorized such weapons in your present capacity.”

Sharpe tossed away any pretense at courtesy. “Listen to me, you lying old fraud, I have the authority of the President of the United States, and I will not hesitate to use it to make sure you are issuing rations on a Sioux reservation in Minnesota by next week.” Ripley blinked and signed the authorization.

Sharpe issued them to his old regiment, the 120th NY, now safely a part of the garrison of Washington. He had raised this regiment in Ulster and Greene counties back home, and no colonel in the Army retained a more paternal concern. They had bled badly at Gettysburg but had earned a reputation for stubbornness. He was proud of them, but what was more useful at this time was that he knew they were reliable and returned his devotion. Though assigned officially to the garrison, they were considered to be at his disposal. He arranged for them to replace the military guard at the White House and to train with the coffee mill guns at one of the firing ranges. He could rely on their acting commander, Maj. John Tappen, to run a taut outfit. Tappen was a first-class fighting man and held the respect of the men. He and Sharpe had been company commanders together when they marched off to save the capital in the first days of the war in their old militia regiment, the 20th NY State Militia Regiment. It would take him a few more weeks to get the 20th swapped out with another regiment gone soft in the Washington forts. Sharpe was a man of strong and even sentimental loyalties, and these were strongest with the two regiments he had served with. In fact, when he raised the 120th, he deliberately chose that number to reflect the old 20th, even though that put the new regiment behind in seniority. Sharpe was a Hudson Valley man who trusted his Ulster and Greene County compatriots first and foremost.

The train jolted and brought him back to the purpose of his visit in the West. There was far more to do. He had intended to visit Major Generals Grant and Rosecrans, who commanded the two major armies in the Western Theater; brief them on his organization; and set up the military intelligence staffs that he had created for the Army of the Potomac. Unforeseen events had intervened. Grant was in New Orleans, disabled by an accident in which the vicious horse he had been riding had fallen on him. Rosecrans was also unavailable. He was marching into battle.

BRIDGEPORT, ALABAMA, 7:00 PM, SEPTEMBER 4, 1863

The Union troops marched across the pontoon bridge over the Tennessee River in an endless river of faded blue. There was great confidence in all ranks as the Army of the Cumberland, which had chased its opponent, the Confederate Army of Tennessee, out of Alabama and into northern Georgia. The mercurial Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans-”Old Rosy” to his troops for his good nature and his Roman nose colored red by the bottle-had run the fight out of his opposition, the sour and dyspeptic Lt. Gen. Braxton Bragg, whose only aggressive characteristic was the intensity with which he avoided a decisive battle. Bragg had systematically alienated every senior Army officer with his relentlessly nasty and blame-placing personality. Rosecrans, who was the most popular officer in the Union Army, had already beaten Bragg at the battle of Stone’s River in December 1862, a tonic to the North after the disastrous defeat at Freder-icksburg a few weeks before.

The campaign flowed onward to what everyone could sense was coming-the decisive battle. It was understandable that Rosecrans had not had time to consider a letter dated twelve days before from a major of the 21st Illinois, despite the strong endorsements of his brigade and division commanders. Maj. James E. Callaway had been mightily impressed with the effectiveness of the innovation of mounted infantry armed with the Spencer repeating rifle and requested permission to raise a regiment of mounted infantry in his native state. A bold, intelligent, and far-thinking young lawyer, Callaway was the type of man who was attracted to the potential and thrill of the cutting edge of change. He pressed on Rosecrans, “There are already several companies organized in the state of Illinois that are anxious to enter the service as cavalry or mounted infantry.” He threw in his political connections with the state adjutant general who had “pledged all the assistance in his power.”

Callaway was striking while the iron was hot. Already the brigade of mounted infantry under Col. John Thomas Wilder had proven its worth in Rosecrans’s brilliant Tullahoma Campaign that June. The brigade was the brainchild of Maj. Gen. Lovell H. Rousseau, one of Rosecrans’s division commanders, who had arrived in Washington in February “all afire with zeal for mounted infantry.” Rousseau had deep credit with Lincoln. He had been, according to the President, “our first active practical Military friend in Kentucky.” Now Rousseau was telling Lincoln what he wanted and needed to hear-that only mounted infantry armed with repeaters could deal with the likes of the infamous Nathan Bedford Forrest. He said, “I propose to organize and use such a force to be furnished with Sharps rifles. If I do not make this pay at the end of three months from today, I will cheerfully relinquish the command.”

Lincoln was impressed and wrote Rosecrans, authorizing the experiment. Rosecrans had been an early supporter of Rousseau’s idea and had requested repeating rifles in February only to receive the usual tart and disingenuous reply from Ripley’s ally as general in chief of the armies, Maj. Gen. Henry Halleck. “You are not the only general who is urgently calling for more cavalry and more cavalry arms. The supply is limited, and the demands of all cannot be satisfied. In regard to ‘revolving rifles, superior arms,’ amp;c., every one is issued the moment it is received.” Halleck did not mention that the repeaters had not really been ordered at all.

Rosecrans was not one to wait on Ripley’s shifty promises; he immediately authorized Colonel Wilder to impress mounts and transform his infantry into a mounted infantry brigade. Wilder was even less willing to rely on normal requisitions. He bought Spencers with money borrowed from Indiana home state bankers, and his eager men repaid the bankers in installments. The federal government later reimbursed them. It was an effective way to get around Ripley. The Spencers soon proved their worth, whipping a Confederate brigade at Hoover’s Gap with the weight of their firepower. The enemy commander thought he was outnumbered five to one and suffered three to one losses. Thereafter, they were known as “Wilder’s Lightning Brigade.”

Callaway was determined to catch some of that lightning for himself, but he would have to wait. The big fight was coming, and for him it would be an old-fashioned infantryman’s brawl. The Army pressed on; it could smell the enemy’s fear.

Tremors of despair spread in every direction from all ranks of the fleeing Army of Tennessee. They arrived in Richmond and from there to the headquarters of Robert E. Lee at Culpepper Court House in Northern Virginia. President Davis feared the worst. Yet he would not replace Bragg for whom he had a great and unaccountable regard. Something would have to be done to save Bragg from himself. As usual, in such moments of desperation, Davis turned to Robert E. Lee.