Britannia's Fist: From Civil War to World War

9

NEW YORK HARBOR, NEW YORK, 12:35 PM, SEPTEMBER 11, 1863

Oslyabya is not a word that slips easily from the tongue of an English speaker. The crowds of New Yorkers that rushed to the docks to see the newly arrived Russian steam frigate of that name truly mangled it. None of them knew the ancient glory of its name, that of a monk who fought in the Russian shield wall at the battle of Kulikovo Fields in 1380, the first Russian victory over the dreaded Tatars, and their first step toward empire. None of that ancient symbolism mattered to the people who filled the docks where the frigate was tied up. It was the Russian Empire, the might it represented, and the friendship its presence meant that thrilled them.

It was fixed in the American mind that the only friend of the Union among the great powers of Europe was Russia. The arrival of this ship with the news that she was only the advance of a powerful squadron of the Baltic Fleet sped along the telegraph lines throughout the North. The timing of the Olsyabya’s arrival could not have been better. The twin victories of summer, Gettysburg and Vicksburg, had been so full of promise for a speedy collapse of the rebellion, but those expectations had petered out as the exhausted armies maneuvered to no effect throughout the late summer. Northern morale had sunk. It was on this tinder of faded hopes that news of the Oslyabya’s arrival fell like a spark.

The North went wild with excitement. The press, desperate for good news, fed the public perception that the Russians had come to show support for the harried Union and that the natural alliance of Russia and America was soon to be officially cemented. Neither the U.S. government nor the Russians did anything to dispel this notion, though their public statements confined themselves to traditional goodwill. It was too good for Northern morale and even better as an unspoken warning to Britain and France. The New York Herald editorialized: Should the Russian empire and the American republic form an offensive and defensive alliance they would necessarily preponderate and rule throughout the world. Our enemies should beware how they drive us to the cementing of a compact the existence of which would be the end of all opposing power and influence.

The crowds that were welcomed aboard the Russian frigate as visitors found their expectations of the Russians realized. Almost every Russian officer could speak English well, the legacy of the fact that on-the-shore British naval officers, largely Scots, had officered much of the Russian Navy as it grew into a professional force in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The tall young women of New York, of English and German stock, were a bit taken aback, though, by the relatively short stature of most Russian officers.³ A ball was immediately thrown for the ship’s officers, who caused an unexpected reaction among the throngs of tall New York belles.Alas! for the Russians. It is known, or should be, that these Slavic heroes are not the very largest of the human race-that they are small men in fact-and what is to become of small men in such a jam? Early in the night-indeed, very soon after the dance began-we saw several of them in the embrace of grand nebulous masses of muslin and crinoline, whisked hither and thither as if in terrible torment-their eyes aglare-their hair blown out-and all their persons expressive of the most desperate energy, doubtless in an endeavor to escape. What became of them we cannot tell.

Another novelty was Protestant America’s first encounter with the Orthodox Church in the form of Oslyabya’s chaplain, whom the press described as “an eminent theologian.” The service aboard ship was reported with an open-mindedness rarely found for Roman Catholicism in America at that time.

There was nothing about the Russians that did not find favor with the press and public alike. The dockyard pickpockets and thieves declared Russian sailors off-limits in a burst of patriotic fervor. The streetwalkers were even rumored to offer an occasional service gratis. “It is a noticeable fact that even the sharpers, who so fall foul of strangers, have kept themselves off these ‘Roo-shans.’”

It was in the midst of the excitement over the Russians that the Liverpool packet Aurora arrived on September 17. She was the first fast packet to race across the Atlantic since the battle of Moelfre Bay. Word of the battle spread throughout the city and was immediately wired to Washington. Eight hours later, the news was in Richmond as well.

The North went wild with excitement. The church bells rang from Maine to Wisconsin as they had for Vicksburg and Gettysburg. Pent-up anger at British connivance with the Confederacy exploded in cheers and adulation for the Kearsarge and Gettysburg, mixed with anxiety for the safety of Winslow’s ship. The newspapers carried by Aurora trumpeted the fact that the entire Royal Navy had been set in pursuit of Kearsarge. In the South, the news spread just as fast, and the church bells would have rung with even greater joy had they not all already been melted down for cannon.

THE WHITE HOUSE, 3:30 PM, SEPTEMBER 18, 1863

The mood in the White House shared none of the public’s exuberance. Two days later, another ship arrived with Ambassador Adams’s enciphered reports of the battle as well his dealings with Russell. The ship also carried the British papers. They all screamed for war.

Seward briefed Lincoln and the cabinet on the events of Moelfre Bay. He concluded, “The British have brought this upon themselves. They hid behind the Foreign Enlistment Act, a tissue of neutrality so pathetic that it made them the arsenal and storehouse of the rebellion. The entire attitude of the British government has been one of unremitting hostility. In demanding an unattainable level of proof that the rams, not to mention the other pirates built in British yards, were intended for use by the Confederacy, they hoped to hide behind a fiction of legality. I swear, Mr. President, that had Adams presented proof written with the finger of God Himself, the British would have referred it to a Lucifer in a powdered wig to rule upon its authenticity.

“Most outrageously, Adams informs me that after the battle, Russell claimed that they had decided to seize the rams. Yet, just as with the Alabama, Laird Brothers and their rebel associates were forewarned in time to attempt to slip the most completed ram out of Liverpool. It was only because Dudley was able to warn Gettysburg was Lamson able to go off in pursuit. As further proof of British collusion to help the ram escape, they dispatched Liverpool to protect her.

“Adams further informs me that it is unsafe for an American to be recognized on the streets of London. The flag has been repeatedly torn off the embassy’s flagpole and burned. American merchants are making preparations to flee to neutral European ports. The debates in the House of Commons have been near hysterical in their demands for war. Most ominously, Adams reports that there has been a frenzy of preparation in both the Army and Navy.”

Lincoln’s normally dark complexion took on a deeper shade as he listened. His jaw was set. There was a glittering hardness to his brown eyes. “Before the world we can rightly claim to have done everything possible to avert these events. You all know that my policy has been ‘one war at a time’ and that at every turn we have sought reconciliation and simple justice from the British. And what have we received in return? A thousand examples are at hand, but let me lay just one before you. When Grant took Vicksburg, it was found that the thirty thousand rebels were uniformly armed with the most modern British Enfield rifle. Grant’s men were armed with old flintlock muskets that been converted to percussion and Belgian rifles more dangerous to their users than the enemy. He ordered his regiments to exchange these weapons with the captured Enfields. Does anyone believe that the Confederacy would not have collapsed within a year had not the workshops of Britain kept them supplied?

“Some will argue that Moelfre Bay would never have happened had we not sent that ship. What would have happened in that case is that the rams would have been savaging our ports and breaking the blockade. That would have brought us to the same point but at great disadvantage.”

He turned to Sharpe. It had not been lost on everyone else in the room that the only uniformed officer in the meeting, other than the Army’s diffident general in chief, Maj. Gen. Henry Wager Halleck, was Lincoln’s new chief “spy.” Even the formidable Stanton had not risen to give battle over the man’s independence of the secretary’s grasp. That had been due to Sharpe’s realization that while he could afford enemies, he could not have Stanton among them. He had made it clear that while he would report directly to the President, he still considered himself part of the War Department and would keep Stanton fully informed. He also made it clear he would not be stepping on Lafayette Baker’s toes. Let Stanton keep his thug for now, he thought. When Stanton had gone along, the rest of the cabinet had also fallen in line.

Lincoln’s nod had been his cue. “Gentlemen, the President has asked me to report to you certain preparations the British have been making in Canada and the Maritimes.” Sharpe went on to describe the information that had been gathered by the few agents he had been able to send into British North America over the last month. His network was too new and sparse to develop detailed information, but what they had found was disturbing. The tempo of raising and equipping the Canadian militia in British North America had picked up notably. The Canadian forces had also stepped up their training and often in conjunction with the imperial battalions, which were imparting to the Canadians some of their precision. His agents had also identified numerous British officers traveling in mufti on the American extension of the Grand Trunk Railroad, where they would make extended stops at every station on the routes. Most interesting was the number of officers who were coming to Portland. The number of port calls for Royal Navy ships had also increased.

Sharpe concluded with the latest reports that pointed to a sudden concentration of British and Canadian volunteer troops, ostensibly for training exercises in the region known as the Canadian “Peninsula,” bounded by Lake Huron on the west, Lake Erie on the south, and Lake Ontario on the east. This area was the southernmost projection of Canada that wedged itself between Michigan in the west and New York in the east. There were two points between the lakes where the borders ran; one in the west opposite Detroit and another in the east opposite Buffalo. Every eye in the room was drawn to the map on the wall as Sharpe traced the concentrations. Each man could picture in his mind’s eye the battlegrounds of the War of 1812, drawn with failure and danger. In this area, the U.S. Army had launched its ill-planned offensives only to be thrown back across the border and followed by British invasions, the most dangerous only stopped at Chippewa in 1814 by Winfield Scott. The memory of that train of disasters had not been lost on any American.

When he finished there was a dead silence.

Seward spoke first. “There is no doubt that the British have planned a surprise attack on us. Russell’s connivance to let the ram escape was only a part of this dastardly scheme. They have, no doubt, been planning this with the rebels for some time. Mr. President, war is upon us. We must act quickly to prepare.”

Stanton spoke next. “There is not a moment to lose if we are not to wake up and see Detroit and Buffalo in British hands.” He looked at Halleck. He was called “Old Brains” in the old prewar Army, where he had passed for that wonder of wonders, a military intellectual who actually wrote books on warfare. He certainly did not present a very martial appearance, a plump and bug-eyed man. As a field commander, he had been sound but overly cautious. With a subordinate like Grant to reap successes in his name, Halleck had found himself chosen as general in chief by a president desperate for sound military advice. That is what he got, but unfortunately that advice was not overly leavened with any boldness or willingness to take responsibility. Still, Halleck’s strategic sense was sound and the necessary action obvious.

“I recommend that those two points be immediately reinforced with a division from Grant’s Army and a division from Meade’s Army. Although Rosecrans’s Army of the Cumberland is closer, he is actively maneuvering to bring Bragg to battle, and I would not divert his forces and weaken him at such a moment.”

Sharpe was worried, not about what he knew of British deployments but about what he did not know. The geography of his home state of New York fell like a template over his worries. The strong railway ran from Montreal to Albany and down the Hudson Valley to New York City. Halfway between Albany and the city was Kingston, his home town. It was a natural invasion route and one of historic importance. Burgoyne had tried it and come a cropper at Saratoga in 1777, just short of his objective of Albany. But then he had had to hack his way through a wilderness. Now the thick web of railroads and good surface roads knit the region together. Yet there was nothing like the studied activity of British forces in the Canadian Peninsula. That was very strange. He gave the British credit for common sense and more than that after his dinner with Wolseley. The absence of activity in that direction was immensely suspicious. The Grand Trunk led to Albany in one direction and to Montreal and Ottowa in the other. If Albany was about 135 miles from the Canadian border, Montreal was only thirty-five miles from the American border.

He raised the issue. Unfortunately, it was the vulnerability of Montreal not Albany that seemed to arouse the most interest. The discussion turned to the opportunity this presented. Stanton waved away the danger, his focus still on the Great Lakes. “The New York State Militia and home guards should be called up in any case. They should be able to delay any force the British could send across the border there.” He glared at Sharpe, “As you’ve said yourself, Albany is 135 miles from the border. Buffalo and Detroit are right across the border.”

Halleck came in on Stanton’s side, to no one’s surprise. “General Sharpe is correct to point out how vulnerable Montreal is. Here is an opportunity to strike at the heart of Canada. If we seize Montreal, we sever British communications and cut British North America in two. Remember, their settlements extend no more than fifty miles from the border. The XI and XII corps could be detached from the Army of the Potomac and deployed to Albany as a staging area.” He glanced at Stanton for approval and saw the man’s brow furrow. “But there is not the urgency that there is to defend the Great Lakes. There is no reason to rush up there now. We need to carefully plan this.”

When Sharpe saw that Lincoln would support Stanton, he folded his tent.

The meeting dragged on into the night as the entire range of war preparations was discussed. Lincoln finally adjourned the meeting at two in the morning. All through the night, aides and secretaries had been filing in and out to carry messages to the various departments of the government, mostly war warning alerts to Army and department commanders, coastal forts, Navy bases and yards, and the blockading squadrons. As the meeting broke up, Lincoln quietly took Stanton by the arm and pulled him to the window. “I thank Providence we put Ripley out to pasture three weeks ago. We are going to need a lot of those ‘new-fangled gimcracks’ he hated so much. We should have Colonel Ramsey rummage about his old arsenal to see what Ripley hid away. We cannot afford to overlook any advantages. The full weight of their empire will be against us.”

“I’ve already done that. He reported to me yesterday that there were fifty of the coffee mill guns there in late August just before he took over the Ordnance Bureau from Ripley. Seems there are only forty of the coffee mill guns now.” He looked over at Sharpe. “But two thousand Spencer repeaters have just been delivered.”

While they were speaking, Sharpe had taken Halleck aside. “May I make an impertinent suggestion, General?”

Halleck’s protruding eyes stared briefly at him, disconcerting as ever. “Of course, General.” Whatever else Halleck was, he was a military politician and had seen the favor Lincoln had bestowed on Sharpe, the only other uniformed officer who was a regular at cabinet meetings.

“I would suggest that a brigade at least might be usefully sent to Maine as well.”

“But you reported no British concentrations against New England.”

“Yes, I know, but prudence is a goddess who must be honored even by the boldest commander. I am worried about all the attention they have been paying to Maine.”

Halleck realized he could have it both ways-play up to a presidential favorite and take out some strategic insurance. “Good suggestion. Yes, a brigade should be enough. I’ll see to it tomorrow morning.”

“One more thing, General. May I also suggest that all the Maine regiments be sent? Announce that only three regiments are going, but send them all-horse, foot, and artillery. The 20th Maine saved the Army at Little Round Top. It would help the President politically if we could send those heroes home for a while. Col. Joshua Chamberlain is very popular up there right now. They could even do some recruiting. God knows that Maine bled at Gettysburg.”

It was as good as done.

CHICKAMAUGA CREEK, TENNESSEE, 12:00 PM, SEPTEMBER 20, 1863

The Confederacy’s mighty right arm had arrived on the battlefield of Chickamauga-“the Creek of Death” to those who fought there-on the second day of the fighting. Lt. Gen. James Longstreet was a big-bearded, burly man on a big horse, as befitted the man whom Lee called his “Old Warhorse.” He commanded the First Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia, the strongest offensive organization in American history. Longstreet and two of his divisions had been rushed by rail to the aid of the defeat-haunted Braxton Bragg and his Army of Tennessee to save them from another thrashing by Maj. Gen. William Rosecrans’s Army of the Cumberland. The first day of the battle had been fought without him. His troops were still detraining on that day and force marching to the field. Rosecrans had been warned by Sharpe to expect Longstreet’s reinforcement. He had taken the news seriously, but the intelligence staff that Sharpe had installed was too new to catch wind of Longstreet’s presence. Even had they been more experienced, Longstreet arrived with such speed that it would have taken a miracle for that news to have run ahead of him. In that light, Rosecrans thought he was lucky to finally force Bragg to fight before his reinforcements had arrived. He was in for a big surprise.

Bragg’s men felt Longstreet’s presence immediately. One lieutenant remarked, “Longstreet is the boldest and bravest-looking man I ever saw. I don’t think he would dodge if a shell were to burst under his chin.”

As Longstreet coiled his corps for its strike, he was taken aback by the volume of fire that was coming from Wilder’s Lightning Brigade almost a half mile away, and “thought for a moment that a fresh Federal corps had come crashing down on his left.”

Almost at once, his puncher’s practiced eye observed the main chance opening up before him and seized it. A Union division pulled out of the line before its replacement was at hand. A wide gap yawned, and Longstreet threw the divisions of Hood and McLaws into it. The rebel yells that had flown over so many victorious fields in Virginia now echoed across the thickets and woods of Tennessee. Two Union divisions were driven back as Longstreet’s men severed the Union battle line, and like a back-broke bull, that line collapsed. For the first time in the war, an experienced and valiant field army had been struck such a blow that it dissolved as Homer’s “Godsent Panic seized them, comrade to bloodcurdling rout,” and sent the men in blue in flight toward the railroad hub of Chattanooga.

Amid that rout was Maj. James Callaway. On the first day of the fighting, his brigade commander had relieved the incompetent commander of the 81st Indiana and put Callaway in his place. His presence on the demoralized unit was electric. He was truly charismatic-soldiers were drawn to him like iron filings to a magnet and his determination flowed out to them. All through the first day he led the newly emboldened Hoosiers of the 81st to become the fighting heart of their brigade. As other units fell under the enemy’s sledgehammer blows, the 81st stuck it out and poured such fire into the attacking Confederates that their regiments melted away. Again on the second day, the concentrated fire of the 81st broke every attack.As soon as my battalion front was unmasked by the skirmishers we opened a terrible and deadly fire upon the advancing foe. The firing was continued with unabated fury on both sides, the enemy steadily advancing and our men determinedly resisting until but 3 men of the enemy’s first line and about half of his second line were standing; their comrades apparently had fallen in windrows and his farther progress seemed checked, perhaps, impossible.

It was all for nothing. The flanking regiment, his own 21st Illinois, folded and broke. The Confederates were through and lapping around Callaway’s men. He pulled out just before the whole regiment was captured. Callaway reformed his men and, with the brigade commander, gathered up every man they could to put back into the fight. They made stand after stand before falling back. At last, he wrote, “we then withdrew from the field quietly and sullenly with every regimental color and field piece of the brigade.…”

Rosecrans and his corps commanders were swept away in the panic, all except Maj. Gen. George Thomas, who rallied his corps for the terrible rearguard defense of Snodgrass Hill. Again and again the Confederate waves struck the hill, each time seeming to crest it, but each time falling back in wreckage and ruin. Thomas held on and would not budge all that terrible day, earning himself the immortal title of the “Rock of Chickamauga.” That honor would have meant nothing if Bragg had not obsessed about overwhelming Thomas instead of sending his army in pursuit. His corps commanders, Longstreet chief among them, begged him to pursue the enemy. They “produced a Confederate soldier who had been captured and then had escaped. He had seen the Federal disarray for himself and was brought before Bragg to testify that the enemy was indeed in full retreat. Bragg would not accept the man’s story. ‘Do you know what a retreat looks like?’ he asked acidly. The soldier stared back and said, ‘I ought to, General; I’ve been with you during your whole campaign.’”

THE NORTH ATLANTIC, 11:20 AM, SEPTEMBER 21, 1863

Winslow’s deception of sailing north through the Irish Sea and the Northern Channel to the North Atlantic had had its risks, and one of them had given Kearsarge away. While most of the pursuing British ships sent in pursuit followed his false start to the southeast through the St. George Channel, which connected the Irish Sea south to the Atlantic, he had been passed by a Liverpool steamer. Kearsarge had been flying false colors, the French tricolor, but the skipper of the steamer knew a Frenchman when he saw one. He also knew battle damage when he saw it. He stopped a few hours later at Stranraer, a ferry port in southwest Scotland, where the telegraph had brought the news of Moelfre Bay and ignited a firestorm of anger. From there, the captain’s news sped south on the telegraph to London. Almost immediately upon receipt, the nearest Royal Navy warships were alerted and ordered in pursuit. Winslow had calculated that the northern route would encounter the fewest British warships; their bases were largely in the south and east of Britain. The odds were with him but luck was not. Coaling in Stranraer was the HMS Undaunted, a wood screw frigate of the same class as Liverpool. She was new, built in 1861; big at 4,020 tons; and fast, and she mounted fifty-one guns. Her captain did not wait for specific orders and put to sea at once. Captain and crew were out for blood.

The captain shrewdly guessed that his prey would strike directly for New York, hoping to outrace news of the battle. He crowded on sail and ordered the engines at full speed. On September 12 he caught up with Kearsarge. When she was identified, the crew burst into cheers as the drums beat to quarters. Winslow’s lookout had seen Undaunted almost at the same time. Battle stations were sounded. Lamson joined Winslow on the quarterdeck and extended his telescope.

“Looks just like Liverpool. And she is not blissfully ignorant of who we are. That ship is straining every plank to close with us.”

Winslow lowered his own glass. “One British frigate is enough. It took the two of us and some luck to take Liverpool. I won’t risk another fight with such a big ship.”

Lamson felt a twinge of disappointment, but Winslow precluded any impertinent suggestions to stay and fight by slamming his telescope shut. “We are going to run away. The Navy will need this ship.”

Running away was easier said than done. Kearsarge’s sails and engines gave it their all and began to lengthen the distance between them, but in a few hours it was apparent that the Undaunted was faster and would eventually close to within cannon shot. By September 15, Undaunted’s forward 110-pounder pivot gun fired its first shot, which fell well astern of Kearsarge. An hour later, her second shot struck only a hundred yards short. The next shell struck the sternpost and blew it to pieces.

Splinters from the impact blew out and up to fall on the quarterdeck. Winslow ordered the helmsman, “Hard about!” To his executive officer, Lt. Cdr. William Thornton, he said, “We will rake her, Mr. Thornton. Aim for her waterline. We must slow her down.”

Excitement ran through the officers and gun crews of both ships as the Kearsarge turned. Hardly had the Kearsarge come round before the Undaunted sheered, presented her starboard battery, and slowed her engines. At long range of about a mile, the British ship opened her full broadside, the shot cutting some of Kearsarge’s rigging and going over and alongside her. Immediately Winslow ordered more speed, but in less than two minutes Undaunted loaded and fired another broadside and followed it with a third but to little effect. Kearsarge was now within about nine hundred yards. So far, distance had prevented the rapid British broadsides from crippling the American.

“Fire!” Kearsarge’s starboard battery erupted. The XI-inch 5-second-fused shells crashed into Undaunted’s waterline to explode inside. The Marines manning the 28-pounder rifle dropped a shell onto Undaunted’s quarterdeck while the crew of the small Dahlgren howitzer spewed shrapnel on the main deck. Kearsarge’s guns were firing at will, pumping more shells into the enemy’s waterline. Winslow sheered away, intending to break off the action and resume his course, but the Undaunted sent a powerful broadside into his ship. One of his 32-pounders was struck by two of the Undaunted’s 32-pound shot with a great resounding clang of metal on metal. A powder charge exploded in the crewman’s hands, upending the gun and sending it spinning through the crew, reducing them to bloody rag dolls.

Kearsarge’s engines throbbed as the ship found its running legs. Undaunted was slow to follow and gradually fell behind. Winslow could only assume his guns had done their work. He was right. The XI-inch Dahlgren shells had blown jagged holes in Undaunted’s hull. Water was pouring through and began filling the hold. Her carpenters swarmed to plug them with canvas and wooden braces. The Marine gunners had wounded Undaunted as well. Their shells on the enemy’s quarterdeck had shattered the wheel and killed the captain. The ship’s executive officer assumed command and threw every effort into saving the ship.

Winslow breathed more easily as the enemy’s sail grew smaller and smaller. His relief was premature. The Undaunted had barely been lost to sight when the wounded ship was overtaken by the main pursuit squadron consisting of the frigates HMS Topaze and Dauntless and sloops Alert and Gannet. Undaunted gave them Kearsarge’s course, and they leapt in pursuit. They were under the command of the senior captain, John Welbore Sunderland Spencer of the Topaze.

In two days the smoke from their funnels was visible from Kearsarge’s topsail. On the third day the ships were visible from the quarterdeck. On the fourth day it was clear that they had spread out to sweep the American into a closing net. Winslow drove his ship into a late summer storm that tossed it through heavy seas and driving rain. He changed course to the southeast as the storm moved in that direction. On the sixth day Kearsarge broke out of the storm into clear weather with none of his pursuers in sight. He resumed course for New York. On the eighth day four plumes of smoke again appeared behind him. This time the lookouts also spotted two plumes ahead of them. “I think company would be a good idea about now,” Winslow muttered to himself. If they were British, it was unlikely they had heard of Moelfre Bay so far out; if they were not British, he might be able to hide among them or use them as a decoy. He needed one more break; they were only four days’ sailing time from New York and the safety of its harbor forts. He did not think the invisible barrier of American maritime jurisdiction would stop them.

By the morning of the ninth day, September 21, the two ships ahead of him were seen to be flying the St. Andrew’s cross, Russian naval colors. Kearsarge fired off a salute and hailed them. They were the Imperial Russian Navy screw frigates Aleksandr Nevksy and Peresvet. They were very impressive, large ships of a very American design, which was not surprising since Russia bought many ships from the United States and followed its shipbuilding advances. Large and well-armed, the 5,100-ton Nevsky carried fifty-one smoothbore guns, almost making her a ship of the line, and the Peresvet bore forty-four. All the guns in both ships were powerful 60-pounders, cast in Philadelphia, another sign of close Russo-American cooperation.

Adm. Stefan Lisovsky flew his pennant aboard the Nevsky, the flagship of the Russian Navy. The Czar had not sent such a ship lightly. Lisovsky greeted Winslow enthusiastically and invited him aboard. His eagerness to see the Americans was flavored by his curiosity to find out how they had acquired the visible battle damage. Perhaps they had encountered the infamous Alabama. In any case, it would be a good way to begin his goodwill visit to the United States.

His curiosity spiked when he saw the young civilian with his arm in a sling being lowered into Kearsarge’s boat along with the captain’s party. He gave orders to prepare a more comfortable hoist for the wounded man to save him the pain of climbing up the ship’s ladder thrown over the side. As a special courtesy he was on the quarterdeck to receive his guests when they came aboard. When Winslow stepped aboard the boatswains’ whistles piped and an honor guard of Russian naval infantry presented arms. Winslow saluted the flag and the admiral who returned the salute and extended his hand. Winslow introduced his party, and Lisovsky introduced his officers. The admiral was clearly interested in young Adams, not only as private secretary of the American ambassador to the Court of St. James, but as the grandson and great-grandson of presidents. He came as close to royalty as Lisovsky would find in America. Adams was still in pain from his injury but laid on the charm. Lamson was more reserved, but Lisovksy sized him up quickly as a formidable officer. Winslow was gratified that the entire conversation was held in English, but came quickly to the point. The British ships were closing with every minute.

There were gasps from the Russian officers as they listened to the account of Moelfre Bay and the sinking of two Royal Navy warships and the encounter with Undaunted. As shocking as the story was, the stock of the Americans had clearly soared. There was not a Russian naval officer who did not dream of avenging the Royal Navy’s humiliation of the Russian Imperial Navy in the Crimean War.

Lisovsky was no less impressed, but he had other matters to consider. Lisovsky was a man of the world, and his life in the Russian Navy had exposed him to some of the seamier sides of that world. The Czar has chosen him for his sense of things beyond his naval duties. The enormity of the tale that Winslow unfolded stunned him. My God, he thought, I’m sailing into a war. His instructions had been clear: he was to take no part in the American Civil War on the part of the U.S. government, and he was to make no overt statement as to a Russo-American alliance directed against Britain and France. Such discussion was the duty of the Baron Stoeckel, the Czar’s ambassador in Washington. While in the United States, Lisovsky was to be guided by Stoeckel’s political instructions. However, and this was an enormous “however,” Lisovsky bore sealed orders that he was to open should the United States be attacked by any foreign power or should such a power openly side with the Confederacy.

Winslow was clearly in trouble. He was asking Lisovsky’s help to avoid the British. The admiral knew that a misstep could drag Russia into the inevitable war Moelfre Bay would ignite. Yet he had speculated long and hard on his sealed orders and what they might be. He knew he was a pawn in the greatest game of all as Winslow said, “I beg your assistance, sir. They will overhaul me in less time than it will take for me to reach the safety of New York.”

Adams added, “My government would consider your assistance to be the ultimate proof of his Imperial Majesty’s regard for the United States. I am fully acquainted with the correspondence between our governments. I have been present at my father’s side when he and your ambassador in London have discussed the importance of a Russo-American common front in the face of British world hegemony. Your ambassador has stated in the clearest terms that those are the very objectives of his Imperial Majesty’s government as well. And now, sir, may I observe that the cause of our common interest will be upon us shortly.”

Winslow suggested that the Russians would help greatly by staying between Kearsarge and her pursuers. Lisovsky thought quickly and smiled, “I think we can do better than that, Captain. I propose that you sail with my ships. I will escort you into port, as, shall we say, an exercise of the first law of the sea-to aid those in distress.” He gave a sidelong glance to Kearsarge. “Your gallant ship is obviously in danger of floundering from its wounds. We cannot leave you alone. His Imperial Majesty would never forgive me. Besides, my officers and I cannot wait to hear every detail of how you bearded the British lion in his own den.”

CHATHAM ARCH, INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA, 8:37 PM, SEPTEMBER 22, 1863

Capt. John Hines thought about Col. George Grenfell’s description of the man to whom he had just been introduced, Lt. Col. Pitt Rivers, late assistant quartermaster of the British garrison of Ireland: “a man of fierce temper, not untinged with violence, of considerable energy and enthusiasm, unsociable with his peers, a domestic tyrant and yet approachable to his labourers, a dominant and aloof father in the grand… manner, though possessing a dry sense of humor.”

Rivers was a man of complete self-assurance, as befitted an Englishman among lesser beings. He was about thirty-six and in his prime. As master of ordnance at an early age, he had been instrumental in the trials that led to the adoption of the Enfield rifle for the British Army. In the grand Victorian style, he was also a world-class archaeologist. He was above all a fighting man, brevetted and mentioned in dispatches for distinguished service in the Crimea. He had come over to Canada with the wave of reinforcements during the crisis of the Trent Affair in late 1861. Six months later he had been ordered to Ireland, his chief duty to ferret out the Fenian conspiracies. Those conspiracies spanned the Atlantic now and had drawn him back to North America. Wolseley had had “additional duties” for him, the cause of his presence in this modest hotel in this modest provincial city.

The only other man in the room was Col. George Grenfell St. Ledger, late of Her Majesty’s Army and a soldier of fortune. Grenfell was the sort of antagonist a novelist would have portrayed-“At sixty-two years of age he was still an impressive figure of romance. Slightly under six feet, with light blue eyes and shoulder-length white hair setting off a face darkened by the sandstorms of the Sahara and the winds of the Mediterranean, he had the personal appearance of a Brian de Bois-Gilbert in Ivanhoe,” as the Confederate cavalry general Basil Duke would say. An aristocratic black sheep, he had run off at an early age to join the French Chasseurs d’Afrique, fight against and then with the Moors against the French, scour Riffian pirates from the approaches to Gibralter, and join Garibaldi in his struggle for Italian independence. The lure of the American Civil War broke his only attempt at retired country life. Jefferson Davis had been glad to commission him a colonel and make him Bragg’s inspector general.²⁶ With the Morgan fiasco still fresh, he had asked Grenfell for less conventional assistance. Grenfell had slipped through the Union states and into Canada, where he had made contact with Wolseley and laid Davis’s proposals before him.

Wolseley had made the very clear point that Grenfell’s proposals could not possibly be contemplated by Her Majesty’s armed forces, but he was interested in a general, exploratory discussion of a completely unofficial kind. In the meantime, the news of Moelfre Bay and the Union disaster at Chickamauga had shifted the ground from under every party. It was a new game, with a new urgency redolent with opportunity.

WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON, D.C., 9:05 AM, SEPTEMBER 24, 1863

Nothing but bad news was coming from Chattanooga and the trapped Army of the Cumberland. Stanton had sent Charles Dana there to be his eyes and ears, and Dana was sending back a stream of encrypted messages emphasizing the increasingly hopeless nature of the situation and the failure of its commander.

It was obvious to Stanton that Rosecrans needed reinforcements immediately. The XI Corps, especially, and the XII Corps of the Army of the Potomac could use a train ride now, he thought. The former was in especially bad odor among Meade’s men. That relief force needed a man who could command an independent small army. It also needed a man who was burning with the desire to retrieve a failed reputation. The name of Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker slipped into his mind. Hooker was on inactive status in New York. He was a superlative organizer and leader. No man was more suited by experience and ability to grasp this nettle. After Chancellorsville, he had much to prove.

Stanton consulted Lincoln, who assented, commenting, “I expect Joe now knows the difference between where his headquarters and his hindquarters go.” The order went out that day. “Major General Hooker, U.S. Volunteers, will assume command of XI and XII Corps.”

NEW YORK HARBOR, 10:14 AM, SEPTEMBER 24, 1863

Cannon fire echoed across the Verrazano Narrows between Staten Island and Brooklyn and up over the docks and streets of Manhatten Island. Word flew from mouth to mouth that the Confederate rams and the British were attacking New York. Work stopped as everyone in the great American metropolis rushed into the streets for news or climbed to the roofs to look into the harbor at the unfolding battle.

Admiral Lisovsky had assumed too much on the prudence of the British admiral in pursuit of the Kearsarge when he offered to escort her to New York. The Admiralty’s orders were direct and ruthless-sink or capture the Kearsarge. “Pursue her to the ends of the earth and into any harbor in which she seeks refuge.” With the zeal and intrepidity of a young Nelson, that officer had caught up with Winslow and Lisovsky only hours from the Hudson’s mouth and immediately engaged when it became clear the Russians were trying to protect the American sloop. Lisovsky was surprised when the first British ranging shot plunged off the Nevsky’s larboard quarter, but he already has his crew at battle stations. Lisovsky wanted to avoid a decisive engagement and hold his ships in being as commerce raiders in case of war between Russia and Britain. Flee as he might, the British hung on his ships and Kearsarge, pursuing them with a hail of blows into the Hudson’s broad mouth and up the river. The British captains had never seen their crews handle their guns with such speed and precision, and this was in a navy second to none in the smooth and deadly efficiency of its gun drills. It was only a matter of time before the Royal Navy inflicted another humiliation on the Czar’s ships in desperation to take the Kearsarge.

Time was not on the Royal Navy’s side this morning. The guns on Forts Tompkins and Richmond on Staten Island began to join the fight with scores of heavy guns. Every warship or gunboat of the U.S. Navy in the harbor rushed to get up steam. Adding to the din of gunfire was the ringing of the church bells in alarm throughout Staten Island, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and the Jersey shore.

The British ships absorbed terrible punishment from the close-range fire of the forts without flinching in their pursuit. Passing through the Verrazano Narrows into the Upper Bay, the ships broke up into separate duels. The two British sloops drew the Russian frigates to give the HMS Dauntless and Topaze the opening to concentrate on the Kearsarge.

Winslow was desperate. He faced two heavier ships with skilled and determined captains who were trying to position themselves on his starboard and larboard and crush him with the weight of their broadsides. Two of his 32-pounders were already out of action, and the shells and splinters had thinned out the rest of his crew. Lamson’s men had rushed to replace every casualty, and their young captain had stepped in to replace the fallen executive officer. Smoke that the light breeze could barely move hung over the ships and was lit only by the tongues of flames that spit from the gun ports and main gun decks.

Lamson stalked the quarterdeck, encouraging the gun crews, his face sprayed and his coat drenched with blood from a man whose head was carried off next to him. His hat had flown off with a splinter. Yet he moved with the easy grace of a leopard, sure and calm, a cigar trailing from the corner of his mouth, his eye never missing an opportunity or a danger. “Handsomely done, boys! Lay it on! Lay it on!” A shot dissolved the gunner, and Lamson snatched the firing cord as it whipped through the air. He gave it a yank to fire the percussion cap to spark the charge in the barrel. The XI-inch roared and bucked, sending its shell to explode on Dauntless’s gun deck.

Kearsarge’s crew was being savaged. How long could flesh and blood stand the pounding? Lamson glanced about and noticed a wounded man fight off an offer of help. “No, mate, stand to your post. Fight the ship!” He then crawled to a hatch to slide down the ladder. Two of the men at the XI-inch forward pivot had been sick with fever that morning, but they were manning the gun as if they had been the halest. More of Gettysburg’s crew, just below decks, was waiting to replace the fallen. He ran to the hatch and peered down into upturned expectant faces. “Mr. Henderson, take a gun crew to replace the Marines on the forecastle rifle. Tell the sergeant to report to me.” Bullets slammed into the deck around him from the Royal Marines in Dauntless’s rigging.

Quarter Gunner Dempsey nudged another man in the direction of Lamson in the brief seconds of inaction between heaving their gun back along its lines before the gunner pulled the lanyard. “Did ya see? Did ya see? He don’t flinch or notice at all.”

Topaze’s captain concentrated the fire of his first division guns on Kearsarge’s quarterdeck, sweeping it clean of men and smashing the wheel. Another division directed its fire at the hull below the smokestack until a shot stabbed into the boilers. They exploded in a surge of superheated steam that spread scalding death into the black gang and engineers. Kearsarge’s screws spun to a halt. The ship was now barely drifting on the Hudson’s current. It was enough. Topaze and Dauntless closed on either side. Captain Spencer was determined to walk on Kearsarge’s wrecked deck in triumph as soon as its captain struck. He wanted to do it with all of New York as witness.

Unknown to Spencer, he had already taken a good part of Albion’s revenge. John Winslow was dead on his own quarterdeck, cut in two by a 32-pounder shot. The ship was drifting, engines dead, masts shot through or hanging shattered over the side. Its hull was riddled and taking water, its decks were a ruin, half its guns out of operation, and the dead and dying strewn across the wreckage. The two heavier British frigates were closing, their guns tearing the guts out the ship, and they were taking everything the surviving Dahlgrens could throw. The senior officer aboard Kearsarge was now Lamson. From Dauntless an officer called through a megaphone, “Do you strike, Kearsarge? Do you strike?”

“Fuck you, you Limey bastard!” a seaman shouted back, waving his fist. Lamson looked up to the quarterdeck and only then realized just the dead occupied it. “Do you strike, Kearsarge?” came again from Dauntless. If any man had the ability to take in a situation at a single glance and cut to the heart of it, it was Lamson. A glance at the Topaze saw the Aleksandr Nevsky cutting across the British frigate’s bow and raking her with the larboard battery. She had come to join the fight after leaving the Gannet adrift and burning. The Marine sergeant, his head bandaged, reported to Lamson. “Sergeant, it’s time for the Marines to be infantry. Use your Spencers to kill everyone on that deck.”

Turning back to the Dauntless, he cupped his hands and bellowed, “Double canister! Double canister, sir! That is my answer!” He sensed what was coming next, could see with his mind’s eye the Dauntless’s gun deck crews climbing the ladders to the decks armed with pikes, cutlasses, and pistols to board. “Prepare to repel borders!” he shouted again.

Dauntless lurched closer; the men massing on her deck were visible. Among the blue jackets and their pikes were the red coats of the Royal Marines, their Enfields with fixed bayonets. Lamson’s Marines rose from their concealment and fired their repeaters into the packed crowd as bodies pitched forward over the side or backward into the crowd. “Sergeant! The carronade!” Lamson grabbed him by the arm and pointed at the fat, blunt gun on the Dauntless’s forecastle. This naval shotgun would sweep his deck with musket balls. The sergeant dropped the gunner with a single shot and then with a smooth cocking of the handle, he shot the next man who grabbed the lanyard. By then his men had dropped the rest of the gun crew.

Dauntless was now a bare yard away, and the British were still massing on the side. The forward XI-incher swung on its pivot to point at a sharp angle down the side of the enemy ship. The British were flexing their legs to make the leap from their greater height as the ships closed that last yard when the gun captain yelled, “Fire!” The gun leapt back on its lines, spewing two large tins of small iron balls into the crowd. The ships ground against each other. The remaining members of Gettysburg’s crew raced up the ladders to repel borders, but there was only silence from the British ship. They watched the blood pour out of the Dauntless’s scuppers onto the Kearsarge’s deck and then cascade out of the wreckage as the British ship drifted away, leaving a pink stain in the water.

From this moment, the Kearsarge became only a spectator to the last stage of what would be called “the Battle of the Upper Bay.” The Topaze and the Nevsky continued to throw broadsides into each other, with the Topaze clearly getting the upper hand. The Peresvet was locked in a slugging match with the smaller but deadly Alert. Time had run out for the British. A swarm of harbor defense gunboats were steaming down the East River from the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Alone, none of them would be a match for any of the British ships. In a swarm they could hem a larger ship in and strike from any direction. The end was inevitable, especially since more powerful warships were also coming to their aid. The first of them was the Oslyabya, rushing to Lisosvky’s aid.

Captain Spencer was no romantic; he knew when the game was up. He did take intense satisfaction to see the Kearsarge listing badly from the water rushing in through the colander that was her hull. She would go down and soon. His mission was all but accomplished. Now Spencer must save what he could. He signaled the Alert and Dauntless to break off action and steam for the Verrazano Narrows and escape. Gannet was adrift and in flames. Dauntless limped south escorted by Alert. Running the gauntlet of the forts at top speed Topaze and Alert made it through with heavy damage. Dauntless’s slowness was her doom as the shot and shell from the forts hailed down on her. Slowed even more, she was caught by Oslyabya and the gunboats and pounded to pieces. She refused to strike and went down fighting.

As Lamson watched the battle recede, the surviving engineer reported the damage below. The ship was taking water too fast. The pumps had been destroyed with the boilers. A gunboat came aside and asked if Kearsarge needed assistance. “I need a tow to the Navy Yard before I sink,” he called over. It would be close. The ship was settling fast.

BRITISH EMBASSY, WASHINGTON, D.C., 12:44 AM, SEPTEMBER 24, 1863

The Foreign Office special courier was rushed into the office of Ambassador Lord Lyons. He knew what news the courier brought, and it confirmed his worst fears. After Moelfre Bay, it could only be war. He imagined the news had spread immediately from the ship to the docks and must at this moment be flying through Washington.

Lyons called for his secretary and instructed him to personally request an interview with the Secretary of State. Then he carefully examined his instructions.

The halls of the State Department were crowded when Lyons entered just before two in the afternoon. The whispers that announced his identity silenced the crowd but did not quell their angry looks or the occasional hiss. Wretched manners, these Americans. He was ushered through open doors directly into Seward’s office. Seward was facing the open window, hands clasped behind his back. He cut such a slight figure, but when he turned he seemed to grow from the anger in him.

Lyons did not betray his concern as he bowed. “Mr. Secretary, it is my sad duty to inform you that as of September 10 a state of war has existed between the British Empire and the United States of America.” He went on to describe the justifications of Her Britannic Majesty’s government for taking these much-provoked steps, reading from his instructions the precise language directed by the Foreign Office. When he had finished, he bowed once again and presented the declaration to Seward.

“Lord Lyons, is it the custom of Her Majesty’s government to attack before delivering its declaration of war? Even for Britain, that is a new and yet unfathomed perfidy.”

“Attack, Mr. Secretary?”

“Lord Lyons, don’t play games with me!”

“I assure you, sir, that I do not understand what you mean.”

Seward’s skinny face had flushed red. Lyons could not help thinking that with his shock of unruly white hair and great Roman nose, he looked nothing more than a fighting cock ready to strike. “The telegraph from New York has been on fire for the last two hours with news of a great naval battle in New York Harbor. A British fleet pursued a U.S. warship escorted by two Russian ships into the Upper Bay in a running battle that rages as we speak.”

Lyons blanched. He was aware from his instructions that a squadron had been sent in pursuit of Kearsarge, but not in his wildest imagination did he dream that they would hunt their prey into the heart of America’s greatest city, much less than it would happen before the formal declaration had been delivered. He could only keep an impassive face and hand Seward his letters.

Seward snatched them from his hand. He spat on them, threw them on the floor, and ground them into the carpet with his heel. Looking directly at Lyons, whose eyes had gone wide at the act, he said to his aide, “Show this gentleman out the back door.”

RAILROAD STATION, NEW YORK CITY, 5:25 PM, SEPTEMBER 24, 1863

As soon as Lisovsky’s ships docked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard they offloaded their wounded into the eager arms of ambulance crews. Mayor George Opdyke immediately saw to the provision of a train to take Lisovsky to Washington shortly after the admiral had broken the seal on his orders, written in the hand of the Czar himself, and read them. The progress to the station had been impeded by the huge crowds of cheering New Yorkers, hailing the savior of their city from British surprise attack. As the police cleared the way to the station entrance, a police captain ran up with a telegram and thrust it into the mayor’s hand.

Opdyke’s face turned white. He handed it to the admiral and stood up to wave the crowd silent. “Good people of New York, I have just been handed a telegram from the President of the United States.” The buzz of the crowd hushed in expectation. “I am informed that today, as the battle raged in the Upper Bay, the British ambassador delivered a declaration of war.” He paused for the impact to sink in. The silence held, then burst into a wave of anger from thousands of voices that grew into a howl of incandescent rage.

The tracks were cleared for the train’s run all the way to Washington. Ambassador Stoekel and a naval guard of honor were there to greet it. The ambassador and he spoke quietly before the Russian party climbed into their waiting carriages with a cavalry escort to lead the way. Crowds had gathered at the news of Lisovsky’s approach and broke into wild applause as he sped to meet Lincoln and Seward.

They were immediately ushered into Lincoln’s private study. Stoekel had never seen two graver men than Lincoln and Seward. He introduced Lisovsky, and after warm greetings, Lisovsky bowed and recited the orders Czar Alexander had written him. “Your Excellency, my Imperial Majesty has instructed me that in the event of an attack by a foreign power, particularly Britain or France, upon the United States or upon the recognition of the Southern Confederacy by either of those powers, I am to put my squadron at the disposal of Your Excellency. I have three frigates now in New York. Two more corvettes and a clipper are expected within a few days. I am also instructed to say that a squadron of the Imperial Navy will shortly be arriving at the port of San Francisco under the same orders. I am at your command, Your Excellency.”

Stoekel now spoke. “Mr. President, I am instructed by His Imperial Majesty under contingent orders that should the United States be attacked by these powers, I am to confirm the admiral’s orders and state that upon notification of such an attack His Imperial Majesty will declare war on the attacker. I am empowered to conclude a treaty of alliance at once.”