The Britannia's Fist Trilogy
The Britannia's Fist Trilogy is an alternate history series by Peter G. Tsouras about an Anglo-French intervention into the American Civil War in 1863 and the global repercussions of such a conflict.
Point of Divergence
The United States and the United Kingdom had already been on the verge of conflict in 1862 over the Trent Affair in which Confederate diplomats were seized on a British ship in international waters, but cooler heads had managed to prevail and the diplomats were returned. However, the unofficial British funding of the Confederacy through purchases of blockaded cotton and the construction and crewing of commerce raiders like the CSS Alabama put a major strain on the relations between the two nations. The Laird Brothers were in the process of constructing two more Confederate commerce raiders in the summer of 1863, CSS Mississippi and CSS North Carolina, when American ambassador Charles Francis Adams informed the British that in the event the British did not seize them as contraband, war between the United States and the United Kingdom was inevitable. In the actual timeline, the British seized both ships and the matter was largely settled between the two nations.
In the Britannia's Fist timeline, President Abraham Lincoln ordered the USS Gettysburg to intercept the Confederate raiders before they could be armed and crewed. Simultaneously, while the British slowly sent orders to stop the escape of the ships, a Confederate sympathizer alerted the ships, and the completed ship, CSS North Carolina, slipped berth for Wales to pick up a crew. The USS Gettysburg caught the CSS North Carolina in British Waters and captured the Confederate captain. Nearby British ships, frigate HMS Liverpool and sloop HMS Goshawk, arrived to dispute the seizure and neither side would back down - the Americans argued that the ship was obviously a commerce raider and had Confederate papers and flags, while the British argued that regardless of nationality, the CSS North Carolina was in British waters and could not be seized. Events escalated and the two ships fired on one another. With a lucky shot into Liverpool's powder magazine, the USS Gettysburg sunk Liverpool and crippled the Goshawk with a loss of 600 British lives. An outraged British cabinet was swept up in war fever and declared war on the United States in retaliation. On the same day and with ludicrous justification, Napoleon III of France added his declaration of war on the United States. This began the "Great War" of 1863.
Britannia's Fist: From Civil War to World War
| Author | Peter G. Tsouras |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Alternate history novel |
| Publisher | Potomac Books |
Publication date | 2008 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 255 pp |
| ISBN | 978-1-62873-676-2 |
| Followed by | A Rainbow of Blood: the Union in Peril |
The events in Britannia's Fist take place from July - October 1863.
Anglo-American Diplomatic Failure
Behind all of the rhetoric between the United States of America and the United Kingdom, it was an assured fact that between the Northern and Southern portions of America, the British government preferred the South for its aristocratic ideals and largely English make-up, as opposed to the more democratic North with its diverse make-up of English, Irish, Scots, Welsh, Germans, Poles, and Scandinavians. The Southern United States was an economic ally, producing much of the cotton that fed the textile mills in Northern England, while the Northern United States was an economic rival, producing a merchant marine and industrializing to compete with British products on the global market. It is therefore no surprise that in 1861, the United Kingdom was far more sympathetic to the Confederate States of America than the United States. The lax laws of the United Kingdom allowed blockade runners and commerce raiders to be constructed by British companies, but armed and crewed elsewhere, often by British guns and British crews.
Among the leading members of British government, few were friendly towards the Union. Prime Minister Palmerston was openly pro-Confederate, sending troops to Canada once the war began in 1861, although he tempered his views after the Battle of Antietam and the Emancipation Proclamation. British Foreign Secretary Lord John Russell applied minimal effort in detaining the commerce raiders being built by the Laird Brothers. Ambassador Adams had to go to extraordinary lengths to prove that the ships were in fact not being built for France or Egypt, but in fact for the Confederacy. Adams' pressure on Russell had the effect of eventually forcing Russell to concede to the detaining of the two ships being built. However, it was the actions of Undersecretary to Lord Russell, Austin David Layard, that set the war into motion, as he telegraphed James Bulloch to flee with the CSS North Carolina after Russell had finally decided to detain the ships on the advice of Solicitor General Roundell Palmer.
Perhaps the only friendly Member of Parliament towards the United States was John Bright, derisively dubbed "the Member for America." He alone opposed the British entry into the Crimean War, and again he alone opposed the British entry into the American Civil War.
The Battle of Moelfre Bay
Lieutenant Roswell Lamson had captured the British-built Confederate blockade runner SS Margaret and Jesse with the USS Nansemond on August 1, 1863, and had it renamed the USS Gettysburg. As it was able to achieve 16 knots, President Abraham Lincoln ordered Lamson to shadow the Confederate commerce raiders CSS Mississippi and CSS North Carolina being built in Liverpool and to destroy or capture them if they escaped. Lamson arrived in Liverpool, England on September 1, 1863, but due to British law, was only allowed 48 hours in port before ejection. American Consul in Liverpool Thomas Dudley informed Lamson that the raiders were under feverish construction to flee the British orders to seize them and the USS Gettysburg. In London, Ambassador Charles Francis Adams informed Lamson and Dudley that he had ordered the USS Kearsarge to assist the USS Gettysburg, and he ordered his son Henry Adams to accompany Lamson as a political and diplomatic observer.
Lamson left Liverpool harbor on September 3 to patiently wait for the CSS North Carolina to come into striking range, but the British ships HMS Liverpool and HMS Goshawk shielded the American ship away. Captain James Bulloch of the CSS North Carolina escaped during the night of September 4 for her full crew at Moelfre Bay off Anglesey Isle in Wales. Lamson didn't realize that his quarry had escaped until 8 AM, and ordered full haste after Bulloch with both the HMS Liverpool and HMS Goshawk on his tail. Three hours later, the USS Gettysburg caught up with the Confederate ship still flying British colors, and immediately attacked. Without a full crew and with few guns installed, the CSS North Carolina stood no chance, but Captain Bulloch still had the stubborn tenacity to not surrender until he had Confederate flags flying and his ship was completely destroyed. Lamson obliged Bulloch, and pounded the CSS North Carolina from short range until the latter was forced to strike. Captain Bulloch was taken aboard the USS Gettysburg as a prisoner and Henry Adams grabbed all of the Confederate papers he could find on the CSS North Carolina.
Shortly thereafter, the HMS Liverpool and HMS Goshawk arrived on scene to find the aftermath of the exchange between the Gettysburg and North Carolina. Captain Rowley Lambert of the HMS Liverpool ordered his guns at the ready, and took a boat over to the Gettysburg to demand explanation. With both Confederate papers and Confederate captain ahand, Lamson was very confident in his argument that the ship was contraband. However, Lambert had seen the North Carolina leave Liverpool that morning flying British colors, and objected to the American statement. Lambert then demanded the surrender of the American ship, to which Lamson refused. Lambert returned to his ship and both sides prepared for battle. Using the bulk of the CSS North Carolina as a shield, Lamson was able to negate the HMS Liverpool's fifteen 8-inch rifles and 32-pounder guns, and his four XI-inch Dahlgren guns were far more powerful than HMS Goshawk's two 20-pounder guns, one 32-pounder gun, and one 68-pounder gun and HMS Liverpool's remaining armament, eight 40-pounder Armstrong guns and a 110-pounder Armstrong pivot gun. The British ships were both wooden and suffered horrendous casualties with the HMS Goshawk set ablaze with the initial cannonade. However, the side paddle-wheels of the USS Gettysburg were also vulnerable, and the HMS Liverpool maneuvered to broadside the USS Gettysburg and destroyed the port-side paddle-wheel, sending the American ship into a slow loop.
Unbeknownst to the dueling ships, the CSS North Carolina sank because Lamson's engineer had opened the seacocks as ordered when the HMS Liverpool arrived. While the USS Gettysburg was hulled in several places and taking on water, the USS Kearsarge arrived to duel the HMS Liverpool, and Lambert shifted targets to the new adversary. Before abandoning ship, Lamson's Dahlgren pivot-gun fired a final shot at the HMS Liverpool which hit amidships in the powder magazine, to catastrophic effect. Captain John Winslow of the USS Kearsarge collected the American survivors of USS Gettysburg including Captain Lamson and Henry Adams as well as whatever survivors from the wreckage that could be found.
The Battle of Upper Bay
Captain Winslow steamed southeast until out of sight of land to confuse pursuit before doubling back north through the Irish Sea and then west to home. The USS Kearsarge was flying French colors as it exited the Irish Sea, but a passing Liverpool steamer saw the battle damage and passed the information on to a vengeful British Navy, which flew to destroy the American ship. On September 12, the HMS Undaunted caught up with the Kearsarge, but it was not until the 15 of September that the HMS Undaunted came into firing range. Winslow turned hard to rake the Undaunted, but the Undaunted matched the action, firing two mildly ineffective broadsides before the Kearsarge began to fire at 900 yards. Winslow's XI-inch Dahlgren guns wreacked havoc on the lower decks of the Undaunted, killing the captain and allowing the USS Kearsarge to continue its flight. Unfortunately for the Americans, a British battle group followed close behind the HMS Undaunted, made up of the frigates HMS Topaze and HMS Dauntless and the sloops HMS Alert and HMS Gannet led by the captain of the Topaze, John Welbore Sunderland Spencer. The British attempted to hem the Kearsarge into a net, but Winslow ducked into a storm and sailed south, managing to evade his pursuers. On September 21, the USS Kearsarge unexpectedly met the Russian screw frigates HIMS Aleksandr Nevksy and HIMS Peresvet led by Rear Admiral Stepan Lisovsky. Winslow quickly filled in the curious Russians as to the Battle of Moelfre Bay and asked for their assistance. Lisovsky, on Imperial orders to help the Americans if attacked by a European power, took up the American plea and sailed behind the wounded Kearsarge to escort her to New York City, assuming that the British would not fire upon the Russian ships.
Lisovsky underestimated the British demand for vengeance, and the two sides fought a running battle up until the 24 of September, when the Americans and Russians arrived outside of New York City. The British took heavy casualties from the American forts but steamed on regardless into the Upper Bay. The British sloops HMS Alert and HMS Gannet drew the Russian frigates away from the Kearsarge for the HMS Topaze and HMS Dauntless to broadside the American ship. The British frigates achieved brutal damage on the Kearsarge, destroying many of the guns, killing so many of the Kearsarge's crew that the wounded from the USS Gettysburg stepped in to fill the gaps, and killing Captain Winslow, leaving command to Lamson. Spencer demanded the Kearsarge strike her colors, but Lamson refused, destroying a boarding party from the Dauntless with double cannister. The Nevsky returned to the Kearsarge's aid after leaving the Gannet burning, sweeping across the Topaze's bow to deliver broadsides. With a stream of harbor defense gunboats and the Russian fleet in New York led by the IRN Oslyabya steaming towards him, Spencer saw that time was not on his side, and considered his mission complete after leaving the Kearsarge a sinking wreck. The HMS Alert and HMS Topaze left at maximum speed to dodge to fort guns, but the damaged HMS Dauntless was caught by the fort guns and slowed further, allowing the HIMS Oslyabya to steam alongside for the kill. The battle now over, the heavily damaged Kearsarge was towed to the New York docks while the Russians announced their willingness to seek an alliance with the United States.
During this time, both American North and South clamored with joy for the British entry into the war, as the North felt that war had already been on for some time and seethed with anger at the British co-belligerence, while the South desired an end to the blockade that was choking it to death and a reverse of the terrible events of the summer of 1863. On September 19–20, the titanic Battle of Chickamauga occupied Northern attention as the right flank of General Rosecrans' Army of the Cumberland was overrun, but General George H. Thomas held the line with the remaining troops, organizing a fighting retreat back to Chattanooga. A relief force was made by detaching two corps from the Army of the Potomac, the XI corps and the XII corps, to be led by the shamed but experienced Joseph Hooker.
The First Battle of Portland
Very early on the morning of September 30, British marines led by Captain George Bazalgette disembarked from the HMS Dromedary and surprised the Maine Home Guard holding Fort Gorges outside of Portland, Maine, taking control within half an hour. Simultaneously, British troops began to shuttle south aboard American track along the invasion corridors of Vermont to Portland and Lake Champlain to Albany and then Boston and New York City. The British fleet initiated blockades of the major American ports of Baltimore, New York City, Providence, and Portland. British feints at Buffalo and Detroit had been sufficient to distract American forces from the true British objective, which was capturing Maine to secure Halifax and therefore Canadian logistics. The British assault on Portland consisted of two parts, a naval part led by Bazalgette and a army part coming from the Grand Trunk Railroad through Vermont.
Unknown to British intelligence, Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and his Maine troops fresh from the Battle of Gettysburg had been sent in force to Portland on the pretense of recruiting for their severely depleted ranks. While the British had anticipated three regiments, the Americans in fact had ten regiments of infantry including the famed 20th Maine Regiment, three artillery batteries, and a cavalry regiment, all under command of Brigadier General Neal Dow. Roughly two hours after the silent British capture of Fort Gorges, the American troops disembarked from their trains and were greeted by the enthusiastic townsfolk of Portland. Their lantern glow attracted the attention of the British warships immediately in the harbor, the HMS Bacchante, HMS Diadem, and HMS Cygnet, which began to fire their guns at the thickest concentrations of light. The civilian casualties were shocking to the Americans, and the veteran troops reacted quickly. Dow divided his command, sending half of the troops with Colonel Ephraim Harper to secure to harbor and holding the remainder under Chamberlain in the event of a landward attack. Harper's 4th and 5th Maine Regiments charged Lt. Colonel Charles Langely's 1/16th Foot "Peacemakers" with bayonets in the dim fog, and both sides fought savagely for the wharf. The 5th Maine Battery wheeled up to fire into the mass of British soldiers and marines, while the HMS Pylades fired into the mix, hitting British and Americans alike. Langely died in the fighting, but the British refused to surrender until the HMS Dromedary had been holed by the American guns and only 353 of their initial 900 remained.
The British landward assault was led by Major General Charles Ashe Windham, and contained 8,100 men to Chamberlain's paltry 1,360 men. American cavalry pickets delayed British probes enough to give the Americans a general idea of the British force. Chamberlain reinforced his troops with gun batteries, and reinforced his right flank to prevent a flanking maneuver, and more importantly, give the impression of a larger force. Additionally, 2,500 militia from Portland were set to digging trench lines behind Chamberlain but in front of Portland. Windham made contact with Chamberlains main line, and attempted a flanking attack that was repulsed. Realizing that his opponent had vastly smaller numbers of troops, Windham pushed forwards en masse with his troops. Cannon fire ripped shreds in the British and Canadian infantry, and the green Canadian troops fled the field, but the tough British fought on. Windham and his aides were killed by cannon fire before the American troops of the 19th and 20th Maine Regiments fixed bayonets and charged the British 62nd Foot. The under-strength Americans and the disciplined British fought to a bloody stand-still, but Chamberlain noticed more British troops on the horizon and pulled his troops and guns back to the newly built trench line in preparation of a siege.
The Defense of Hudson Valley
The British invasion of New York on October 1 forced Hooker's troops to immediately turn around and head back to New York City to deflect the attack, but the Hudson Valley for the moment was vulnerable. It was left to Grant to relieve the Army of the Cumberland trapped in Chattanooga. Major General Lord Paulet had specific orders for the destruction of American military and economic infrastructure through the Hudson region such as the Schenectady Locomotive Works and the Hudson Iron Company's Ironworks. Of major importance to both sides was the West Point Foundry at Cold Spring, New York, as it produced large numbers of Parrott rifled cannons and shells for the guns. Hooker fully understood the enormous importance of the foundry, and used a new asset in its defense: the latent Irish hatred of the British. Thomas Meagher had recruited and led Irish immigrants since the beginning of the war in the unit known as the Irish Brigade, but he and his fellow Irish grew disillusioned with the fighting and Meagher resigned his commission after the Battle of Fredericksburg. However, the British entry into the American conflict galvanized Irish support for the Union and veterans flooded back to recruiting stations. While the XI and XII Corps were still en route to the Hudson theater, Hooker ordered Meagher to take all the veterans he could scrounge and defend Cold Spring from the oncoming British and Canadian raiders.
On October 6, Meagher and his 200 troops arrived at Cold Spring and were joined by 100 cadets from nearby West Point Academy as well as half a dozen Parrott guns from the adjacent factory. The raiders arrived later that day, a force of several companies of Scots Fusilier Guards and Canadian militia that disembarked from a steamship. Meagher had his cannons fire canister shot at the densely packed British and Canadian troops and then the American troops charged the survivors with bayonets. Once replaced by the much larger XI and XII Corps, the scratch troops under Meagher's command returned to an overjoyed New York City with British redcoat uniforms on their bayonets. The once prevalent "Irish Need Not Apply" signs quietly disappeared.
Copperhead Schemes and Rebellion
The Copperhead movement in the Northern states was a broad group of anti-war democrats, Southern sympathizers, Union Army deserters, and Lincoln-haters, and the densest concentrations of Copperheads were along the southern halves of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Militant groups of Copperheads had been taking steps to oppose the Union even before the European entry into the war, such as raids on Federal arsenals and anti-draft movements. The British in particular were assisted in their advance into New England by Copperheads on the American side of the Grand Trunk Railroad allowing the British troops to move unimpeded and Copperheads giving intelligence estimates about troop strength and industrial locations.
The most overt Copperhead plot was a planned uprising all through the Midwest to force the United States out of the war. With assistance from English officers Colonel George Grenfell and Lt. Colonel Pitt Rivers, Captain Thomas Hines and James "Big Jim" Smoke initiated an audacious plan to raid and liberate Confederate POW camps outside of Indianapolis, Chicago, and Rock Island. Early on the morning of September 30, Hines, Smoke, the English, and 200 other Copperheads attacked the guards at Camp Morton, attempting to free 3,000 Confederate prisoners. Major Cline, in command of the 3rd Indiana cavalry, had been tracking Smoke and his Copperheads for some time, but was too late to prevent the gates of Camp Morton from being opened. However, Cline and his men were able to stem the tide of fleeing Confederates by firing into the crowd, causing the panicked front of the mob to crush into the pushing forward rear of the mob. Hines was killed trying to lead the POWs to attack the Union cavalry, and Smoke escaped. All over the Midwest, uprisings of Copperheads and Southern sympathizers cut telegraph lines and attacked Federal offices.
The Third Battle of Charleston
Rear Admiral John Dahlgren had known that the vast British fleet would soon arrive to drive off the Union Blockade of the Confederacy, and so he had set about concentrating as many ships as possible inside of the sandbar off Charleston. Since his most potent weapons, the single-turreted monitors, were slow, ungainly, and unstable in rough seas, Dahlgren stayed inside of the bar to force his British opponent to come in after him or starve him out. Fortunately for Dahlgren, his British counterpart Rear Admiral Sir Michael Seymour was under significant pressure by the Houses of Parliament to break the Union blockade as quickly as possible to re-initiate the lucrative cotton trade, thus Seymour was obliged to enter the bar to engage Dahlgren.
On October 7, American picket boats spotted the British strike force and raced back to inform Dahlgren. Seymour led a concentration of naval power not seen since the Crimean War, a full thirteen percent of the Royal Navy, roughly 8,000 sailors carrying 600 guns made up of the heavy ironclad ships HMS Black Prince and HMS Resistance as well as another three ships-of-the-line, five frigates, four corvettes, three sloops, a gunboat, and a gun vessel. Dahlgren had under his command 2,200 sailors carrying 114 guns, made up of the ironclad frigate USS New Ironsides, four Passaic-class ironclad monitors at Charleston and another five monitors at nearby Port Royal, the refitted ironclad ram USS Atlanta, two frigates, three sloops, eight gunboats, and the American Navy's top-secret weapon, two submersibles. By all appearances, the odds were heavily against the American fleet, but the British mainstay weapon was the 68-pounder gun which was only believed to be effective at 200 yards, while the Americans had 90 Dahlgren guns of the IX-inch, XI-inch, and XV-inch variety, which were viciously effective against both iron and wood. Additionally, both admirals had more on their minds than just the battle ahead - John Dahlgren's son, Colonel Ulric Dahlgren, had joined his father aboard the USS New Ironsides, and His Royal Highness Albert served as a lieutenant aboard the corvette HMS Racoon.
On October 8, Seymour arrived off of Charleston and waited for the tides to enter the bar. Dahlgren had arranged his ships in two lines to face the British, the forward line made up of the ironclad monitors and USS New Ironsides, and the rearward line made up of the frigates and sloops able to fire over the low profile of the monitors. The Submersible tender hid behind the bulk of New Ironsides, the largest American ship. The gunboats were kept closer to the shore where the shallower draft kept them relatively safe from the initial attack, and the monitors from Port Royal were sent for once Seymour was visually spotted. Seymour entered the bar around 5 PM and attacked in two lines, hoping punch through the American lines and to Cross the T, much like Nelson had at the Battle of Trafalgar some sixty years earlier. With the heavy ships HMS Black Prince and HMS Resistance leading each line, Seymour was confident in his victory.
At 2000 yards, the forward pivot-guns on the Black Prince and Resistance began firing at the monitors, to virtually no effect. At 800 yards, the Americans guns opened fire on the lead British ironclads, which staggered with the heavy shot. Only the British use of self-contained bulkheads prevented the flooding of the entire ships. By the time the British passed by USS New Ironsides, a third of HMS Black Prince's guns were inoperable, and the HMS Resistance was in similar shape. Additionally, to the horror of British gunners, their 68-pounder shells had no effect on New Ironsides even at 100 yards. The unarmored ships following Resistance and Black Prince suffered catastrophic casualties, but their gun decks continued to fire regardless. HMS St. George following HMS Resistance lost both captain and steering but continued on into the fray, and the monitors knocked out section after section of the ship until it was a floating hulk. The HMS Black Prince and the ship immediately following it, HMS Sans Pareil, sandwiched the USS New Ironsides with broadsides. The British frigates following found themselves in the same fate as HMS St. George, and HMS Donegal was the next target of the monitors. The USS Atlanta, hiding behind the USS Wabash, entered the fray and aimed its spar torpedo at the ship behind HMS Donegal, HMS Shannon. The HMS Shannon poured broadsides into the insufficient armor plating on the American ship, destroying guns and killing crewmen, but the USS Atlanta steamed on until it crashed its spar torpedo into the HMS Shannon. The Atlanta tried to reverse, but the torpedo was lodged too deeply, and the HMS Shannon fired point-blank into the USS Atlanta to devastating effect. HMS Ariadne and HMS Melpomene came to the assistance of HMS Shannon and added their broadsides into the American ship, killing the torpedo man and wounding the engineer. However, the engineer managed to complete the connection and detonate the torpedo, pushing the USS Atlanta away blowing a hole in HMS Shannon that almost tore her in half, quickly sinking the British frigate.
After the death of the Shannon, three American monitors from Port Royal and the gunboats entered the fray, now that the heaviest of British vessels were engaged. Three XV-inch shells hit HMS Racoon, producing a gaping hole on the waterline, killing the captain, and wounding HRH Albert. The sailors managed to get the prince to one of the lifeboats. In the thick of the fray, pairs of ships fought together at close quarters. USS Wabash and HMS Resistance dueled at 50 yards, doing terrible damage to each other, the British with more guns but the Americans with superior firepower. The American sloops USS Pawnee and USS Housatonic fired at the opposite side of HMS Resistance, where there were far less sailors manning guns. Seymour led the HMS Black Prince to fight and kill USS New Ironsides at the closest range possible in order to fire into the unarmored gun ports. Already, the New Ironsides had taken serious damage, and Admiral Dahlgren had been seriously wounded with a gash to the thigh. Meanwhile, American marines armed with Spencer repeating rifles cleared away the British marines firing at the gun crews. Both ships were terribly wounded, and Seymour knew that the winner of this exchange would take the day. He ordered his men to prepare to board, and brought the Black Prince alongside the New Ironsides, but the armored casemate of USS New Ironsides, slanted at 17 degrees to deflect cannon fire, prevented both sides from immediately engaging. Below decks, the guns of both ships gutted each other with point-blank fire. The stalemate was inadvertently solved by the Americans, who shot and broke the Black Prince's mizzenmast such that it formed a bridge between the two ships. Simultaneously, the American submersibles finally engaged, each one attaching a spar torpedo magnetically to the outer hull of HMS Black Prince, then reversing before making the electric connection to activate the explosive. Colonel Ulric Dahlgren had crawled over the mast to take the fight to the enemy ship just as the torpedoes detonated, crippling the Black Prince's furnaces and letting water in, which caused the boilers to begin to explode. More marines followed behind Dahlgren onto the stricken ship, and Captain Wainwright of the HMS Black Prince took down the colors and accepted Colonel Dahlgren's offer of surrender.
Captain Chamberlain of the HMS Resistance knew his ship wouldn't make it back to the British naval base of Bermuda, so he steamed into Charleston harbor after the defeat of HMS Black Prince, accidentally hitting a harbor mine en route. The HMS Resistance reached the harbor just as the ship settled onto the bottom, only its top decks above water. Overall, the British lost twelve of nineteen ships, with seven ships sunk, four ships struck, and one sunk on the way to Bermuda with over 5,000 men in the water, of which 3,870 were found alive and 1,397 wounded. American casualties were 250 dead, 32 missing, and 310 wounded. Only three survivors from the USS Atlanta were found. After the battle, the wounded British survivors fled to Bermuda without alerting Admiral Milne to the outcome of the battle, allowing the American Navy, its many thousands of new British POWs, and the Army troops posted at Port Royal and other bases along the Confederate coast to be evacuated to Norfolk unscathed.
Union Response
George H. Sharpe's replication of the success of the Bureau of Military Information with all Union Army groups and his formation of the Central Information Bureau was key in maintaining pertinent military knowledge to the various fronts. Additional combat multipliers were the resuscitation of the Union Army Balloon Corps under the ingenious scientist Thaddeus Lowe for real-time military intelligence spread by telegraph, the forced retirement of the ineffectual and sabotaging Army Ordinance Bureau Brigadier General James Ripley, and the reintroduction of repeating firearms, including the Spencer Repeating Rifle, the Coffee Mill Gun, and the Gatling Gun. The British and French entrance in the war infuriated large portions of the United States populace, and recruiting stations once more filled with veteran volunteers and Irish immigrants.
A Rainbow of Blood: the Union in Peril
| Author | Peter G. Tsouras |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Alternate history novel |
| Publisher | Potomac Books |
Publication date | 2010 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 311 pp |
| ISBN | 978-1-62873-697-7 |
| Preceded by | Britannia's Fist: From Civil War to World War |
| Followed by | Bayonets, Balloons & Ironclads: Britain and France take sides with the South |
The events of A Rainbow of Blood take place October - November 1863.
The Copperhead Rising
Grant detached the XVII Corps from his Army of the Tennessee under General William T. Sherman to quell the uprisings occurring throughout the Midwest. Once affectionately known as "Uncle Billy," after the Copperhead Uprising he became referred to as "Hanging Billy" for his preferred method of disposing of Copperhead traitors. On October 15, two weeks after the unofficial start of the uprising, Sherman was camped in the charred remains of Chicago after crushing a combined Copperhead-British-Confederate force holding the city. All over the Midwest, revenge killings took place between Copperheads and Loyalists, with some 4,000 killed by Copperheads but 8,200 executed by Loyalists and Union soldiers. In Cincinnati, Richard Gatling and his associate Miles Greenwood defended Gatling's factory with a brand-new Gatling Gun from a howling Copperhead mob led by Confederate officers; few members of the mob escaped alive. Sherman's destructive attack on Chicago took the wind out of the Copperhead Rebellion, and it petered out by November.
European responses to the conflict
The British cabinet was stunned by the enormous loss of the Third Battle of Charleston. John Bright led the overtures for peace, and directed the wrath of Parliament at Lord Russell for his languid responses and general unwillingness to prevent the departure of the commerce raiders being constructed. Most damning were the papers picked up by Henry Adams from the cabin of the CSS North Carolina before the British ships arrived, proving the connection between British and Confederate interests. The government was shuffled and Benjamin Disraeli came to the fore as the new Prime Minister, but to Bright's horror, Disraeli redoubled British participation in the conflict, ordering the dozens of new ironclads to be built and raising new volunteer units from all over the British Isles to be sent to North America.
In Washington D.C., Baron Eduard de Stoeckl negotiated the formal terms of alliance between the Russian Empire and the United States on October 15. The alliance was to be kept secret for the moment until the Russian military was fully mobilized and the Russian Navy was out to sea, and as such, the Russians officially apologized to the British for the actions of their ships during the Battle of Upper Bay and sacked Rear Admiral Lisovsky, but unofficially awarded him. The Russians were intent for avenging the humiliation of the Crimean War by humbling both Britain and France, crushing the tottering Ottoman Empire, and completing the dream of the Orthodox faith, retaking Constantinople and the Hagia Sophia. Additionally, de Stoeckl informed President Lincoln of the evolving situation in Europe, as the Russian entry into the war would provoke the Austrian Empire, but in turn, make an opportunity for the Kingdom of Prussia under Otto von Bismarck to make a military bid for German reunification.
After war was declared on September 4 by the United Kingdom and the Second French Empire, the Confederacy eagerly awaited the formal treaties of alliance between the two European powers. The French accepted the alliance on the unspoken principle that the Monroe Doctrine would be abolished and the French invasion of Mexico sanctioned by the Confederates. The British were less eager to attach themselves with a nation that still practiced slavery, and to the fury of Jefferson Davis, on October 24 announced only co-belligerence with the Confederates. Regardless, British and French loans poured into the Confederacy, and huge amounts of supplies, iron, and weapons flowed in as enormous amounts of cotton flowed out.
The Battle of Vermillionville
Major General Francois Achille Bazaine, commander of the French forces in Mexico, had entered Texas on October 4 intent on marching on the heart of French settlement outside of Quebec, New Orleans. On the 21 of October, Bazaine reached the outskirts of the region. After its capture by Admiral David Farragut in 1862, New Orleans had ceased to be an active theater, and as such, its commander was one of Lincoln's political generals, Nathaniel Banks. Banks had been thoroughly out-foxed by Stonewall Jackson during the Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1862, and transferred to where he could do the least harm. Banks commanded the Army of the Gulf, comprised of the XIII Corps and the XIX Corps for a total of 33,100 men and 102 guns. The French and Confederates did not get along well, but Bazaine had the prescience to defer command to a Confederate, Lt. General Richard Taylor. Taylor had under his command Bazaine's three French divisions, one Confederate division commanded by John George Walker, and one cavalry division for a total of 37,300 men and 84 guns.
Rather than forcing the Franco-Confederate force to fight its way through the swamps and bayous west of the Mississippi River, Banks foolishly decided to give battle, much to the chagrin of his underling, Major General William B. Franklin in command of the XIX Corps. The key to the defense of New Orleans was Brashear City, through which Union communications ran through, noted by Taylor, Bazaine, and Franklin, but not by Banks. Franklin pleaded with Banks to retreat to the far more defensible ground to the east, but Banks sought a victory after the catastrophes in New England. At 2 PM that afternoon, Franco-Confederate cavalry severed Union communications in Brashear City and found mountains of unguarded supplies meant for the Army of the Gulf. Taylor marched on the Army of the Gulf at Vermillionville, now cut off, and the two sides engaged half an hour later at 300-400 yards, firing volleys into one another. The Franco-Confederate force had the advantage of open ground behind them to fall back on, but the Union forces had only a tenth of a mile to the east before reaching a steep cliff or Lake La Pointe. As the battle raged with the XIX Corps on the Union right flank and the XIII Corps on the left, a series of countermanded orders pulled a unit out of place on the XIX Corp's left without replacing it with the Union reserve cavalry. Bazaine immediately saw the gap, and charged his troops in to separate the Union forces. General Cadwallader Washburn's veteran XIII Corps desperately held their ground against the French reserve, but close quarters artillery fire and the loss of their flanks caused them to turn and flee over the cliff into the swampy waters of Lake La Pointe. Banks' cavalry reserve to the south engaged the French cavalry in a massive charge and a swirling melee, but too were pushed east into the swamps. Few of units of the cavalry managed to cut their way loose and flee, but the majority of the XIII Corps threw down their weapons and surrendered. The Sudanese contingent of Bazaine's force attacked the surrendering Union troops regardless, to the outrage of both Banks and Bazaine, who threw a cordon of troops around the surrendered Union men until the Sudanese were brought to heel. Overall, Taylor and Bazaine had captured 9 generals, 12,348 unwounded prisoners, 3,223 wounded prisoners, and 32 guns on the field.
Seeing the carnage to his south, Franklin wheeled his troops around to face south and made a fighting retreat north away from Walker's Texans. Marching through the thick swamp, the exhausted men of the XIX Corps along with the USCT Corps D'Afrique abandoned their guns and ambulances and managed to reach the safety of Port Hudson on October 25. Franklin's only consolation was that the Fort itself was of excellent construction and the United States Navy still controlled the shallow but navigable waterways of the Mississippi. With both Banks and Washburn captured, Franklin found himself as the senior officer in the theater, and set about fortifying his position. Bazaine entered New Orleans to cheering crowds on October 24, and captured Baton Rouge on October 27. Franklin, with significant help from the Mississippi River Navy under Rear Admiral David Porter, managed to pull out all the supplies from Baton Rouge to Port Hudson and burn the depots just before the Confederates arrived. The tensions between the French and the Confederates began to mount as the French dropped more and more hints about the reoccupation of New France, to the stubborn Confederate refusal to even hear such proposals. In New Orleans, the French began to spread plenty of money around to increase their influence.
The Siege of Portland
British heavy guns and ships pounded the defenses of Portland, but the city was not in immediate danger of starvation thanks to the grain depots used to export grain from Canada, and the city did not lack for fuel because of the gathered winter supply and the ruins of buildings. On October 21, Dow was killed in a broadside from one of the British ships in the harbor, leaving command to Chamberlain. The new commander of the British Portland Field Force was a Crimean War veteran, Major General Sir Charles Hastings Doyle, who called parley later that same day to offer terms of surrender to Chamberlain and to congratulate him on his promotion to Major General. Doyle wished to end the siege before the American relief force, the VI Corps led by Major General John Sedgwick made its appearance, but Chamberlain was obstinate in his refusal, and the two sides parted ways.
On the morning of the following day, October 22, American patrols captured a French-Canadian officer, Lieutenant Jean-Yves Delacroix. Delacroix revealed that the Portland Field Force had abandoned camp save for a few militia battalions and some artillery and engineers to march south and meet Sedgwick's VI Corps. Using this information, the Americans planned a surprise sally on the British camp. Very early in the morning of October 24, mixed American militia and regular troops silently emerged from the trenches with ladders and fascines, aiming for the parapets held by the green Canadian militia. The American militia threw their fascines in the ditches in front of the parapets and retreated while the regulars got the ladders to the walls. Once over the walls, the Americans bayoneted any guards they could find and rushed into the sleepy camp, where groggy militia panicked at the sight of heavily armed troops attacking, and fled into the woods. The Americans seized all the supplies that could be taken and burned the rest, returning to Portland with their spoils.
The Battle of Kennebunk
Commander of the British Forces in North America, Lt. General Hope Grant, landed in Halifax on October 24 and raced after Doyle's Portland Field Force as it marched south. Hope Grant reached Doyle on the following day, October 25, and set up camp at Kennebunk, Maine, an ideal defensive position for its bridge that divided the shipbuilding town. Sedgwick had no idea that Hope Grant was in command, nor the approximate size of the force opposing him. Sedgwick's cavalry made contact with Hope Grant's Canadian cavalry around noon, and the first units of the VI Corps began to arrive two hours later after the cavalry reported enemy troops in Kennebunk. Hope Grant had under his command 9,490 men in three divisions and 18 guns. Sedgwick had under his command almost double the number of troops as Hope Grant, 19,520 men with 56 guns.
Hope Grant arrayed his troops in a ring around the northern side of the bridge through Kennebunk, allowing the First Division to pass over before attacking from the east, west, and north. Sedgwick was killed early in the fighting with a bullet through the head, and command of VI Corps fell to Brigadier General Horatio Wright, who traveled north to try and ascertain the situation, but was overrun by British troops and captured. The headless First Division desperately fought house-to-house against the British on three sides, while the remaining two divisions double-timed to the bridge to the assistance of the First Division. Command of VI Corps technically was left to the commander of the Second Division, Brig. General Albion Howe, who was ignorant to the American decapitation of command. Hope Grant understood that the battle was turning against him as the rest of VI Corps rushed over the bridge into battle, but the wooden screw frigate HMS Bacchante steamed up Kennebunk River and turned to broadside the bridge, destroying it with American troops and both sides of the deep river. The First Division, now cut off from escape, surrendered to Hope Grant while the remaining VI Corps retreated south.
Anglo-Confederate Assault on Washington D.C.
Admiral Milne had earlier proposed a joint offensive with General Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia on Washington D.C., and by October 25, panic began to grow in the capital of the United States with another Confederate advance north. Lowe's balloons tracked the movement of grey and blue troop columns as they marched towards D.C., and Lee deftly outmaneuvered Meade to move to attack the relatively undefended forts surrounding the capital. Since most of the infantry in Washington D.C. had been stripped to reinforce Hooker and Sedgwick, the primary defense was left to the heavy artillerymen of the Washington fort system. On the morning of October 26, Lowe's balloons and the heavy 15-inch Rodman guns of the forts achieved the first instance of controlled indirect artillery fire, hitting Lt. General Ambrose Powell Hill's assembling troops and critically wounding Hill. Similar tactics contained Lt. General Richard Ewell's advance down the Columbia Turnpike.
The British and Confederates decided on a dual land-naval attack to be attempted on October 28, wherein the Confederates would capture the American forts guarding the Potomac River, Fort Washington and Battery Rogers, while the British would support Confederate infantry advances with naval gunfire and land a Confederate unit behind enemy lines led by Captain Cooke. Very early on the morning of October 28, Confederate sappers crawled to the outer parapets of Fort Berry with the Stonewall Brigade behind them to exploit a breakthrough. Simultaneously, Commodore Hugh Dunlop led the British shallow-draft vessels, made up of the corvette HMS Greyhound, five sloops, three Philomel-class gunboats, and two Cheerful-class gunboats all with contingents of Royal Marines, up the Potomac to their objectives of the Washington Navy Yard and the Washington Arsenal. At 4:00 am, the Confederate sappers in front of Fort Berry advanced on their target and managed to secure it because of an accidentally unlocked door; the Stonewall Brigade rushed through the opening in the Union defenses. At 6:00 am, the Confederates attempted to infiltrate Fort Washington with soldiers in Union uniforms with Maryland accents. Their attempt failed, and the British naval force steamed on regardless of the Union batteries. Two gunboats became stuck in the mud and were destroyed while a third gunboat was hit and settled into the water.
With Fort Berry removed as an obstacle, Lt. General Ewell sent his corps east at 7:00 am, with Major General Jubal Early's division turning north to the Long Bridge and Major General Edward Johnson's division turning south to attack Alexandria and Battery Rogers. Major General Richard Anderson, in command of Hill's corps after October 26, additionally launched new assaults on Alexandria from the south. The remaining forts surrounding Washington fired on the advancing Confederate columns, and the Confederates took heavy casualties but kept moving at quick pace. Dunlop moved north, and sent the gunboats HMS Onyx and HMS Nettle to engage Battery Rogers to allow the rest of the fleet to move unimpeded. HMS Onyx was sinking and HMS Nettle wounded when the Confederates managed to overrun the land side of the fort.
At 7:30 am, Dunlop's force reached firing range of the Washington Arsenal, although their orders were to capture, rather than destroy, the immense gunpowder, cartridge, and shell depots. However, the HMS Nettle engaged with Union dockworkers at the Washington Arsenal, and managed to start a fire that would lead to an immense explosion. The Arsenal blew apart, obliterating the Nettle, shattering windows for miles around, and raining fire down on half of Washington and Dunlop's fleet, stunned from the blast and burst eardrums. Lowe and his friend Ferdinand von Zeppelin had been in the air observing the British and Confederate advances from over the Navy Yard when the blast physically pushed their balloon horizontally away, the telegrapher losing his grip and falling out of the basket. Lowe returned to the ground and reloaded the balloon with five 9-inch shells and 100 Ketchum grenades with the help of one of the officers at the Navy Yard, Lieutenant William B. Cushing. Lowe re-ascended with Cushing and left Zeppelin on the ground.
At 8 am, something unexpected occurred - one of Lafayette Baker's new bodyguards for the president, disguised Copperhead "Big Jim" Smoke, attempted to assassinate President Lincoln. The blast from the Washington Arsenal had sent flaming debris through the walls and roof of the White House, and Smoke attempted to use to confusion to shoot Lincoln, but Smoke only managed to graze Lincoln's head. Lincoln's son, twelve-year old Tad Lincoln, and Sergeant Wilmoth from the CIB fought Smoke to save the President, but Smoke overpowered both. However, Abraham Lincoln recovered from his head wound and the former wrestler crushed Smoke's grip on his gun and smashed his head on the ground until Smoke died.
Around 8:30 am, Dunlop's ships arrived off of the Navy Yard and began to bombard it. Dunlop had also landed Captain Cooke's Confederate contingent to attack the Long Bridge and 400 Royal Marines to attempt to flank the seaborne defenses of the Navy Yard. The dockworkers and sailors at the Navy Yard manned unarmored Dahlgren guns and took up rifles, while Lowe and Cushing floated overhead to lend support. The first 9-inch shell Cushing dropped landed astern of target and detonated in the water, while the second bounced off the deck of the gunboat HMS Racer and went down a hatch to the powder-strewn lower decks. Cushing was heaving a third 9-inch shell overboard when the HMS Racer shredded apart in the first confirmed Air-to-Sea kill. After another hour of patiently waiting for the balloon to float over another viable target, Lowe and Cushing dropped their remaining two 9-inch shells over the HMS Spiteful, the first bouncing off the deck into the water and the second falling into the broken smokestack, destroying the boilers and catching the ship ablaze.
At 9:30 am, Captain Cooke's amphibious gambit began to bear its first fruits when he and his men overran the Washington side of the Long Bridge defenses, and he joined to attack the largest and last fort in the way of Robert E. Lee's descent on Washington: Fort Runyon. Fort Runyon had a 2,100 man garrison with 21 guns and a balloon to defend against assaults, and many Confederate attacks had been repulsed when Cooke's men joined the fight. Cooke attacked and surprised Fort Jackson, then rushed over the lightly defended rear of Fort Runyon and overwhelmed the defenses.
At 10:30, Sharpe and the Presidential guard, the 120th NY Regiment, a unit of Horse Marines, and a dozen coffee mill guns, were joined by the bandaged President to march on the Washington side of the Long Bridge after hearing of the fall of Fort Jackson and the rear attack on Fort Runyon. At 11:00, Sharpe and the 120th made it to the Long Bridge and came under fire from the Confederate rear guard there, using cannons to defend their position. Sharpe had the coffee mill gunners drag their pieces into position and a battery up into the nearby Long Bridge Hotel to give enfilading fire on the Confederate cannons. The Confederates were swept away by the barrage, and the 120th charged back into the previous Union defensive position. The Coffee Mill guns were arrayed to fire down the bridge from different angles and the Union soldiers waited at the barricades for the inevitable assault. Early's division was the spearhead that charged down the mile-length of Long Bridge at 11:15. General Lee also received an urgent communication from J.E.B. Stuart, saying the Meade was pressing hard to relieve Washington and to finish the battle quickly.
At 11:00, the battle for the Navy Yard had shifted from the naval portion, the remaining British ship HMS Greyhound making sure to stay away from Lowe's balloon, to the land portion as Royal Marines made full contact with the Americans of the Navy Yard. What the British ships did not accomplish on their own the marines finished: the Navy Yard was in many parts ablaze. As the balloon was already losing altitude from bullet holes, Lowe signaled his ground crew to lower him down so they could join the fight against the British marines. However, a sudden breeze pushed the balloon north, and Lowe decided to belay his previous order and get rid of the grenades in the balloon where they would do the most good, in the thick of the attacking British. At 300 feet up, the British fire into the basket became more intense - Lowe was hit in the leg and Cushing in the arm. The pair then worked to stop the impending British attack on the gate into the Navy Yard, Lowe activating the grenades and Cushing throwing them, averaging one every five seconds. Cushing took another bullet wound at 200 feet, throwing grenades into densely packed men, and the American defenders desperately held off the more numerous Royal marines when American sailors with Colt revolvers and cutlasses rushed to reinforce the American marines. Lowe's balloon collapsed at fifty feet up because of the number of holes in the fabric, and the basket snagged on the fence.
Brig. General John B. Gordon led his Georgia men over the Long Bridge at 11:40 at a quick walk, and then Gordon ordered the charge to take the day and end the war. Sharpe's eleven coffee mill guns erupted in response, and where Gordon raised his saber marked the high watermark of the Confederate attack. In addition to the staccato fire from the coffee mill guns, four cannons sent solid shot through the dense Confederate ranks to gory effect, and the American soldiers with their repeating rifles added to the mix. At 12:30, General Lee from the vantage point of Fort Albany could see that the advance over the Long Bridge had bloodily failed, and worse, Meade's Army of the Potomac was steadily pushing through Stuart's cavalry. With a heavy heart, Lee ordered a retreat from Washington before Meade fell upon the bloodied Army of Northern Virginia.
The Battle of Claverack
Paulet and the Albany Field Force arrived in Hudson, New York, early on the morning of October 28, and he had with him 21,821 men of roughly half-and-half British and Canadian makeup with 90 guns. Hooker with the Army of the Hudson had a comparable army with 19,967 men with 84 guns. Paulet's advantage was the densely forested terrain that had similarly stymied British armies eighty-six years earlier at the Battles of Saratoga, as the ground from which to fight and had restricted the movement of troops to natural bottlenecks.
Brig. General George Custer and his Michigan Brigade "Wolverines" served as Hooker's aggressive cavalry scouts, and arrived in Claverack on October 28 at 3:00 am. They learned from locals about the British presence in force at Hudson, and sent riders for the Army of the Hudson while moving to screen and delay Paulet's advance. At 7:30 AM, the Army of the Hudson began to move, Hooker sending the XII Corps occupy Paulet's attention at Claverack while the XI Corps took a parallel route to flank. Five miles north of Hudson, Colonel Alger of the 5th Michigan Cavalry, a unit of the Wolverines, sabotaged a section of railroad track on the Hudson River Railroad from Albany and caused the crash of a locomotive carrying parts of Paulet's Second Division. The delay of half of his field force left Paulet in the uncomfortable position of fighting Hooker with only the 12,000 men of his First Division and cavalry. By 8:00 am, Paulet's First Division had forced Custer and Kilpatrick's cavalry out of Claverack while Hooker raced back to find where Major General Henry Slocum and the XII Corps was. At 9:30 am, Hooker found Slocum and the slow moving XII Corps, and the two generals had harsh words for one another. Slocum despised Hooker, and Hooker relieved him of command on the spot, taking personal control of the XII Corps and ordering it to double-time to relieve the beleaguered Union cavalry.
At 10:15 AM, the XII Corps made contact with Paulet's Albany Field Force in Claverack. Hooker deployed the First Division on the right and the Second Division, led by Major General John Geary, on the left. Geary had the men of Third Brigade under Colonel David Ireland flank the British right using leapfrog advances, wherein one regiment would cover the movement of another to a covered position. The British and Canadians attempted to reply using standard volley fire tactics, but the Union soldiers were in protected positions before the order could be given. Focusing their fire on the greener Canadian units, Ireland's brigade smashed the Canadian 19th Battalion and 10th Battalion, causing them to flee and crumpling Paulet's extreme right flank. Hooker expected Paulet to throw his reserve in, but Paulet simply pulled his embattled right flank back, waiting to use his reserve where it be the crushing blow.
Major General Thomas Meagher's XI Corps was swinging to the east then north to hit Paulet's rear when it encountered the reassembling units of Paulet's Second Division in Stottsville at 10:45 AM, arriving on foot from the train wreck. The lead American division, the Second Division led by Brig. General Adolph von Steinwehr, was just as surprised as the Canadian units they found, but the Americans attacked first from multiple directions through Stottsville, causing a rout in the Canadian column, its attached artillery unable to unlimber and fire with the packed mass of fleeing soldiers. However, the Americans dispersed to capture individual soldiers and in turn became vulnerable to counterattack. The Canadians reformed outside of town and attacked the strung out American units, causing a rout of their own until held by 134th NY Regiment. Von Steinwehr's Second Brigade rushed to support the fully engaged First Brigade, and Von Steinwehr took stock of his situation: he had stumbled into battle with a force twice his size. Meagher heard the gunfire and moved his troops to assist. At 11:30, Lt. Colonel Otto Heraus of the 2nd NY Cavalry managed to swing around the city to the north and catch twelve British batteries in a charge, killing the gunners and capturing the guns.
At 11:00, both Hooker and Paulet were expecting reinforcements from the north, now engaged at Stottsville. Paulet had his center and left flank advance on the Americans, supported by artillery. American artillery in turn fired on the smartly advancing British and Canadian troops. It was not until 11:30 that the British troops came into American rifle range at 400 yards, and the British and Canadian troops returned fire at 200 yards. Each side refused to give ground, and a brutal slugging match ensued. On the American left and British right, the remaining British troops were being hard pressed by Geary's division, surrounded in many places and on the verge of breaking. Paulet was indecisive on whether to throw his remaining reserve to the left in an expensive gamble to win the day or on the right to save his flank and hope the center could push through. Wolseley suggested saving the right flank, and Paulet agreed, sending the Lt. Colonel William Scarlett of the Scots Fusilier Guard to the right. The Guard managed to catch the Americans just as they were on the verge of capturing the British colors, sending Geary's men into disarray and causing them to retreat.
All along the center of the XII Corps's line, the Americans were receiving the worst of the British fire, as the British artillery was faster firing and more accurate than American artillery and British units were larger than American units, often double the size. Hooker rushed around with his small reserve, two regiments from Geary's division, to plug any gaps. Hooker sent two orders, one for the 13th NJ regiment to retreat and one for the 29th PN regiment to take its place. Hooker's message reached 1st Lt. Franklin Murphy of the 13th NJ first, and he pulled his men out of position without waiting for a unit to fill his place. The gap in the American line was immediately seen by the British, who ordered their units to attack the vulnerable flanks of the Americans. British units rolled up the American center and it began to flee south. Colonel George A. Cobham of the 29th PN was all that was left to prevent a defeat in the center, and the Pennsylvanians managed to buy enough time for some American units to reconstitute. Paulet had seen the collapse of the American center and prepared to send his remaining reserve, the First Battalion of the Grenadier Guards, to complete the victory. Hooker had also ordered Kilpatrick to re-enter the fray, and Kilpatrick noticed the now naked British rear was a tempting target. His 2,500 cavalrymen charged the British position, but peeled off troops to savage the British wagon train. The British cavalry, returned from holding the right flank before the timely arrival of the Scots Fusilier Guard, counter-charged the American cavalry that outnumbered them three to one. Kilpatrick then wanted to attack the Grenadiers and the British artillery, but Custer and his fellow commander Davies vehemently disagreed. Kilpatrick outranked them, and ordered a cavalry charge on the British position. The Grenadiers Guard savaged the American cavalry, and Kilpatrick was killed in the attack, so the cavalry fell back.
By 12:30, Hooker was truly desperate as Kilpatrick's ill-fated charge failed and the Grenadiers Guard deployed on the British left to attack the American right, which consisted on the survivors of the American center and the American reserve. Arriving on the field at this time were 500 cadets from West Point academy, victors of Cold Spring but hardly veterans. Hooker sent these boys to defend the flank of Cobham's Pennsylvanians from the Grenadier Guard. The cadets charged the Grenadier Guard unit three times their size, and were torn apart. On the American left, Geary regrouped his men to attack the Scots Fusilier Guard, and a sniper managed to pick off their commander, Lt. Colonel Scarlett.
At 12:20, Meagher's Corps marching south met with the survivors of Kilpatrick's attack, now led by Custer. The capture of the British artillery behind Stottsville and the exhaustion of Paulet's Second Division's ammunition had led to a British retreat, allowing Meagher to continue on his circle around Claverack. At 12:45, Meagher's men became visible to the men of the British right, and Garnet Wolseley now found himself in command. Unit by unit, he ordered a controlled retreat back to the wagon trains that had survived the Union cavalry. Hooker did not notice the withdrawal of the British right because of the brutal destruction of the West Point cadets and his distressing lack of any remaining reserves. To his immense relief, double-timing up the road were the 250 men of the 20th NY militia, one of Sharpe's personal CIB units sent to aid Hooker, along with a battery of twelve coffee mill guns. Hooker ordered the men to stop the relentless advance of the Grenadier Guard, and the coffee mill guns unlimbered and fired. The Grenadier Guard was scythed apart, refusing to retreat in the face of overwhelming firepower. Unit after unit of the 1,500 Grenadiers advanced into the same hail of fire, and they fell to a man. Lord Paulet's exposed position also drew the fire of the coffee mill guns, and he and Sir James Lindsay were both slain, decapitating command of the Albany Field Force.
Meagher positioned Custer's dismounted cavalry back among the buildings of Claverack, anticipating the line of British retreat. The Wolverines took special pleasure in killing the gunners of the artillery that had taken such a toll on the Americans, but Wolseley forced his men through the Americans with bayonets and desperation, using the Scots Fusilier Guards as a rearguard. The remaining Canadian and British units had retreated after the absolute annihilation of the Grenadiers Guards, and Wolseley found himself in command of the remnants of the Albany Field Force. Hooker's XII Corps was in no shape to pursue, and it was not until October 30, two days later, that the recombined American command of the Army of the Hudson took up pursuit of the retreating British and Canadians. Wolseley retreated up through Albany, collecting garrisons on his march and dodging Custer's cavalry, reaching the entrenched defensive positions of Lower Canada in early November. Hooker's attempts to send Custer to raise havoc were for naught because of the incoming snow storms. The Army of the Hudson camped for winter in positions stretching from Plattsburgh to Albany. Total losses of the battle came to 6,487 casualties for the Americans, with 978 dead, 4,873 wounded, and 636 missing for 32 percent of their force, and 8,506 casualties for the British and Canadians, with 1,311 dead, 4,830 wounded, and 2,365 prisoners for 42 percent of their force.
Winter of 1863
For the triple American victories of Charleston, Claverack, and Washington D.C., the Union position was far from optimal. Washington's role as a military logistics hub had been smashed, and half of the city was in ruins. Upstate New York was a charred mass of destroyed factories and foundries. Imports had ceased with the new blockade by the Royal Navy. The two Gulf Blockading squadrons had fled to friendly ports, and New Orleans was once again in enemy hands. Martial law reigned over the Midwestern states as Sherman left the region to return to Grant.
Nevertheless, the Union found itself no longer having to deal with conscription as tens of thousands of men joined or rejoined the Army and Navy. Previously anti-war aristocrats like Theodore Roosevelt Sr. changed their position and enthusiastically raised new troops. Additionally, Lincoln signed into being laws allowing the formation of African-American units with the same pay-scale as white units, making available another 200,000 soldiers and sailors. The financial markets, incredibly disrupted by the British blockade, were uplifted by cash from some of the wealthiest men in the country such as Cornelius Vanderbilt, giving no interest loans to the government to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars and subsidizing the construction of whole warships. The territory of Nevada quickly reached statehood despite technically not qualifying because of the silver and gold mines that poured life into the Union. More problematic was the lack of niter for use in gunpowder, as natural sources could only produce minuscule amounts, and after the destruction of the Washington Arsenal, the Union had only enough for another years worth of fighting.
Another Union combat multiplier was the selection of Andrew Carnegie to form the War Production Board (in the style of Roosevelt's War Production Board) and more efficiently allocate Union resources and wealth. Carnegie stopped the bickering between contractors and accelerated the monitor and balloon construction programs, as well as retooling Colt factories to produce Spencer repeating rifles. Lincoln also took the step of selecting the Spencer as the main firearm of all Union infantry, replacing the Springfield Model 1861. The enormous success of Lowe's balloons in a tactical role led to a wholesale reconstruction of the Balloon Corps into an Aeronautical Corps, with the Army and Navy both vying for balloons. Additionally, the brutal destruction unleashed by the coffee mill guns cemented their importance to the American war effort, and more were being produced to be distributed to all Army units.
Bayonets, Balloons & Ironclads: Britain and France take sides with the South
| Author | Peter G. Tsouras |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Alternate history novel |
| Publisher | Potomac Books |
Publication date | 2015 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 395 pp |
| ISBN | 978-1-62914-462-7 |
| Preceded by | A Rainbow of Blood: the Union in Peril |
The events of Bayonets, Balloons & Ironclads take place March - June 1864.
Early 1864
Lieutenant General Braxton Bragg of the Army of the Tennessee had been a caustic and ineffectual commander for some time before his removal from command in December and replacement of James Longstreet. Bragg had argued with his division commanders until they no longer trusted or respected him, and clamored for his replacement, but the tipping point was Bragg's passive-aggressive removal of cavalry commander Nathan Bedford Forrest from command, who furiously searched for Bragg, challenged him to a duel, and shot him in the foot. Longstreet had a good rapport with the Army of the Tennessee because of his instrumental effect in the previous victory of Chickamauga that had bottled up the Union Army of the Cumberland in Chattanooga. The key to the defense of Chattanooga was Brown's Ferry, part of the so-called "Cracker Line" keeping hardtack and other supplies trickling in to the besieged city. In November 1863, Longstreet attacked Brown's Ferry with his prided unit, the mighty First Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia, but unbeknownst to him, General Thomas and the Army of the Cumberland had received reinforcements in the forms of Richard Gatling's new weapon, the ten-barreled Gatling Gun. The attack was a bloody failure, and General Grant returned from the west with the Army of the Tennessee to relieve Chattanooga, forcing the Confederates south once more. Longstreet returned to the Eastern Theater with only half of the First Corps he had set out with.
In Eastern Europe, the Russians put down the Polish Uprising of 1863 with practiced ease, and returned famed General Nikolay Muravyov-Karsky to the Caucasus Front to threaten the Ottoman Turks once more in mid-March 1864.
The Battle of Chazy
General Hooker had boasted that under his command, the "third time would be the charm" in conquering Canada, referencing the earlier American failures to conquer Canada during the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. This had the effect of goading much of Canada into throwing their full weight behind the war effort to resist the Americans. From this, Lt. General Hope Grant well understood his opponent Major General Hooker, and used Hooker's overconfidence to his advantage by attacking south a month before Hooker thought it feasible to attack. Hooker's units, bolstered with volunteers and reinforcements, were scattered up and down the Hudson Valley, not yet concentrated and thus vulnerable. American intelligence began to pick up on the warning signals of an impending attack, and Lt. General Ulysses Grant along with Maj. General George Sharpe arrived in Plattsburgh on March 18 to convince Hooker to prepare for battle. Hope Grant had actually initiated his grand attack that very afternoon, sending his elite Royal Guides cavalry and the 9th Lancers through the American lines to cut telegraph wires, destroy railroad lines, and capture messengers while advancing his main force, the 30,000 men of the Montreal Field Force. At 2 PM, the Montreal Field Force made contact with the forward American units, two of Maj. General Geary's three brigades at Rouses Point and Champlain. Over the winter, the British and Canadians had developed new tactics to negate the advantage of American repeating guns by using the accuracy of the breech-loading Armstrong field gun to shoot the repeating gun batteries once they had exposed their position. These tactics came to their fruition in the destruction of the picket batteries in front of Geary's Second Brigade, led by Brig. General Charles Candy, at Rouses Point. Candy had his men attack the British before information about the size of the approaching force was known. Geary's messengers sent to alert the third brigade in Chazy were intercepted by the 9th Lancers.
Geary's First Brigade, led by Brig. General Cobham, stumbled into a British column of Highlanders, and fell back on their Coffee Mill Guns. By 2:30, the accompanying British artillery had made quick work of the repeating guns, and the Highlanders continued their attack on the First Brigade, which routed with its commander captured. Colonel Ireland's Third Brigade in Chazy only noticed the British attack when the 9th Lancers charged into town at 4:30, killing surprised and unarmed soldiers including Ireland. Ireland's men retreated into the houses and began picking off the outnumbered cavalry, so the Lancers retreated to the bridge north of town. The senior officer of the Third Brigade, Colonel Paul H. Vivian, pulled his command together once the houses in Chazy began to catch on fire and set up two cannons to defend the bridge. At 6:30, with the sun set, Vivian decided on a bold outflanking maneuver to catch the British cavalry from the rear. By 7:30, Vivian's 2,000 men, minus four hundred troops and the artillery detailed to defend the southern side of the Chazy bridge, found themselves marching parallel to units of the Montreal Field Force double-timing south. Silently, the Americans fixed bayonets and carried coffee mill guns closer to the road before attacking all at once. They struck half of the 29th Foot and parts of the 1/10th Foot along with some artillery to devastating effect, but British training quickly took hold. British units north and south of Vivian's men reacted by unlimbering artillery to fire case shot and redeploying into formation. Once the shells started to land, Vivian had his men and their prisoners retreat east off the road. The remaining British troops, advancing from north and south, made contact with each other in the dark and discovered the Americans had disappeared just as quickly as they had appeared. Winding their way east, Vivian met with Geary and his party retreating south, who reported the loss of contact with Candy's brigade.
At 6:45, American troops riding north via railroad were blocked by a bridge destroyed. Hooker had his men de-train and prepare to march north while Grant took his cavalry retinue along with Sharpe north to Chazy. The First Division of the XII Corps, led by Brig. General Ruger, arrived in Chazy by 7:30 as the artillery duel between the Americans and British intensified. Hooker ordered Ruger to take his men and recapture the bridge, a difficult task during the day but nigh impossible during the night. At 9:30, as Ruger's men were preparing for the assault, a British shell exploded over the entrance to the American headquarters, killing Hooker and grazing Grant's scalp. Sharpe advised Ruger to cancel the ill-conceived assault as the senior officer on the field, and a wounded Grant concurred.
By March 22, Hope Grant's spoiling attack had lost its impetus. He had successfully captured 2/3 of Geary's division, but the Army of the Hudson under Sharpe's command was rapidly concentrating in numbers twice that of Hope Grant. American artillery slowly gained the upper hand in the slugging match over the Chazy bridge, as the Americans had a greater supply of ammunition. Wolseley and Hope Grant agreed to a measured withdrawal that evening to prevent a flanking move spotted to the west. However, the flanking move believed by the British was in fact Custer's fast moving cavalry moving around the British flank while the American artillery and large numbers of bonfires fixated British attention on Chazy. The real American attack was made up of Maj. General Von Steinwehr's XI Corps attacking over the frozen Lake Champlain during the night. The XI Corps began its advance at 7:30 PM, dragging its coffee mill guns and artillery with it over the thick ice. Sharpe had directed the XI Corps to advance to the Coopersville Bridge behind Hope Grant's Montreal Field Force, taking it to serve as an anvil for the XII Corps to smash Hope Grant's men on.
At 1:20 AM, American artillery began firing on the road away from Chazy due to intelligence suggesting a British withdrawal. Because of the pre-sighted ranges, the American artillery took an unexpected toll on the British wagon trains, causing them to panic and stampede in the dark. Coffee Mill Guns fired into the dark to fixate British attention, and the gleaming helmets of Hope Grant's cavalry retinue caught their attention, killing several and wounding Hope Grant with a bullet to the leg and shoulder. Command once more fell into Garnet Wolseley's lap, and he ordered all haste to Coopersville Bridge before the XII Corps attacked over the bridge as was expected. Wolseley ordered William McBean of the 78th (Highlanders) Foot to hold out for at least an hour on the north side of Chazy bridge in order to allow the Montreal Field Force to retreat. At 1:45, Brig. General Ruger led his men in a charge across the bridge with artillery fire in support, and was killed by a Highlander bayonet. The American attack faltered and fell back. Another two attacks were defeated at the high cost of leaving the 78th Foot with only 500 men remaining, so McBean had his men retreat up the road by 2:15 AM.
Custer's men had not expected heavy resistance on their wide swing, so the appearance of a battalion of Canadian volunteers and three companies of the 1/47th Foot in Sciota, New York was an unhappy surprise. It had taken several hours of hard fighting and the assistance of several slower accompanying infantry units and artillery to reduce the small town and its defenders. At 1:30 AM, Custer took his remaining cavalry north to link up with the cavalry he had sent around Sciota with the infantry trailing behind. His target was Champlain, the cork in the bottle to truly trap the British in New York. However, the sole country road he took petered out into forest, and his men picked their way through the dark forest, getting lost and slowing down. By 4 AM, he had only advanced five miles north of Sciota, but his lead cavalry force, the 6th Michigan, had already arrived in Champlain.
At 2:00 AM on March 23, Colonel Wladimir Krzysanowski of the XI Corps reached the Coopersville Bridge, and used a Quebecois-American sergeant to fool the French-Canadian guards into thinking the approaching Americans were in fact British soldiers. The Bridge was taken without casualties and the guards all taken prisoner. Even more serendipitous, a train with fifty boxcars of supplies sat on a nearby siding for the Americans to loot. Colonel Hecker's brigade followed behind Krzysanowski on the road to Coopersville Bridge, but British and Canadian units heading in the same direction ran into his rear guard at 4:00 AM. By the heroic actions of an American private who raced to friendly lines to warn his comrades, the rearmost American unit, the 82nd Illinois, was able to form a battle line and fight off the oncoming attack of the Queen's Own Rifles led by Colonel Pitt-Rivers. Hecker's units redeployed to retreat back to the other side of the bridge with the other Union brigade.
The swirling battle in the dark was just as confusing for Wolseley as it was for Sharpe. The firefight to his north began to concern Wolseley, and General Sherman arrived in Chazy to take command from Sharpe. Sharpe had the good will to defer command to Sherman despite the fact that he would lose credit for victory in the battle, but Sherman also complemented Sharpe's plan and brushed off the fact that his party had been shot at no less than three times by American pickets. Wolseley had decided that abandoning his troops in the midst of a firefight was unacceptable, and so deployed his troops rather than continuing his retreat. McBean's Highlanders fought a running retreat, using the dark and the terrain to slow his pursuers.
At 5:00 AM, Custer's exhausted men reached Champlain, and wearily set out too few pickets. The British 11th Hussars led by Lt. Colonel Alexander Roberts Dunn, captured one of the American pickets and surprised the sleepy Americans with a charge over the bridge, killing the unarmed Americans outside. The 6th Michigan fired on the Hussars from inside the houses in Champlain, their Spencer Repeating Rifles far outweighing the British firepower. The nearby 1st Michigan cavalry charged into town with sabers in hand, and met the Hussars in swirling melee. Custer and Dunn engaged in single combat, but the fight broke them apart. The rapidly approaching 55th Foot turned the cavalry battle into an infantry battle, and the Americans fought on dismounted. Custer fed any newly arriving men into the battle as soon as they arrived, but his ammunition began to run low, and by 6:20 AM, British artillery arrived to pour fire into the town. With the dawn, the Scots Fusilier Guards and the Second Battalion of the Grenadier Guards waded into Champlain, forcing Custer's men to the west. South of Coopersville Bridge, Wolseley had the difficult task of forcing his men to disengage from the XI Corps and retreat northwest to Champlain to escape the approaching XII Corps.
A thunderstorm broke just as Custer fell back from Champlain, turning to roads into mud and effectively ending the battle. Ironically, both sides claimed victory, as Hope Grant's aim had been to spoil the American spring offensive, to which he had succeeded, but the Americans had begun from a poor position and responded very well, driving the British back to their previous siege lines. Total British and Canadian losses were 632 killed, 1,940 wounded, and 3,112 missing with 1,888 prisoners taken, while total American losses were 723 killed, 2,209 wounded, and 2,300 missing with 2,440 prisoners taken. The high missing counts on both sides came from the prisoners taken during the fighting.
The Joint Union-Russo-Irish Raid on the British Isles
With the foreknowledge of low American quantities of niter and British concentrations of gunpowder depots and storage facilities, President Lincoln initiated a daring raid on the British Isles to be made up of three parts: a Fenian attack on Ireland to liberate it from British rule led by Claverack victor Maj. General Thomas Meagher and his Irish Brigade, a Russian naval attack on British shipping in the Irish Sea with simultaneous attacks to be carried out by other Russian naval forces, and an American army lightning raid led by Colonel Ulric Dahlgren to attack the Royal Small Arms Factory in Enfield and the Royal Gunpowder Mills in nearby Waltham Abbey. Of additional importance during the raid was the capture of British scientist and chemist Frederick Abel, a leading authority on alternate productions of niter.
On March 18, fifteen ships of the combined Russian-American fleet rode in Long Bay off New York City departed east. They were the six ships of the Russian squadron led by Rear Admiral Lisovsky, the repaired USS Kearsarge once more under command of Captain Lamson, and several fast screw transports including the huge SS Vanderbilt. On March 22, two British screw frigates off Nova Scotia, the HMS Nile and HMS Jason, made contact with the Russian-American fleet, and were destroyed. The Americans were assisted by the new heavy monitor USS Dictator and the Washington-class dirigible Steven Decatur which bombed the HMS Nile while the Russians circled the HMS Jason and pounded it from short range. Captain Cushing commanded the Decatur and had the honor of the first confirmed air-to-sea kill over the open ocean.
The squadron advanced into the North Atlantic the long way, avoiding normal sea lanes and flying false colors. Nevertheless, by the 26 of March, three merchant ships had been spotted, two British and one Dutch, and the Russians pounced on them, sinking the British ships and sending a prize crew with the Dutch ship to sail slowly home. The Russian-American squadron then split into two parts: the American part, 1000 men in the SS Vanderbilt and the USS Kearsarge sailing around Scotland to land in Essex, and the Russo-Irish part, a brigades worth of Fenian Irish and the Russian Squadron sailing south into the Irish Sea for Dublin. Colonel Uhlric's men were the 600 cavalry of the 1st Massachusetts, 300 marines, and a battery of Gatling guns. All the soldiers were armed with Spencer Repeating Rifles.
Of vital diplomatic importance was the Russian delivery of war before the fighting actually began, so Russian Ambassador in London Baron Phillip de Brunnow had the task of delivering the Russian declaration of war upon notification of Lisovsky's fleet reaching the open sea. However, an early delivery would hurt the chances of success, while a late delivery would be a severe political liability. Estimating that the fleets would both strike on April 3, Ambassador Brunnow delivered the parcel to Foreign Minister Lord Derby's estate on the evening of April 2, but found Lord Derby not home. Brunnow asked the sole clerk of the residence to deliver the message as soon as possible, but the clerk misunderstood the urgency of the note and placed it in a pile with all the other foreign dispatches to be delivered the following morning.
On the morning of April 3, the USS Kearsarge and SS Vanderbilt, both flying British colors, arrived at Southend-on-Sea. Accompanying the Americans was Lt. Rimsky-Korsakov and his two bodyguards, Feodor and Sergei. The troops departed the boats at 7 AM and took the customs official prisoner, and had secured the town, its telegraph station, and the railroad station by 11 AM. The American troops then fanned out to their respective targets while spreading as much panic as possible. Brother of Henry Adams and son of American Ambassador Charles Adams, Lt. Colonel Charles Francis Adams Jr. led five companies the 1st Massachusetts Cavalry north to sow confusion and panic, raiding Essex towns and cities such as Chelmsford, Witham, Maldon, and Rochford. In each place, Adams and his men cut telegraph wires, burned anything of military value, and proclaimed to the people that the Royal Navy had been crushed and that General Ulysses S. Grant was leading a mighty army to conquer Great Britain. Meanwhile, Colonel Dahlgren took the other five companies of 1st Massachusetts cavalry by train to their targets, arriving at the town of Romford an hour after leaving Southend-on-Sea.
In Dublin, the Irish-American soldiers landed without opposition at 7:30 AM, and set about seizing all military targets of value, including the barracks, Dublin Castle, the armories, the magazines, and most importantly, the Viceroy of Ireland. Meagher and his men achieved rapid success, capturing the Volunteer troops still in their barracks and seizing all targets save for the Viceroy, who fled north to concentrate the remaining garrison. At 2:30 PM, Meagher cast down the hated Union Jack from Dublin Castle and proclaimed the formation of the Irish Republic, which was immediately recognized by Henry Adams. Meagher took any deserters from the British volunteers to form new all-Irish units, but he was disappointed at how few came over. Likewise, most of Ireland held its breath at the newly arrived liberators, unsure whether to back the overwhelmingly powerful British Empire or the newly resurgent Irish Republic. Lisovsky and his six ships sailed at the mouth of entrance to Dublin, and were confused as ship after ship sailed on and were sunk. After bagging eighteen merchant ships that morning, Lisovsky upped his gamble by moving to the entrance of Liverpool by 3 PM and striking the merchant vessels waiting for the tide. The burning hulks of ships all around, Lisovsky could only marvel at his luck. The source of Lisovsky's fortune was in fact Lord Derby's late wake-up and breakfast, such that he did not reach his dispatches and parcels until noon. Lord Derby rushed to London with this news, while his secretary took up news of the Russian declaration of war on the telegraph. Derby's message shocked the British government, which received word of Meagher's coup of Dublin first, having no real understanding of the threat in the Irish Sea nor any information of what was happening in Essex.
At the station of Romford at 5 PM, Dahlgren once more divided his force, leaving half the men to guard the train station and rip up track while taking the other half to Waltham Abbey. However, local riders moved in all directions to call for the Volunteer Force to mass on the American threat in Romford, and a telegraph was finally put through to London warning of the danger. Dahlgren and his soldiers arrived in Waltham Abbey by 5:45, and set about burning the place to the ground; Frederick Abel was additionally captured. Unluckily for the Americans, Sir Robert Wilson, ex-commander of the 9th Lancers, saw the commotion, realized the danger, and raced to Enfield to warn the yeomanry. Dahlgren's men divided between destroying the Royal Gunpowder Mills and racing to destroy the Royal Smalls Arms Factory. An hour later at 6:40 PM, Disraeli was attempting to make sense of the new telegrams coming in about the commotion off Liverpool while rushing to assemble troops to retake Dublin when the news came in of the American cavalry raid through Essex. Though Disraeli at first dismissed it as fanciful, it was confirmed by the telegraph lines to the region that were cut and a shockwave followed by an enormous pillar of fire and smoke rose from Waltham Abbey. Dahlgren's troops met Wilson's militia in Enfield just as the powder mills detonated, concussing both sides and throwing men from horses. Fire and chunks of rubble rained down on the factory and the men prostrated outside. It was a number of minutes before both sides could regain some form of order, and Dahlgren demanded Wilson's surrender, which the latter vehemently denied, outnumbering the Americans three to one. Simultaneously, the troops defending Romford station were in serious trouble, only clinging on to the burning station from the firepower of the two Gatling guns brought along. The element of surprise was rapidly fading for the American raiders, and Adams and his troopers encountered heavier and heavier resistance. At 7 PM, Wilson charged Dahlren's dismounted cavalry from the front and rear, causing the American to panic. Dahlgren was stopped from entering the fray by Rimsky-Korsakov, who advised Dahlgren to flee and fight another day. Five escaped, Rimsky-Korsakov, Feodor, an American private, Abel, and Dahlgren, and rode away to the east as the last vestiges of the defense of Romford fell. Taking shelter in the forest as night fell, they agreed to sneak east to the coast and take a boat to escape, since Lamson would almost certainly have left.
London was in a state of panic, and members of parliament and nobility fled north. Disraeli urged Queen Victoria to flee to her Channel Estate, but Victoria refused, stating that Queen Elizabeth would not have run from a Spanish invasion. Lamson and the marines in Southend-on-Sea became increasingly nervous as more and more time passed without the return of their forces. At 8:30 pm, only two hundred men had returned, without either Adams or Dahlgren. Lamson made the decision to leave at 9:00 pm, with or without those two commanders. Lamson had unintentionally been assisted by Meagher's seizure on Dublin, as British warships on the Thames steamed with all speed to the Irish Sea, rather than checking the two ships docked. Just as Lamson was prepared to ship out, Adams arrived in Southend-on-Sea, and Lamson boarded him and his men and sailed away as fast as he could. After combing the countryside, the British found 300 American dead and took another 300 prisoners.
Rear Admiral Lisovsky's spree of destruction came to a close on April 4, as the British heavy ironclad HMS Prince Albert steamed with all haste to defend the Irish Sea, too far from port to return to defend against the Essex raiders. Lisovsky split up his force to cover mover ocean and catch more merchant ships, and ordered them to reconvene south of Ireland once they had run low on ammunition. As such, Captain Coles had been fruitlessly combing the seas until the evening of April 4, when he spotted outlines of burning wrecks on the horizon, a sure trail of Lisovsky's ships. Coles used two large passing merchant ships to sail on either side of HMS Prince Albert to mask the size and type of ship it was. South of Cork, Coles found two Russian ships, Lisovsky's flagship HIMS Aleksandr Nevsky and the HIMS Variag. Lisovsky could only assume that the three ships were all merchant vessels until the turrets on HMS Prince Albert rotated and fired the largest guns in the Royal Navy, 9-inch guns, at 100 yards at the Nevsky. The HMS Prince Albert gutted the Nevsky, killing both Lisovsky and his captain and wrecking all of the unarmored gun decks. The ten-inch thick armor on the turrets repelled the IX-inch Dahlgren shells and the five-inch thick belt armor repelled everything else in the Russian arsenal. The HIMS Variag attempted to hit the HMS Price Albert from another angle, but had no Dahlgren guns to penetrate the British armor and instead tried to flee. The Prince Albert's turret guns rotated and destroyed both rudder and propeller, causing the Variag to strike her colors. The rest of the Russians were fought out and destroyed over the next several days.
Dahlgren and his companions carefully and quietly reached the marshes around the River Crouch by April 7. Behind him, Eastern England seethed with activity and Dahlgren had a 100,000 pound bounty on his head. In a battle with a small group of British cavalrymen of the 12th Royal Lancers near some boats, Rimsky-Korsakov was injured with a sword gash to the leg. Of six lancers, four were killed, one wounded, and one captured. Dahlgren decided to take his chances in escaping without Abel, and released the two Lancers and Abel, indicating to the Lancers that the Russians and Americans would find refuge with the Irish. The ruse worked enough for the four remaining, including the increasingly sick Rimsky-Korsakov, to take a boat out into the North Sea, aiming for the Baltic and the closest friendly port, St. Petersburg. Near the Dogger Bank on April 11, Dahlgren's small boat was chanced upon by the Swedish steamer SS Vasa. The captain was overjoyed to take Dahlgren and the three others aboard, as they were on the verge of dying of thirst. Already lionized by the Prussians, Austrians, Russians, and French, Dahlgren was considered the Lion of Sweden, the young conquering hero who had threatened the very establishment of Great Britain. Rimsky-Korsakov's wound was attended to by a doctor on the boat, and the captain took them back to Stockholm.
The fall of Fortress Portland
On March 17, two of Colonel Lowe's Washington-class hydrogen dirigibles flew into Portland to deliver much needed supplies and ammunition. The dirigibles, the George Washington and Nathaniel Greene, were powered by a light steel steam engine that turned a propeller for propulsion, and carried specially redesigned 72 pound 9-inch shells as armament. Major General Doyle of the Portland Field Force also had new weapons, special pivoting mountings for Armstrong guns allowing for the breech loading gun to be used as an anti-balloon gun battery. The Washington and Greene began to take fire from these batteries, but the shells passed through the gasbags without igniting. Doyle's guns did eventually find their mark, hitting the basket of the Greene and sending the dirigible to ground in flames, but Lowe avenged her by bombing the anti-balloon gun battery and then the British ammunition dump before returning to Portland.
The coming spring rains increased the sick lists, and the relentless siege wore down the morale and supplies of the defenders. Very early on the morning of April 3, after three days of continuous rain, Doyle launched a seaward sneak attack. After the marines silently took out the sleepy American sentries, British artillery on the landward side opened fire, giving the impression of a landward assault. As most of the troops were on the landward defences, the marines sneaked through the town and took Portland by surprise, capturing Chamberlain at gunpoint from his headquarters. The British exchanged the American defenders of Portland back for prisoners of their own.
The Battle of San Juan de Fuca
Upon the day of Russian declaration of war, April 3, Rear Admiral Popov's Russian Pacific squadron, made up of the corvettes HIMS Bogatyr, HIMS Kalevala, and HIMS Rynda and the screw clippers HIMS Gaidamak and HIMS Abrek ventured out to British Columbia to interdict British and French shipping. Popov had begged Rear Admiral Charles H. Bell of the California Squadron to lend his two steam screw sloops to the raiding party with their eleven Dahlgren guns, but Bell refused and remained defensively in San Francisco. Popov took his fleet to where he assumed British and French shipping would be heaviest, the San Juan de Fuca Straight south of Vancouver Island. Additionally in Popov's favor, the British squadron in Vancouver only had two corvettes and a couple gunboats, outweighed seventy guns to forty-two guns.
After sinking six merchant vessels, Popov's lookout spotted the British ships preparing for battle. Commander of the squadron, Captain E. W. Turnour of the HMS Charybdis, felt an obligation to at least be defeated in battle rather than passively accepting the destruction of British ships. Turnour's two battle-ready ships, the HMS Charybdis and the HMS Alert, also had the immediate advantage of being close enough to support each other, whereas Popov's ships were spread out to catch more merchant ships. Turnour advanced on the first ship he saw, which was Popov's flagship HIMS Bogatyr. This meant that rather than the British being outgunned, it was the HIMS Bogatyr unless it retreated. Instead, Popov ordered the attack, and the three ships advanced towards one another. The first hit landed was by the HMS Charybdis on the mast of the Bogatyr, slowing the ship and masking its port-side guns. The HMS Alert and the HMS Charybdis sailed on each side of HIMS Bogatyr, shredding the insides of the Russian ship with point-blank fire. With his ship taking water, Popov ordered a boarding party to grapple the HMS Charbydis, and he led twenty sailors and marines armed with pikes and cutlasses to the British ship. HIMS Rynda and HIMS Kalevala rushed to Bogatyr's aid but their way was interdicted by the trailing British gunboats. Bravely fighting, Popov died with his men on the deck of the Charybdis, his sword refused by Turnour out of respect.
The remaining Russian vessels were ignorant of the battle to their west and saw a large cluster of sails on the horizon, coming upon a British convoy of 23 merchant ships guarded by the Royal Navy. Rear Admiral Sir E.T. Long commanded the ship-of-the-line HMS Hastings and ordered his other ships, the frigate HMS Curacoa, corvette HMS Esk, and sloop HMS Miranda, forward to crush the smaller Russian ships fleeing west. The Bogatyr disabled and sinking, the HMS Alert and HMS Charybdis sailed alongside the HIMS Kalevala in the same way as the Bogatyr, while the HIMS Rynda dueled two gunboats and sank one. Long's convoy escort caught up with the remaining Russian ships and sank all five of them, as Russian captains were prohibited from striking. Captain Turnour was feted by the whole of Great Britain, and was later knighted for his courage in the naval battle.
On April 17, the British landed 5,000 men in San Francisco Bay, betting on the foggy weather to hide their transports from American guns. The gambit worked, and the British took San Francisco from the landward side, as its defenses faced the sea. British forces then began rolling up any other American forces along the Pacific coast.
The Battle for Port Hudson
On March 18, the French attempted a major assault on the parapets of Port Hudson after several days of siege bombardment. Bazaine's Sudanese contingent charged out the parallel trenches in front of the USCT Corps D'Afrique, and became stuck on the Abatis while taking the close-range fire of canister shot and coffee mill guns. The Sudanese melted away, and Bazaine's revenge on the Sudanese for their actions at Vermillionville was complete.
On March 28, 6,000 cavalry under command of Maj. General Benjamin Grierson arrived via boat in Port Hudson. Franklin intended to use them to wreak havoc on French supply lines, as there was no direct railroad line to the Franco-Confederate Siege lines, just a single 42-mile road connecting the railroad junction of Ponchatoula to Baton Rouge, and another 20-mile trek to the Siege lines. By April 4, Grierson's attacks on the blockhouses guarding the logistics roads had the effect of concentrating the French cavalry away from his real objective, the railroad hub of Ponchatoula. On the afternoon of April 4, Rear Admiral Porter added his river gunboats to the deception, sailing downriver to bombard various Franco-Confederate positions and land marine raiders. The real action was taken by the men of the USCT Corps D'Afrique who infiltrated the French camp in Ponchatoula disguised as slave workers. By hiding weapons in carts full of logs, soldiers of the Corps D'Afrique were able to surprise and kill the French guards at the gate of the camp, which was followed by Grierson's cavalry charging to the gate with the rest of the Corps D'Afrique double-timing to the help of their comrades. The Black soldiers took terrible casualties from French artillery, but they obstinately fought on and coffee mill guns were wheeled into position to negate the French artillery. The French attempted a bayonet charge on the forces gathering at the gate, and the Corps D'Afrique and cavalry met bayonet charge with bayonet charge in savage fighting. With weight on numbers on their side, the French were forced back towards the swamp until the 800 survivors threw down their weapons and surrendered. The freed slaves and soldiers were shown by Grierson's cavalry how to make Ponchatoula hairpins, heating iron rails until malleable and then wrapping them around telegraph poles. Grierson's men also found two new English locomotives and fifty railcars to loot and destroy.
American espionage in spreading more money around in New Orleans had the effect of driving the French to redouble their efforts to spread their own influence and cash around, driving Confederate jealousy and paranoia to all time highs. With no more battles after Vermillionville to be had and only the grinding siege of Port Hudson at hand, Taylor infuriated Bazaine by pulling his Confederate troops out of the siege and redirecting them to cause trouble in Union held Arkansas and Missouri. Bazaine was in New Orleans when the news of the destruction of Ponchatoula arrived on April 10. With its main supply line severed, the French army in the field was in severe danger of being trapped between the Mississippi river and the unforgiving swamps of Louisiana. Bazaine chartered a steamer and ordered it north. The commander of the French army at hand was Major General Félix Charles Douay, and he acknowledged that the siege at Port Hudson was now completely untenable. Deciding that the only realistic route to safety was the most difficult, he led his men on a retreat along the riverbank of the Mississippi. Franklin saw the opportunity to capture the entire French army if Baton Rouge could be retaken quick enough, and he ordered Grierson to push to Baton Rouge with all haste and sent two infantry brigades to Porter to steam downriver to Baton Rouge. Porter escorted the troopships but came upon the head of the French army, and used the heavy mortar ships for besieging Vicksburg to bombard the French columns from only 200 yards. The mortars and cannonades achieved gruesome casualties among the French, killing Douay and sending the leaderless lead brigades fleeing inland. Porter's infantry swept aside the minuscule defenses in Baton Rouge, and Grierson took command upon his arrival. The remnants of the French cavalry desperately tried to force their way through Grierson, but only a single squadron of the Chasseurs d'Afrique managed to find a way south. Franklin's two corps made contact with the rear of the French columns, which clumsily deployed into battle formation, but once more Porter's heavy mortar ships caused atrocious casualties. French units began to unravel as men tried to surrender or flee, but a veteran core fought on regardless, making brave but hapless targets for coffee mill guns and infantry repeaters. By 5:00 pm on April 10, the French Army of Louisiana virtually ceased to exist. Bazaine's steamer was hit by a shell from a monitor and he swam to shore, only to find the cavalry survivors from Baton Rouge. He rode south with them, but they one by one deserted until he returned alone. Grierson had the foresight to send the 5,000 men of the USCT Corps D'Afrique by rail to New Orleans, and they arrived by 8:30 PM to find the French and Confederate garrison ignorant to the destruction of the French Army and still in their barracks. After a brief fight, the Corps D'Afrique captured these troops and New Orleans was once more under Union control.
The Second Battle of Big Bethel
On March 25, Lee had Longstreet once more detach his reinforced First Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia to choke the supply lines feeding the Union fortress port of Norfolk. The Union army defending Fort Monroe, Norfolk, Suffolk, and the Virginia Peninsula was the Army of the James, led by political general Benjamin Franklin Butler and made up of the X Corps and the XVIII Corps. Given that it was now an active theater with the British participation in the conflict, President Lincoln, Lt. General Grant, and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton decided to replace Butler on March 26 with William "Baldy" Smith, the man who saved Brown's Ferry in Chattanooga.
On April 15, Longstreet's Corps arrived at the James Peninsula completely unbeknownst to Smith because of the tenuous telegraph lines across the Northern Neck cut by Confederate cavalry and British control of the Chesapeake Bay. Additionally, the 40,000 troops of the X Corps and XVIII Corps were spread mostly around the Plymouth-Norfolk area, unable to properly set into defensive positions because of British control of the waterways. Union attention was mostly focused on the heavy British naval bombardment of Fort Monroe. At 8:30 that morning, Smith fell ill from a recurring bout of malaria, leaving command to Maj. General Godfrey Weitzel of the XVIII Corps, but the orders were never sent to Weitzel. At 9:30 AM, Longstreet attacked Weitzel's earthworks at Yorktown defending the peninsula, fixing Union attention while Hood's old division, now commanded by Maj. General Charles W. Field, landed behind the Union defenses by barges at Warwick Courthouse. Field's target was the town of Hampton, immediately behind Fort Monroe, and marched his 10,000 men south. Simultaneously, 8,000 Union men of Colonel Thomas G. Stevenson's brigade and Colonel James Montgomery's USCT brigade marched north from Hampton, and the two sides unexpectedly met at Big Bethel.
The first units to meet were the Confederate 1st Texas Regiment of the famed Texas Brigade and the Union 34th USCT Regiment, and Colonel Montgomery was killed by a sniper's bullet almost before the two battle began. The Texans charged the 34th, and the inexperienced Union troops broke and fled, pursued by the enraged Texans who killed without quarter. Behind the 34th, the 54th MA Regiment heard the gunfire and formed ranks to present a firing line. The fleeing troops of the 34th regiment streamed through the ranks of the 54th, and the 1st Texas was hit by the point-blank fire of the 54th regiment, which pursued the 1st Texas to the unit behind it, the 4th Texas Regiment. The 4th Texas in turn halted the Union advance, and two sides entered a slugging match. The 3rd USCT Regiment moved to support the 54th's right flank while Colonel Stevenson arrived with his brigade to take command and feed his men into the ongoing battle. On the western coast of the peninsula, a Union brigade moving north from Hampton Roads met another Confederate force, and the two sides engaged in grinding, short-range combat. Stevens also moved the 1st Colored Cavalry and the 3rd NY Cavalry to cover his exposed right flank.
As Longstreet finally smashed through Weitzel's defenses around Yorktown, he rushed his two divisions south to end the stalemate at Big Bethel. Weitzel pulled his troops back behind the fortifications of Yorktown proper and could only watch impotently as the Confederates marched south. His lone mobile unit, Colonel Benjamin F. Onderdonk's 1st NY Mounted Rifles, desperately tried to slow Longstreet's advance south. Two regiments of Confederate cavalry, the 5th Virginia Cavalry and 15th Virginia Cavalry, under command of Colonel Lomax forced back the 1st NY to a marshy river ford where the 1st Colored Cavalry and 3rd NY Cavalry were stationed. Onderdonk was fully prepared to defend the ford, dismounting his men, but Longstreet instead pulled back Lomax's cavalry and used his artillery to bombard the Union cavalrymen and their horses while moving his infantry in for an assault. Onderdonk realized that his position was untenable, and sent a messenger to Stevenson informing him that the ford was under heavy attack and to retreat back to the landward defenses of Fort Monroe. Stevenson pulled his troops back unit-by-unit while the cavalry held the flank, and ordered the Newport News Brigade to fall back to Hamilton. Onderdonk's cavalry held their position until Lomax's cavalry made another appearance from a hastily built bridge to the west, rolling up the Union cavalry position and routing the cavalrymen. In the west, the line of retreat of the Newport News brigade was cut off, and only 600 men made it to Hamilton, the remainder surrendering. The Union defeat put Fort Monroe under attack by both land and sea, and the 15,000 freed slaves in front of Fort Monroe were seized and enslaved once more by the Confederates.
By April 29, the last of the hardtack in Fort Yorktown had been consumed, but Weitzel continued to deny Longstreet's offers of surrender. His choices grew increasingly bleak, and he planned for a breakout to the north to link up with Union forces at Fredericksburg, a forlorn hope at minimum. At 2 AM on April 30, Weitzel's hungry soldiers fixed bayonets and prepared to sally out into the swamps to their north, killing any guards quickly and quietly. However, a cipher from one of Grant's scouts made it through to Yorktown to order Weitzel to hold out as relief from the Army of the Rappahannock was en route. This was an impossible order for Weitzel, as his men quite literally had no food, but Grant also added that a supply column had gathered at nearby Gloucester to be transported by barge to starving Yorktown in the morning. These supplies kept Yorktown fed for several more days.
Stuart's warning message to Longstreet reached him on the evening of May 5, and he began to marshal his men to march to avoid being trapped and alternately to trap the Union forces now at Hanover Junction. Weitzel took note of this, and as the last of Longstreet's main force departed the James Peninsula, Union cavalry once more went on the offensive, striking the tail of the Confederate column very early on the morning of May 6. Through the following day, confused fighting between pockets of retreating Confederates took place and another Confederate brigade blocked the road to Richmond. On the morning of May 7, Weitzel's scouts reported that the Confederate brigade had not retreated. Additionally, a courier arrived from Colonel Stevenson, who had left the defenses of Fort Monroe with his two brigades after Longstreet had unexpectedly abandoned the siege and was close to Weitzel's position. With these combined troops, Weitzel broke through the Confederate brigade and marched on the main Union objective in the East - Richmond. Finding Richmond basically denuded of infantry, Weitzel's men reached President Jefferson Davis's mansion by 5 PM on May 7, with orders to capture him alive. Davis was prepared to fight to the death rather than be captured by USCT troops, but a white Union officer, John G. Chambers, entered his room first and Davis surrendered to him instead. Despite this, Weitzel gave the honor of guarding Davis to the black 54th MA Regiment.
The Battle of Saco
Disappointed as they were with the untimely fall of Portland, the Army of the Hudson was shipped from their positions opposite the Montreal Field Force in Upstate New York to Kennebunk in Maine, site of the previous American defeat in October. In command of the Army of the Hudson was Major General Sherman, and the XI Corps and XII Corps received reinforcements from the remaining VI Corps and the exchanged defenders of Portland, led by Chamberlain. With this, Sherman had at his disposal some 60,000 soldiers. Replacing the positions of the Army of the Hudson in New York was Maj. General Dan Sickles commanding the IX Corps, replacing Maj. General Ambrose Burnside. Without enough niter for gunpowder to last in a prolonged exchange through the vastness of Canada, the American war council decided on a knock-out blow by capturing Halifax, the sole large Canadian Atlantic port and lifeline of British supplies. Hope Grant and Wolseley understood this well enough, and their scouts reported the movement of the Army of the Hudson from New York to Maine during March through April.
On April 16, Hope Grant made the decision to detach 14,000 men from the Montreal Field Force, his 2nd Division and the Guards Brigade, and send them to Doyle with the Portland Field Force, giving Doyle 40,000 men to command. Hope Grant's injuries prevented him from joining Doyle at Portland, so he sent Wolseley in his stead with the instructions to hold out and play for time. Concurrently, news of the disaster at Second Big Bethel reached the Army of the Hudson, which detached the VI Corps on April 20 to rejoin the Army of the Potomac. This gave the British and Union forces a new parity in the region. More advantageous to the British was the terrain around New England, mountainous with deep woods and rivers.
However, the Grand Trunk Railroad remained a vital and vulnerable artery in British and Canadian logistics. With CIB funding, weapons, and volunteers, American militias in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine became more and more aggressive in the Spring of 1864, derailing track and killing repair crews. The heavy-handed Canadian responses of burning farms and leveling local villages had the effect of driving more Americans into the militia. On April 29, Wolesley arrived in Doyle's camp with the Portland Field Force. Wolseley suggested to Doyle the use of internment camps to concentrate the Americans close to the Canadian border such that they could not help the militia (an idea later used in the Boer Wars), but Doyle was horrified by the idea and completely rejected it. Also on the 29 of April, Sherman urged his intelligence officers to surge the militia's efforts on the Grand Trunk Railroad such that major forces were necessary to police it in the next week as he planned his attack on Doyle. On May 5, New England militia and the 1st Vermont Cavalry struck at the British-Canadian rail hub of Brighton, intending to destroy the rail yards there. Simultaneously, American forces struck the town of Gorham, severing the two most important rail centers on the American portion of the Grand Trunk Railroad. In Brighton, the Vermont militia had the misfortune of running into the British Guards brigade commanded by Colonel E. R. Wetherall, which easily dispersed them. However, the attention of the Guards were then drawn north to Custer's cavalry wrecking havoc on the rail yards, and the dismounted cavalrymen and Guards did battle with the Guards taking heavy casualties but charging regardless at the cavalrymen, whose carbines lacked bayonets. The Guards brigade and the American cavalry fought a running battle through Brighton, but the arrival of Canadian militia and the fact that the town was on fire convinced the Americans to retreat.
Equidistant between Kennebunk and Portland were the twin towns of Biddeford and Saco, divided by the Saco river. On the afternoon of May 5, British cavalry of the 9th Lancers and 11th Hussars made contact with the lead elements of the Army of the Hudson, Custer's lead brigade on the bridge between Biddeford and Saco. Taking the American cavalry at a charge, the British had the initial advantage of sabers and carbines, but the power of Colt revolvers and Spencer repeating rifles turned the tide. Custer rushed his units up to support the cavalry, unlimbering horse-drawn artillery and Gatling guns while sending riders to alert Sherman to the British presence in Saco. Upon receiving Custer's message, Sherman ordered his infantry to double-time to the battle, two corps marching parallel. Doyle received notice of the Battle at Saco half an hour after Sherman, and deployed his men out of columns into lines to engage the Americans against the advisement of Wolseley.
During the morning of May 6 came the news of the severing of Gorham and the damage done to Brighton, detaining the Guards brigade from the battle. Wolseley counseled Doyle to retreat to a prepared position, but Doyle felt it dishonorable to retreat from enemy contact. Opposite Doyle, Sherman had his XI Corps entrench in folds and ridges in the land and set up coffee mill guns in defensive positions in preparation for the British attack. The XII Corps was marching parallel to the east to catch the British in the flank. Much to Wolseley's relief, a wounded Hope Grant made contact with the Guards Brigade in Brighton, ordering the Guards to march to Gorham with all haste. It was not until 3:30 PM that Sherman realized that the British were not in fact going to oblige him by attacking his defenses, but instead had withdrawn after making all appearances of attacking. Furious, Sherman ordered Custer to pursue Doyle with all speed, and Custer's cavalry ran into Doyle's rearguard, the 1,000 cavalry of the 9th Lancers and 11th Hussars. Without the time for a long engagement, Custer ordered a charge with sabers, leading half of his 3,000 cavalry directly at the British while ordering the other half to circle around to hit the British rear. In a furious melee, the Lancers and Hussars proved themselves better fencers, but American Colt revolvers and superior numbers took their own toll, crushing the British cavalry but allowing Doyle's main force to withdraw north of the Saco River. Doyle deployed his troops to defend the bridge over the river by 5 PM, beating back the advance guard of XI Corps and stalling Sherman. While Sherman was still unhappy with Custer for allowing Doyle into a good defensive position, Custer sent troops and locals to begin searching for any nearby fords through Saco river, and a half-dozen were found unguarded and unknown by the British and Canadians by midnight. At 12:30 AM on May 7, Custer woke Sherman to alert him to the fords and his intention to flank Doyle.
At 4:20 AM on May 7, Custer's cavalry crossed over the fords to the west of Biddeford while the XI Corps followed behind, and at 7:30 AM, Custer reached the Portland road five miles behind Saco. Cavalry raced north to cause trouble, and overran a fifty-wagon supply column destined for Doyle. The XI Corps attacked Doyle's right flank and overran one brigade while forcing back another. Doyle took his reserve to shore up his collapsing right, leaving Wolseley to watch the bridge in case Sherman attempted to cross. British-Canadian intelligence was severely hampered by the loss of the cavalry in the rearguard engagement, and Wolseley's few remaining scouts, the Royal Guides, were being picked off by New England militia before they could report back. Just as Doyle's attention was fixated west and Wolseley nervously looked south, the XII Corps was crossing hidden fords east of Biddeford, its BMI balloon noting Custer's cavalry north of Saco. At 10:30 AM, couriers from the embattled British-Canadian right flank rode to Wolseley to inform him that Doyle had died leading the reserve in, and that command had fallen to him. Wolseley knew that he had Americans on his right flank and likely in front of him, but without adequate intelligence, he was hesitant to take decisive action. Wolseley ordered the last of his Royal Guides and its commander, Colonel George Denison, east to find out what was happening, and they discovered the XII Corps, which took them captive.
At 12:30 PM, with his Royal Guides not returning, Wolseley decided that he had to crush the American threat to his right flank before the XII Corps, which he incorrectly still assumed was across the Saco River, could attack. As such, Wolseley field promoted William McBean to command of the 2,500 men of the 12th Brigade, made up of the 78th Foot, 73rd Foot, 26th Foot, and the Canadian 17th Levis Battalion. McBean ordered bayonets affixed for a rapid charge to negate American firepower. Maj. General John A. Logan and the second division of the XI Corps had defeated Doyle's attack earlier and their confidence soared as the Canadians fell back. As McBean's brigade advanced through the retreating men at 1:30, he could see the mounds of bodies where soldiers had died fighting, and the Highlanders started taking heavy fire as well. McBean ordered a charge into the teeth of the American fire, his men sprinting through repeating rifle and Gatling gun fire to meet the Americans. In an hour of desperate and brutal fighting between the men of the Second Division and the Highlanders and Canadians, McBean's brigade was annihilated, its last soldiers fighting over the body of their fallen commander. Logan's Third Division similarly repulsed an attack by the 3rd Hamilton Brigade. Only a stubborn rearguard defense by the survivors of the 47th Foot and a battery of Armstrong guns prevented a total rout.
Wolseley was stunned at the smashing of two brigades, and he recognized that the battle was lost, so at 3 PM, he ordered all surviving units north to Portland, which was defended by the aegis of the Royal Navy's guns. Logan's XI Corps moved east into Saco, pressing against the Portland Field Force while the XII Corps at last entered the fray, heading west to Saco. Wolseley's rearguard, the Montreal Brigade, made contact with the XII Corps, and the First Battalion Prince of Wales Regiment attacked the Americans before their line was fully prepared, throwing the XII Corps into confusion and retreat. With this, Wolseley was able to take his intact two brigades and whatever survivors from the other two brigades north out of the jaws of Sherman's trap. As Wolseley's men marched north, they once more ran into fire at 5:30, this time from Custer's cavalry and a division of Union troops with the conspicuous presence of Chamberlain and the Maine soldiers. With Sherman's XI and XII Corps pursuing the Montreal Brigade, Wolseley's only other functional unit, the 3,800 man strong Dublin Brigade, was ordered to break through to allow the army to continue to Portland. Three batteries of Armstrongs lashed the American infantry, and the Dublin Brigade deployed the 1/10th Foot, 29th Foot, and 45th Foot in front with the Canadian 5th Royal Light infantry and 6th Hochlega Light Infantry on the flanks to defend from cavalry. American repeater fire seemed to disintegrate the front British ranks, and cannon fire ripped through the dense lines. Custer launched a cavalry charge on the Canadian 5th, but was repulsed, so he dismounted his men to continue the fight on foot. On the opposite flank, 1,200 American cavalry managed to catch the Canadian 6th unprepared and rode through them. Chamberlain saw the crumbling of the British-Canadian flanks, so he ordered his men to fix bayonets and lead the charge into the Dublin Brigade.
Tsouras does not specifically state what happened to Wolseley and the men of the Portland Field Force, but since Sherman was able to siege Halifax by June, it can be inferred that Chamberlain's charge succeeded in breaking the Dublin Brigade, leading Wolseley to surrender.
The Battle of Hanover Junction
Meade saw the departure of Longstreet's Corps as a godsend to at last pin and destroy the army that most symbolized the will of the Confederacy, Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Grant had telegraphed Meade about Lee's concentration at Gordonsville, and on April 13, Meade began to move the Army of Potomac to engage. Lee, with only 2/3 of his strength, was ready to use siege lines and maneuver to outwit and outpace Meade until Longstreet could finish the siege at Fort Monroe. With the Union defeat at Second Big Bethel, Meade was suddenly under significant pressure from General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant to begin his campaign with all haste to relieve the pressure on the cut-off Army of the James. Meade's issue was his unwillingness to march his men into prepared defensive positions constructed by Lee, as the defeat of Fredericksburg had shown. However, Grant saw that if Weitzel's XVIII Corps trapped in Yorktown fell, it would lead to the fall of Fort Monroe and the capture of the X Corps, then the capture of the 50,000 army and navy personnel at Norfolk Naval Base. Therefore, Meade's 120,000 strong Army of the Potomac, bolstered by the 25,000 arriving men of the VI Corps, was to bloodily force its way south to save the Army of the James.
Meade's advances of Lee were stymied time and time again with high losses for almost no gains. Flanking moves from the Army of the Potomac ran into yet more fortified lines, and by April 28, two major repulses had shown that the Confederates had far more ammunition and quality guns than at any other time before while the Union spent ammunition at an unprecedented rate. Frustrated with the lack of progress, Grant decided on a new plan, dividing the massive Army of the Potomac into two forces: the new Army of the Rappahannock, made up of the II Corps and VI Corps, was to follow the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad south to Hanover Junction, interdicting both Longstreet and Lee's supply chains from Richmond, while the I Corps, III Corps, and V Corps in the Army of the Potomac would push Lee as he moved south to re-secure his supply route and crush him between the two Union armies.
Major General Philip Sheridan rode to Hanover Junction on the morning of May 5 to begin tearing up railroad track with a divisions worth of well-armed and well-fed cavalry from the Army of the Potomac. Sheridan's arrival had been noticed by his Confederate counterpart J.E.B. Stuart, who sent messengers to both Lee and Longstreet of the threat to their respective supply lines and of his intent to attack. At 3:30 that afternoon, Stuart began his attack. Cavalrymen of the 35th Virginia Battalion led by Maj. General Wade Hampton surprised dismounted Union cavalry at Chesterfield Bridge with a charge. Other Confederate cavalry led by Maj. General Fitzhugh Lee headed west and retook Anderson Junction on the RF & P Railroad, striking the spread-out cavalrymen of Brig. General James Wilson's second brigade and taking many prisoners. With Hampton's cavalry heading for Hanover Junction, Sheridan raced orders out to alert Brig. General David Gregg's division and Brig. General Wesley Merritt's reserve brigade to prepare for battle with a numerically superior enemy. Stuart decided that in order to secure Hanover Junction, a shock charge to break the Union cavalry was needed, and directed Hampton's men to ride and meet the Union cavalry. Sheridan matched Stuart's action, sending Gregg's division to counter-charge the Confederate cavalry, while directing cannon fire on the enemy. Worryingly for Sheridan, his sole reserve, Merritt's brigade, could not both stem Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry if they returned to the field and Hampton's cavalry morass. Stuart had the advantage of a larger reserve, the 7th and 20th Georgia cavalry and 9th Georgia. Lee in fact only traveled as far west as to scatter the remainder of Wilson's second brigade before returning east; Wilson's first brigade was found by the survivors and Wilson took his men to follow Lee. As the fighting between Hampton's division and Gregg's division wore on, Lee charged onto the field, and Sheridan was forced to deploy his reserve, Merritt's brigade, to hold off Lee's cavalry. This meant that when Stuart spotted a gap in Gregg's units and charged his reserves through, Sheridan had nothing left to stop the Confederate cavalry and they charged the Union wagon trains and artillery. In vicious fighting, Union artillerymen and Confederate cavalry fought without restraint and the gunners fell to a man. The Georgians moved on to the next unit of artillery, a battery of Gatling guns, and were halted by the fire rate of the rotating guns. Gregg's shattered cavalry reformed on the Gatling battery, and Stuart pulled his men back. Though it had cost him dearly, Sheridan succeeded in severing the Confederate line of communications.
Maj. General Winfield Hancock's Army of the Rappahannock began to arrive near Chesterfield Bridge at 2 PM on May 6 accompanied by General Grant. However, Lee had outpaced all estimates and had arrived early enough to strike the Second Division of Hancock's II Corps in the flank before it had properly deployed. Hancock rushed orders to Maj. General Horatio Wright's VI Corps to double-time to assist the II Corps, and Grant's headquarters came under fire, but Grant calmly ordered artillery batteries to deploy to his position and the Confederate charge was halted. Simultaneously, Longstreet force marched 25,000 men out of the James Peninsula to Richmond Station to take trains to Hanover Junction, but by the actions of Union agent Elizabeth Van Lew and her contact, superintendent of the RF&P Railroad Samuel Ruth, trains were sent to distant locations and boxcars were left on sidings and not unloaded. At 7:15 PM, Longstreet became increasingly agitated as his men sat around Richmond Station while Lee battled for survival between two Union armies. Additionally, Union cavalry had smashed one of his brigades on the march, and he had been forced to detach another brigade to hold the road. When a train at last arrived in the station, Longstreet was aghast that no railroad crew came out to service it - it's cars lay full of tar, firewood, and scrap iron, and no one arrived to refill its water tanks or restock its firewood. Worse still, the engine itself was an older Confederate model, not one of the newer English engines that had been arriving. It took an hour for the cars to be unloaded and the Confederate 5th and 15th cavalry to board, and the train wheezed and died ten miles north of the station. Longstreet had his cavalry disembark and ride north while his infantry continued their march. While Lee had reasonably expected Longstreet by mid-afternoon on May 6, he was now only going to arrive by the following day. Van Lew sent a courier to Grant with said information, arriving at 10 PM that evening, and Grant delegated Sheridan's 5,000 cavalry to hold Longstreet away from Lee's army.
Lee had his Army of Northern Virginia up and marching before the dawn, deciding that attacking Hancock head on was a losing proposition so he ordered his troops to sidestep Hancock and march south, hopefully linking up with Longstreet's men. Longstreet also had his men on the road early, his cavalry running into Sheridan's pickets at 5:30 AM. With the heavy casualties from the failed attack on Hancock, Longstreet's orders were no longer to support Lee in crushing the Army of the Rappahannock, but rather to stall Hancock long enough for Lee to escape south from Meade. Stuart's cavalry engaged Wilson's cavalry, and albeit with heavy losses from Gatling guns, Longstreet began forcing Sheridan back. For three hours, Sheridan's dismounted cavalry held the line against five-to-one odds with heavy Confederate artillery fire, ably commanded by Colonel E. P. Alexander. Sheridan's men had been pushed back one mile to the small town of Taylorsville when the Army of the Rappahannock began to arrive in Hanover Junction. Hancock directed Wright's VI Corps to relieve Sheridan's cavalry and continue holding Longstreet away form Lee. Stuart had been engaging with Wilson's outnumbered cavalry for several hours near Hanover Academy. Grant saw the importance of the position, as it was a natural swinging point for Lee to wheel his men around to link up with Longstreet. Wilson's men were beginning to falter, and Sheridan ordered his cavalry reserve to ride to Wilson's aid while Hancock was to order his II Corps to Wilson's position once it arrived in Hanover Junction. As Sheridan's reserve moved, General Lee rode up to Hanover Academy in a distressed and agitated state, rebuking Stuart for his lack of progress against the outnumbered Union cavalry. Stuart, who viewed Lee as a father figure, ordered a redoubling of assaults to break through the thin Union line.
The entrapment of General Lee's Army of Northern Virginia came down to the speed of Meade's Army of the Potomac. Meade snapped at Maj. General Gouverneur Warren for the slow pace of his V Corps at 12:30, and ordered a quick pace to force engagement with Lee. At 1:15, Stuart at last broke Wilson's cavalry line with a charge from the 6th Virginia Cavalry. As he rode up to see the fleeing Union cavalry running away, one of the retreating cavalrymen took a shot at Stuart, and Stuart was mortally wounded and died moments later. The shock of losing their commander abruptly halted the momentum of the Confederate cavalry advance, and Sheridan rode in with Merritt's reserve brigade to force back the Confederates. Critically, Hampton was not immediately informed that command of the cavalry had fallen to him, while Prussian-born Heros von Borcke delivered the news to Lee, who was shocked by grief. A. P. Hill's Third Corps deployed at 2:30, its commander partially recovered from his traumatic injury at Washington. Lee's orders were to break through to Longstreet no matter the cost, but in the moment of crisis, Hill fell ill and command reverted to Maj. General Richard H. Anderson. Unfortunately for Lee, by the time Anderson assumed command, the lead elements of Hancock's II Corps began to deploy to Sheridan's position, and worse, Meade had traveled far faster than anticipated, a bare two miles behind Hanover Academy. Lee gave Anderson one hour to pull off a victory.
Anderson threw his entire Third Corps at Hancock at 3:30 in a move reminiscent of Gettysburg, as Union artillery left great gaps in the Confederate ranks, but unlike Gettysburg, the Union men also had Gatling guns and repeating rifles. Anderson's attack was shattered and Hancock moved to pursue Anderson's corps. BMI balloons reported Meade's movement just to the north of Lee, and Lee's last reserve, a division of Ewell's Second Corps commanded by Maj. General John B. Gordon, deployed to break through Hancock's II Corps. Gordon had earlier been wounded in the massacre at Long Bridge at Washington D.C., but was later traded for Union officers. In this last desperate fight, General Lee himself rode up with Gordon to participate in the attack to the horror of the Confederate soldiers, who begged Lee not to join them, promising Lee a victory. Gordon's division charged the lead division of the II Corps, commanded by Brig. General John Gibbon, and against all odds, managed to break through. The hard-won Confederate victory was short-lived - Hancock sent in his next division, commanded by Brig. General Francis Barlow to drive back Gordon's brigade, while the third division of the II Corps and the VI Corp's reserve division struck the flanks of Gordon's division. The Virginians and Georgians fought furiously, but the overwhelming Union firepower forced them back. As Gordon's men fell back, Meade's three corps initiated their attack on Ewell's Second Corps, closing the trap on Lee.
Hancock barred Lee's escape route to Richmond and Meade fell upon Lee's trains, such that even escape would mean retreating without food or ammunition. Lee's 30,000 men were surrounded by two Union armies five times larger, and Lee had no real choice but surrender. At 9:15 AM on May 8, Robert E. Lee met Ulysses S. Grant and Winfield S. Hancock in Hanover Academy to sign the terms of surrender.
The Battle of the Chesapeake
During the short Second Battle of Hampton Roads on March 14, British sloops managed to disable two American monitors by ramming them, taking advantage of the monitor's low freeboard, and sending marines onto the swamped ships. British siege vessels of the Great Armament, ships meant for the Russian fortress of Kronstadt during the Crimean War, pounded the American fortress of Fort Monroe while the American Navy was largely powerless to prevent the British, as it was concentrated north of the Chesapeake Bay along the Eastern seaboard.
The danger that Norfolk Naval Base was in became very apparent to the United States Navy after the Second Battle of Big Bethel, and Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus "Gus" Fox pushed his dockworkers and sailors to extraordinary lengths to assemble a force to relieve Norfolk and break the British fleet in the Chesapeake. Captain Cushing's success during the opening portion of Joint Raid confirmed the value of Lowe's dirigibles, and Fox jealously demanded all available balloons for Navy use. Sharpe was able to assuage Fox by having the two of them keep the four functional dirigibles together, to be shared by Army and Navy use where they were needed most. The Navy's other secret weapon, the submersible, was hurriedly rushed to completion.
Very early in the morning of April 24, the submersibles USS Shark and USS Barracuda were undergoing a trial run south of Newport News, watching the glow of the British heavy naval mortars bombarding Fort Monroe. The lead vessel, the USS Shark commanded by Lt. Josiah Mason, unexpectedly collided with and overturned a British longboat in the dark, sending the Royal Marines splashing into the water and one down the hatch of the Shark. Realizing that he was in fact surrounded by British longboats rowing for the Fort, Mason ordered full speed to warn Fort Monroe. The curious vessel was shot at by the Union defenders initially, but Mason got their attention and alerted them to the rowing force approaching. The British marines, confused by the loss of their leader, were illuminated by artillery flares from the Fort and heavy 15-inch Rodman guns fired across the water, their 352-pound shells skipping over the water and mowing through the British longboats with gruesome ease. In the morning, the bodies of the 600 Royal Marines were seen floating in the water with the shattered remains of their longboats. The lone survivor was the man who fell through the hatch of the USS Shark, Lt. Colonel Sir George Bazalgette, who had captured Fort Gorges in Portland seven months before and had pioneered the method of knocking out monitors during the Second Battle of Hampton Roads. The CIB immediately claimed Bazalgette for interrogation, and confirmed from him that the British naval reinforcements, the remaining British ironclads, were indeed heading for the Chesapeake.
The race for control of the Chesapeake then came down to which side could concentrate the most firepower the quickest and control Fort Monroe. On April 30, the forward British naval base at Martha's Vineyard was destroyed by a combined naval and amphibious assault, putting a serious hole in the British blockade. The USS Canonicus and USS Monadnock proved their worth and the destructive power of their XV-inch Dahlgren guns. Recently constructed ironclad monitors began to gather for a sortie south to the Chesapeake, including the USS Onondaga, USS Tecumseh, USS Manhattan, USS Mahopac, USS Saugus, the two monitors from the assault on Martha's Vineyard, and flagship USS Dictator led by Rear Admiral David Farragut. On May 3, Admiral James Hope arrived in the Chesapeake with his British fleet and took command of all British vessels in the region. Additionally, Hope conferred with Longstreet on the reduction of Fort Monroe, and gave Longstreet yet more mortars, heavy guns, sappers, and marines for his disposal. Longstreet also asked Hope to raid the American POW camp at Camp Hoffman to free some 10,000 prisoners, and Hope complied, bombarding the camp and landing troops to free the POWs.
Farragut's ironclad convoy reached the Chesapeake on May 5 with a long line of heavily-laden supply ships with coal, provisions, and dirigible crews, six additional sloops and a frigate. Farragut had his ships steam into the bay in two parallel lines with the USS Dictator leading the formation between the two lines while the supply ships were sheltered in. Hope's battle plans had rested on a fleet action of Union ships coming out of Norfolk to fight rather than Union ships coming into the Chesapeake, so the half hour notice from his picket ships didn't allow enough time to get all of vessels into a formation to stop Farragut. The British ships began to fire on the Americans as soon as their guns came to bear, but the 68-pounder cannons and 7-inch Armstrong breech-loaders were painfully inadequate for punching through the thick armor of American monitors. Farragut ordered his captains to aim for British masts to slow enemy ships and mask guns, hoping to avoid a dragged out fight with the vulnerable supply ships in tow. Fortunately for Farragut, the British ships concentrated their fire on the small profile of the Union ironclads. At the apex of the American column was the HMS Royal Oak, once a ship-of-the-line but reconverted to an ironclad. The XV-inch Dahlgren guns of the USS Dictator and the ironclads trailing behind did terrible damage to the Royal Oak, and without bulkheads, the Royal Oak began to sink. The HMS Prince Albert steamed up to the closest Union ship, the last in line USS Mahopac, and used its height to fire not into the thick armor of the turret but the relatively thin 1-inch deck armor. The plunging fire was incredibly effective, two shots causing the Mahopac to settle and sink. The engagement known as the Battle of Running the Roads had cost both sides one ship, the British losing 187 killed or missing and 42 wounded while the Americans lost the entire crew of USS Mahopac, 80 officers and crewmen.
Farragut took stock of his combined fleet, the 1st Fleet of the United States Navy, the first such named or numbered fleet in United States history. With his transferred flagship USS New Ironsides, Farragut had twelve ironclads, four frigates, three sloops, and nine gunboats for 124 guns. Additionally, Farragut had two functional submersibles and four hydrogen dirigibles commanded by Captain Cushing, the Navy's Steven Decatur and John Paul Jones and the Army's George Washington and Andrew Jackson. Hope had seven ironclads, one ship-of-the-line, seven frigates, six corvettes, eight sloops, and twenty-five gunboats for almost 750 guns. Additionally, Hope had floating gun batteries that had been bombarding Fort Monroe at his disposal, thirty-two in total. Hope arranged his fleet in the wider part of the bay to take advantage of his faster ships and used his floating batteries as obstructions to allow sailors and marines to attack monitors in the same manner as during the Second Battle of Hampton Roads.
At 4 PM on May 6, the hydrogen dirigibles began to fill their gasbags and Farragut prepared his ships. President Lincoln had delivered Farragut an ultimatum before his departure - a defeat in the Chesapeake would be an irrecoverable loss, and the Union would be forced to concede defeat. The two submersibles USS Shark and USS Dolphin left Fortress Monroe at midnight on May 6, and at 7:20 AM on May 7, British picket ships spotted the Union fleet sallying out to battle. Hope had arranged his floating batteries and gunboats in a thick hedge some sixty strong directly in front of the American fleet in order to disrupt it with sheer volume of firepower while six gunboats had the role of ramming and boarding monitors, dubbed "Bazalgetting". Behind the hedge of small vessels, Hope divided his ships into three divisions: a central division of the seven ironclads and the ship-of-the-line, and two divisions flanking the center made up of frigates, corvettes, and sloops. Farragut arranged his ships in four parallel lines, the easternmost line made up seven frigates and sloops and the other three all ironclads. At 9:45 AM, Farragut made contact with the British hedge vessels, and the British guns focused on the leading monitors to virtually no effect, but the XV-inch and XI-inch Dahlgren guns shattered the densely packed floating batteries and gunboats. The "Bazalgetting" gunboats steamed towards the monitors, and two gunboats aimed for USS Dictator, but were blown to pieces by the Dictator's twin XV-inch guns. On the tail end of Farragut's left column, two "Bazalgetting" gunboats targeted the smaller USS Sangamon, and managed to ride the deck of the Passaic-class monitor, but one gunboat was shot at from short range by the Sangamon and destroyed. While the Sangamon's turret rotated to reload, the other gunboat managed to fire into the open aperture and ignite the powder bags, killing the USS Sangamon.
As the Americans steamed past the wrecks of the floating batteries, the faster frigates and sloops pulled ahead of the ironclads, forming a single long line of ships. This action was matched by Hope, and the two sides formed matching fishhook formations. Hope ordered his ships to keep close formation, but Farragut's orders to hit the mainmasts first on British ships significantly slowed down the formation and it began to spread apart. The short-range slugging match between ironclads and heavy ships was characterized by accurate and large amounts of British fire while American shells were far heavier and deadlier. At 10:30 AM, the submersibles made contact with the enemy fleet and set about attaching mines. A lucky hit from HMS Royal Sovereign hit one of the cannons in USS Saugus, breaking off the tip and wounding half a dozen men, but the other cannon brought down Royal Sovereign's mainmast. HMS Prince Albert added another plunging fire kill to its credit, striking the deck armor of USS Montauk and sinking it, and HMS Wivern managed to crack the turret armor on USS Weehawken, igniting its powder bags and sinking it.
Farragut dropped out of his battle line to take USS New Ironsides against Hope's flagship HMS Warrior and destroy it much like USS New Ironsides had destroyed Warrior's sister-ship HMS Black Prince at Charleston. USS New Ironsides seriously outgunned HMS Warrior, its XI-inch guns far superior to HMS Warrior's 7-inch Armstrongs and 68-pounders, and the Warrior took severe damage from New Ironsides. Farragut's wooden division pulled ahead and used converging fire of the seven ships to first destroy screw frigate HMS Aurora and then screw frigate HMS Galatea. Captain George Hancock of the screw frigate HMS Immortalité saw the deaths of the Aurora and Galatea and moved out of the converging fire, steaming to within ten yards of the sidewheel steam frigate USS Powhatan before unleashing his broadside. Rather than giving the Powhatan the chance to fire its much heavier guns back, Hancock rammed the Immortalité into Powhatan and led a boarding party onto the ship, setting the rigging and powder charges alight.
The remaining British ships led by screw frigate HMS Dauntless turned hard to port to give their broadsides when the submersible mines detonated under the hulls of HMS Wivern and HMS Hector, sinking both. HMS Prince Albert added another kill with the USS Passaic, and HMS Defence was smashed by the combined fire of USS Lehigh and USS Patapsco, leaving half of Defence's guns destroyed and multiple fires raging through her decks. HMS Warrior was being battered by USS New Ironsides and USS Monadnock, and HMS Prince Consort and HMS Prince Albert had both had one turret disabled. USS Dictator steamed to continue hitting Prince Albert, but one of its boilers burst, severely slowing its speed. Captain Cushing's dirigibles then made their entrance from the south at 12:40, lining up bombing runs on the remaining British ironclads, the HMS Warrior, the crippled HMS Defence, HMS Prince Consort, the wounded HMS Royal Sovereign, and HMS Prince Albert. Save for HMS Immortalité, Hope's first division was completely lost, and while his second ironclad division was fighting for its life, the third division fought the three rearmost American ironclads, dealing little damage to the thick turret armor while having both frigate HMS Pylades and corvette HMS Rattlesnake disabled. Cushing's dirigibles had the advantage that most of Hope's balloon guns were knocked out, and he moved to three hundred feet in altitude for his bombs, a composite of bronze-tipped explosive shells and incendiaries. Steven Decatur aimed for HMS Prince Consort, but released too early, half its payload landing astern of Prince Consort while half landed on target, the incendiaries doing terrible damage. John Paul Jones aimed for HMS Royal Sovereign and put all bombs on target, George Washington aimed for HMS Warrior and missed entirely, and Andrew Jackson aimed for HMS Defence and released too early, hitting HMS Forte instead. Cushing could count the Royal Sovereign and Forte as two more kills as he moved south to return to base, but a surviving sailor aboard the disabled ship HMS Pylades manned a balloon gun alone and shot the Andrew Jackson, bringing it down in blue hydrogen fire.
The dirigibles touched back down in Norfolk at 2:30, and Hope could see from HMS Warrior that the battle was going poorly. With the mast and rigging gone, his midshipman relayed the signal to retreat from the stub of the mainmast. HMS Defence and the surviving frigates and corvettes read the signal and steamed for the entrance to the bay, their speed giving them the ability to escape the slow American ironclads. A dozen British sloops and gunboats, rescuing as many crews from the wrecks of the floating batteries as possible, also made their exit, closely pursued by American gunboats. Captain Coles aboard HMS Prince Albert understood what was happening once HMS Warrior broke off combat and began moving east, and he followed his commander after having another turret disabled by USS Dictator. The sole fighting ship was Captain Hancock's HMS Immortalité, as he dueled USS Wabash and USS Minnesota, understanding that these two American vessels were the only two with the speed to catch up to the wounded British fleet. Hancock refused to strike until the British fleet was safely away, an action for which he was later knighted. In total, the British lost nine large ships and the entirety of their floating batteries, while the Americans lost five ships and a dirigible.
The Fall of the Irish Republic
Meagher's call for a general uprising all over Ireland did not have the response he had hoped for, as Protestant Northern Ireland raised militia against him and Catholic Ireland was mostly on the fence. On April 8, Meagher's troops and militia gave battle with the first British response troops under command of the Lord Lieutenant, Duke of Abercorn. Abercorn had gathered all the troops he could find at Curragh and had the good fortune of finding Lt. General Sir James Yorke Scarlett in Curragh. Meagher had four balloons at his disposal, and their spotting allowed Meagher the initiative to position his forces at the Field of Tallaght southwest of Dublin, in front of the arriving British force. At 10:30 am, Meagher deployed the 69th NY Division to force back Scarlett's advance force, cavalrymen of the 15th Hussars. Meagher positioned the 69th NY with three batteries of artillery on a rise behind them; the two Republic of Ireland militia regiments were kept in reserve. Scarlett had scraped as many men as could be found to put down the Irish uprising as quickly as possible, and he had with him three regiments to form a single brigade of infantry, a company of engineers, and the 15th Hussars and the 4th and 5th Dragoon Guards. Scarlett had no artillery, and Meagher had no cavalry, therefore both sides were more or less handicapped equally. Scarlett's plan was to advance his infantry as quickly as possible towards the Irish infantry, to negate the artillery by close proximity to friendly forces, and swing his Dragoons around to the Irish rear.
As Scarlett's troops advanced, they received case shot from the cannons at 600 yards and rifle fire at 300 yards. Scarlett had already anticipated heavy casualties from advancing over open ground, but the 69th NY were equipped with Spencer repeating rifles and Gatling guns to add to their firepower. As Scarlett's infantry were being ground down, his 1,200 dragoons appeared behind Meagher's reserve, hitting the green militia at full charge and scattering them. Meagher desperately tried to rally the militia which had the effect of drawing the dragoons to him, but it was only the actions of Brig. General Kelly that saved the day as he took the reserve units of the embattled Irish Brigade to turn around and clear away the dragoons from the cannon batteries and a surrounded Meagher. Once Scarlett heard the dragoons being slaughtered by close range repeating fire, he knew the day was lost and retreated off the field. Meagher's tactical victory at Tallaght had destroyed the militia regiments he brought to the field and used a great deal of ammunition, of which there was only the amount that was brought or could be stolen. Worse still, every port on the eastern coast of Ireland was filled with British units assembling to march on Dublin. Nevertheless, Tallaght forced the fence-sitters in Ireland to finally choose sides, and more and more sided with the Irish Republic. Prime Minister Disraeli faced the looming specter of not just rebellion in Ireland, but civil war between loyalists and rebels, divided by Protestants and Catholics. Disraeli ordered leniency to captured Irish troops, to avoid the desperation fought with by the Irish in the days of Judge Jeffrys, who had hung rebels and those suspected of rebellion without remorse or pity.
By April 22, Meagher began to run into the issue of feeding Dublin, a city of 100,000 people. Scarlett had thrown a cordon around Dublin to prevent any additional Irish from joining Meagher, which had the effect of making foraging parties need protection the size of regiments. Thousands of new recruits had poured into Dublin after the Battle of Tallaght and much of Ireland save for the north had made the motions to side with Meagher, but importantly, Archbishop Paul Cullen of the Archbishopry of Dublin refused to side with Meagher, and urged all of the parish priests through Ireland to similarly resist. British reinforcements poured into Ireland from English, Scottish, and Channel Port garrisons, and Scarlett received 9 infantry regiments, 7 cavalry regiments, and 54 Volunteer units for almost 60,000 men. Where the Irish needed resolution and passion to uplift their spirits, Meagher slowly settled into drinking more and more whiskey, withdrawing on himself and leaving command to his subordinates. On April 28, the new British commander in Ireland, Maj. General Sir Robert Napier, demanded the surrender of the Irish Republic on the lenient terms of treatment of Irish-American soldiers as POWs rather than traitors to the crown and full amnesty for Irish citizens who reaffirmed their loyalty. Brig. General Kelly took Napier's terms to Meagher, but the Irish President refused the generous terms and Napier initiated a siege of Dublin. Kelly had ordered the construction of defensive siege lines some weeks before, using the population of Dublin and the Irish volunteers to help surround the city.
Disraeli ordered Napier to take great pains not to damage Dublin, in order to not hurt British prestige any more than had already been done by the fall of Dublin and the Essex raid. Thus British gunners were limited to the earthworks surrounding the city, but Napier also used hunger to demoralize the defenders, offering food for anyone who wished to surrender. On May 5, Meagher took the opportunity to denude Dublin of hungry mouths while Napier lavishly fed the surrendering citizens in sight of the siege lines. The impending signs of defeat became more and more apparent to Kelly, but Meagher's drunken obstinance kept the siege going. At 11:15 PM on May 6, sappers of the Royal Engineers detonated a mine under the walls of one of the major defenses of Dublin, Lincoln Redoubt. A 50-foot section was blown open by the blast and the Irish defenders were concussed and stunned by the blast. Leading the attack through the gap were the veterans of Tallaght, the Protestant Irish men of the 86th Foot, who attacked with bayonets and streamed into the heart of Dublin followed closely by the 2nd Coldstream Guards. Feeling the blast shake Dublin, Meagher was shocked out of his drunken apathy, gathering nearby soldiers to retake Lincoln Redoubt. Although Meagher led from the front of his men with sword in hand, his reserve was not enough to stem the British tide. His soldiers, running out of ammunition, found their repeating weapons no more useful than clubs. Concentrating his remaining troops in Dublin Castle, Meagher prepared for a last stand near midnight. However, Napier sent out a flag of truce, and the two sides once more resorted to parley with the Irish in desperate straits. At last, Meagher saw that no further resistance could be effectively maintained without food and ammunition, while Napier was under significant pressure to end the rebellion as quickly as possible, so Napier once more offered the generous terms initially proffered on April 28. Meagher reluctantly agreed, and the 34-day old Irish Republic was no more.
Ending the American portion of the Great War
After Lee's capitulation, Longstreet's corps retreated to Richmond, only to find Weitzel's men encamped and entrenched there. Caught between Hancock, Meade, and Weitzel, Longstreet surrendered shortly after. In Tennessee, General Joseph Johnston surrendered his Army of Tennessee to Maj. General George H. Thomas's Army of the Cumberland outside of Atlanta upon hearing of Longstreet's surrender and Davis's capture. Maj. General Sickles and the IX Corps marched from New York into Canada and after a sharp battle, captured Montreal on May 12. By June 1, Sherman had begun the siege of Halifax, and Hope Grant, pursued into Quebec with the Guards Brigade, was expected to capitulate in Quebec City.
On June 1, another plot on President Lincoln's life was narrowly foiled in Ford's Theater. Confederate agents had been winnowed out by Sharpe over the year of his command of the CIB, and the plot to place a bomb and detonate it in Ford's Theater had earlier been foiled in April. During a showing on Hamlet on the evening of June 1, stage star Edwin Booth was convinced by his brother John Wilkes Booth to allow the latter to play Hamlet in the play. At the end of Hamlet's soliloquy in the IV act, John Booth pulled out a concealed revolver, shouting "Sic semper tyrannis!" before shooting at the president. Only by the quick reflexes of Generals Grant and Sharpe was Lincoln's rocking chair thrown back and the bullet missed. A horrified Edwin wrestled his brother to the ground and the audience leaped onto the stage, nearly beating the would-be assassin to death. Through CIB interrogations of John Wilkes Booth, the Confederate Secret Service plot was unraveled and Jefferson Davis was absolved of any hand in the act.
By December 1864, the United States fully controlled all of the rebellious states of the former Confederate States of America and controlled Canada from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic with the notable exception of Quebec City. Halifax had fallen after a six-month siege by Sherman. At some unspecified point, a naval battle off Havana took place between American and British forces which resulted in the second capture in His Royal Highness Albert. Also at another unspecified point, General Henry Slocum served with distinction during the Second Battle of New Orleans, presumably another Franco-Confederate attempt to capture the city. The British cabinet was rocked by the immense defeats in North America, and Disraeli's government barely withstood a vote of no confidence. Disraeli was forced to form the first coalition government by allying with the Liberals and returning William Gladstone to the cabinet. When President Lincoln offered terms of peace in December, Disraeli eagerly accepted, as he was far more preoccupied by the repercussions of the war with Russia. Secretary Seward and Foreign Secretary George Villers, Lord Clarendon, met in neutral Spanish-controlled Havana, Cuba to hammer out a truce. They eventually settled on a status quo ante bellum, with Canada being returned to the British Empire in exchange for California. The Treaty of Havana was signed on July 24, 1865. Additionally, Secretary Seward achieved a treaty with the French Empire, to the effect that a French refusal to withdraw from Mexico would mean an invasion from a 100,000 strong army lead by Sheridan gathering on the Texas border.
A great number of parties were unsatisfied with the Treaty of Havana. The Fenians in America had assumed that Canada was going to be traded back for the independence of Ireland, but this was a political and military impossibility, as the British would never allow an enemy directly on their doorstep. Additionally, the fall of the Republic of Ireland made its resuscitation a moot point. Many people in the United States saw the return of Canada to the British as a betrayal, since such hard fighting had been made to capture it. However, Lincoln understood that the British would fight endlessly for the salvation of its loyal citizens, and United States was perilously low on niter. As such, Lincoln ordered a democratic process held in Canada, wherein the citizens could chose whether or not they wished to be ruled by the United States or the British Empire. The Canadians overwhelmingly chose loyalty to the crown. Lincoln justified his backing of the Treaty of Havana by pointing out that California had gold fields while Canada had ice fields. The Russian government was understandably upset that the Americans broke the terms of their treaty of alliance, which stated that neither power was to make a separate peace from one other. President Lincoln assuaged the Russians by offering to sell repeating arms in any quantity they desired.
Implied Events after the Trilogy
- The Great War (World War I): With the United States's withdrawal from the Great War, the Russian Empire and Prussia signed a treaty of alliance, and the Russian army moved on the Balkans. This would pit Russia and Germany (with arms sales by the United States) against the British Empire, Second French Empire, Austrian Empire, and Ottoman Empire. The rapid defeat of Austria by the Prussians in the real timeline in 1866 during the Seven Weeks War and the Prussian defeat of France during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 would suggest that the Prussians would not have a difficult time of fighting the war, though they would be fighting both Austria and France simultaneously. Later references to a united Germany mean that Bismark was successful in uniting Germany, which means that France was likely militarily defeated. Disraeli's great fear from Russia was over India - Russian control over Constantinople and the Bosporus would mean Russian influence over Egypt (and the French canal being constructed at Suez) and Russian pushes through Central Asia to threaten India. The growth in Balkan nationalism in the 19th century, characterized by the Greek War of Independence, was assisted and encouraged by the Russians. In the real timeline, the Russo-Turkish War of 1877 allowed for the independence of several new Balkan nations, such as Bulgaria and Romania, so a Russian intervention in 1864 could theoretically trigger these events. In the real timeline, the Russians did not enter Istanbul in 1878 because of British warships sending the perception of the threat of force, but a Russian Empire at war with the British Empire would not be as deterred. Nevertheless, Disraeli's absolute devotion to the idea that Istanbul was the key to Egypt and therefore India leaves the idea of Russian occupation in question. Neither the Russians nor British had any success in controlling Afghanistan in the real timeline, so it is likely safe to assume that no one side held hegemony there.
- Reconstruction: Since President Lincoln was not assassinated in 1863 or 1864, he served his full term to 1868. As such, Lincoln's ideals of reconciliation and brotherhood may have tempered the zeal of the Radical Republicans. Mention is made to a photograph taken of Lincoln and Jefferson Davis after the latter's capture, signalling the new change brought to the region and the rebirth of healing of old wounds. The passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution are conceivable during Lincoln's second term as the Republicans held a super-majority in both houses of Congress.
- Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant (1869 - 1877): Mentioned because of Elizabeth Van Lew's bold decision to hang a large American flag outside her window prompting a Union guard on her house to defend it from angry neighbors. As in the real timeline, Grant in this timeline appointed Van Lew as postmistress of Richmond for both his terms as President. In the real timeline, Grant's presidency was marked by serious scandals and corruption, and it is unlikely that this would change much during the Britannia's Fist timeline. The completion of the Transcontinental Railroad may have been sped with Lincoln's and then Grant's support, but this is speculation.
- The Second World War (World War II): Only one mention of this conflict is made, in a note about Von Zeppelin and Lowe working together to produce a new class of dirigible bomber, the Von-Steuben-class bomber named for American Revolutionary war hero Baron von Steuben, which had great success during bombing raids over London in 1890. Since a German victory over France is assumed for the First World War, some of the conditions during the Britannia's Fist timeline's World War II are more analogous to the real timeline's World War I, for example latent French resentment over the German seizure of Alsace-Lorraine that led to Franco-German military-political rivalry. Any German attempts to begin colonies would necessitate a significant fleet, leading to rivalry and suspicion from the British, but the German lead in dirigibles over the British would give the Germans a potent naval weapon. Any further Russian antagonisms or encroachment upon the crumbling Ottoman Empire would also in turn invoke the suspicion of the British, especially assuming the completion of the Suez Canal as in the real timeline. The spark that would lead to war is thus more confusing, as it would be unclear whether the Austrian and German Empires would reconcile or if the Austrians would view the Germans as rivals since they were allied with the Russians. If ethnic tensions in the Balkans lead to a political showdown, it is feasible that Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, possibly Italy, Russia, and Germany could be allied against the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Austria, possibly Italy, the Ottoman Empire, and conceivably Japan.
- Irish Independence: Because of the comparatively gentle method of suppressing the Irish rebellion, the British managed to achieve Irish home rule and independence without the violence characterized in the real timeline of the Easter Uprising, the Irish War of Independence, and the Irish Civil War. Passing mention is made of the Queen's portrait still hanging and venerated in Dublin.
Major characters
The asterisk (*) denotes fictional characters
Union-Russian aligned
- George H. Sharpe: Major General, United States Army. Leader of the Bureau of Military Information and later the even larger Central Information Bureau, or the CIB. Able military commander during the Anglo-Confederate Assault on Washington and the Battle of Chazy, with a mind for sharing intelligence between the rival army and navy. Importantly, he reestablished the Balloon service that languished, and personally commands the 120th Regiment NY Volunteers and 3rd Indiana Cavalry Regiment. Tsouras actually dedicated the series to Sharpe.
- Ulysses S. Grant: Lieutenant General, United States Army, and later General-in-Chief of all armies of the United States. A gifted strategist, Grant managed to save besieged Chattanooga after the Union tactical defeat of Chickamauga with fewer divisions as in the true timeline because of the Copperhead Rising and the British invasion of New England. He later arrived to assist in the Battle of Chazy, but was wounded. He returned to the Eastern Theater to trap Robert E. Lee in the Battle of Hannover Junction, effectively ending the Confederacy.
- Abraham Lincoln: 16th President of the United States. Lincoln was an avid fan of the new military technology introduced in the conflict, although not much came of it until the Army Ordinance Bureau chief, Brigadier General James Ripley, was relieved. Stubbornly remained in Washington D.C. during the Anglo-Confederate assault on the city. During the assault, Lincoln's bodyguard, secret Copperhead James "Big Jim" Smoke, attempted to kill him, but Lincoln unexpectedly killed his attacker. The only other threat to Lincoln's life came from John Wilkes Booth during a play shortly after the defeat of the Confederacy, but General Grant and George Sharpe threw the President down and the audience nearly beat Booth to death. Lincoln followed the difficult tack of reconciliation with the war-ravaged South and made peace with the United Kingdom separate of the Russian Empire, much to the latter's anger.
- George Gordon Meade: Major General, United States Army. Victor of the major Battle of Gettysburg. Meade retained control of the large Union Army of the Potomac after Grant became Commander-in-chief, but is continuously out-foxed by General Lee on multiple occasions. The Anglo-Confederate Assault on Washington took place while J.E.B. Stuart held Meade's army at length from Washington, but Meade managed to break through and end the battle. At General Grant's insistence, Meade tried to be more aggressive against Lee, but suffered larger casualties for no real net gain. Meade's Army of the Potomac managed to surprise General Lee by sealing the trap around Hanover Junction quicker than expected, successfully capturing the majority of the Army of Northern Virginia.
- William Tecumseh Sherman: Major General, United States Army. Served well with Grant in the Western Theater, and took command of the Union response to the Copperhead Rebellion, destructively stamping out the Midwestern rebels. Reassigned to take command of the Army of the Hudson after the incapacitation of command, and finished the Battle of Chazy. Set a trap for Doyle at the Battle of Saco, and managed to win a major victory in Maine. Presumably captured Wolseley and Portland Field Force, putting Halifax under siege in June and taking it by December.
- Phillip Sheridan: Major General, commander of the Cavalry Corps of the Army of the Potomac. Able leader, and brought a Union parity to the strong Confederate cavalry advantage held during the first half of the war. Critically, held off Longstreet's advance to reunite with Lee during the Battle of Hanover Junction. Later given command of an enormous army in Texas to invade Mexico if the French refused to withdraw.
- Winfield S. Hancock: Major General, United States Army. Jumped up to command the Army of the Rappahannock in 1864, and helped Sheridan hold the line during the Battle of Hanover Junction.
- Joseph Hooker: Major General, United States Army. Formerly disgraced by poor performance as Commander of the Army of the Potomac, but given another opportunity when the British invaded New York. Commanded the Army of the Hudson, and won the decisive Battle of Claverack. However, his overconfidence cost him during the initial phases of the Battle of Chazy, as his army was still strung-out. Killed during the opening parts of the Battle of Chazy.
- Thomas Meagher: Major General, United States Army. Raised Irish units at the wars beginning, but left his commission after the debacle of the Battle of Fredericksburg. Rejoined to fight the British-Canadian attack on New York, and won the minor tactical but major psychological victory at Cold Spring. Commanded the XI Corps at the Battle of Claverack, and forced the Albany Field Force to flee the field. Reassigned to command the Irish attack on Dublin, and succeeded in setting up a proto-government. Receded into drunken glory, but came under increasing pressure from British and Irish loyalist forces. Defeated in May of 1864.
- George Custer: Brigadier General, United States Army. Impatient and Aggressive cavalry general. Fought with the Army of the Hudson during the Battle of Claverack and later through the next several New England campaigns, including the Battle of Chazy, the raids on the Grand Trunk Railroad, and the Battles of Saco. Presumably retained command through the war into Upper Canada.
- Joshua Chamberlain: Colonel and later Major General, United States Army. Critical component during the Second Day of the Battle of Gettysburg, which catapulted him to fame. Sent to Maine to recruit for new members, and defended Portland from the British-Canadian assault and siege. Only defeated after a long, seven-month siege. Traded back to the Americans, he fought in the Battle of Saco, and was instrumental in the presumable capture of the Portland Field Force.
- William B. Franklin: Major General, United States Army. Commander of the XIX Corps during the Battle of Vermillionville, where he saved what he could from the catastrophic defeat. Later lead the counterattacks on the Franco-Confederate besieging force, culminating in the utter destruction of Bazaine's Army of Louisiana.
- John Dahlgren: Rear Admiral, United States Navy. Inventor of the Dahlgren guns, a muzzle-loaded cannon series scientifically designed to not blow up the gunners and deliver a powerful, heavy shot. Lead the United States South Atlantic Bloackading Squadron and was wounded in the major naval conflict of the Third Battle of Charleston, a significant tactical victory but ultimately a strategic defeat.
- Ulric Dahlgren: Colonel, United States Army. Son of famed Admiral and inventor John Dahlgren and hero of the Battle of Gettysburg. Took part in the Third Battle of Charleston and accepted the surrender of the British ironclad HMS Black Prince. Later lead the Essex raid portion of the Joint Union-Russo-Irish Raid on the British Isles, but was too late to retreat on the ship he arrived on. With a massive bounty placed on his head, Dahlgren and three other companions managed to steal a boat and were rescued by a passing Swedish ship. Given the Order of St. George by the Russian Monarchy and joined the Russian Army as an observer as it went south to liberate Istanbul. Met his future bride during a ball in St. Petersburg, a Russian princess.
- David Farragut: Admiral, United States Navy. Famed for his daring capture of New Orleans in 1862. Took the ironclad fleet out of the Atlantic into the Chesapeake and later won the Battle of the Chesapeake.
- David Dixon Porter: Rear Admiral, United States Navy. Commanded the Mississippi Squadron, and instrumental in the capture of Vicksburg in 1863. Significantly aided Franklin during the Battle for Port Hudson.
- Roswell Lamson: Captain, United States Navy. Exceedingly young captain for the period, refused to back down during the events of the Battle of Moelfre Bay. Took command of USS Kearsarge during the Battle of Upper Bay, and commanded the repaired ship for the Essex Raid portion of the Joint Raid to the great mortification of the Royal Navy. Escaped with only 40 percent of the men he arrived with.
- Thaddeus Lowe: Colonel, United States Army. Later leader of the revitalized Union Army Balloon Corps. First person to achieve a Air-to-Sea kill with a bomb dropped on the British sloop HMS Racer during the Anglo-Confederate Assault on Washington. Designed a series of Hydrogen dirigible airships, two of which resupplied Portland during the Siege of Portland and four of which took part in the Battle of the Chesapeake.
- William B. Cushing: Captain, United States Navy. Met Lowe by chance during the Anglo-Confederate Assault on Washington, and the pair worked together to kill two small ships from a balloon and save the Navy Yard. Became good friends with Lowe and was appointed by Gus Fox to lead the Navy's Balloon service, the Naval Aeronautical Service (NAS). Destroyed one ship during the Russo-American escape into the Atlantic, and another two during the Battle of the Chesapeake.
- Henry Adams: Son of Charles Francis Adams, Grandson and Great-Grandson to two American presidents. Was forced by his father to accompany Lamson aboard the USS Gettysburg, and while the pair initially didn't much care for each other, Adams selflessly dove on Lamson and took a bullet to the shoulder upon sighting a Royal Marine sniper. This act bonded the two together, making Lamson and Adams lifelong friends. Importantly, Adams seized Bulloch's papers aboard the CSS North Carolina, which proved to neutral Europe that the United Kingdom most definitely had ties to the Confederacy. Adams later joined Meagher to Dublin, declaring recognition of the Irish Republic on April 3.
- Andrew Carnegie: Scottish-born Railroad executive, entrepreneur, and talented manager selected by President Lincoln to rationalize the American war industry through chairing the War Production Board.
- Michael Wilmoth*: Lieutenant Colonel, United States Army. Protégé of George Sharpe, Wilmoth was technically astute in all natures of battlefield and strategic intelligence in both the BMI and CIB. Declared Director of Analysis in the CIB. Managed to delay "Big Jim" Smoke's assassination attempt long enough for Lincoln to fight off Smoke. Rode with the USS Shark on its trial run when it discovered the British boats en route to attack Fort Monroe, and claimed Bazalgette for interrogation. Gave critical information about the British fleet for the Battle of the Chesapeake.
- Stepan Lisovsky: Rear Admiral, Russian Imperial Navy. Joined the USS Kearsarge during the Battle of Upper Bay, and lead the Russian contingent during the Joint Raid on the British Isles. Killed by the HMS Prince Albert, and posthumously given the Order of St. George.
- Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Lieutenant, Russian Imperial Navy. Piano aficionado and Russian representative during the Essex raid. Badly wounded during the escape with Uhlric Dalhgren, but saved by the Swedes of the SS Vasa.
- Nikolay Muravyov-Karsky: General, Russian Imperial Army. Crushed the Polish Uprising of 1863, and returned to the Caucasus Military District in 1864 to lead the war effort from there.
- Eduard de Stoeckl: Russian ambassador to the United States. Wisely counseled patience and tolerance during the Trent Affair, but fully backed the United States after the United Kingdom's unjust declaration of war. In the real timeline, he and Secretary Seward negotiated the Alaska Purchase in 1867.
Confederate-Anglo-French aligned
- Robert E. Lee: General, Confederate States Army. Mastermind tactician in the Eastern Theater and commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. Actually wanted to give up command of the Army of Northern Virginia after the major defeat of Gettysburg, but the British entry into the war injected new life into the war effort, breaking the blockade and delivering tens of thousands of tons of supplies. Worked with the British in the Anglo-Confederate Assault on Washington, but retreated after the massacre on Long Bridge. Held off Meade's attempts to move south, and took the initiative away from Grant by besieging Fort Monroe from the landward side. Underestimated the effect of Union repeating arms in the open field, losing several broad scale attacks during the Battle of Hanover Junction to repeating gun fire. Surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia on May 8, 1864.
- James Longstreet: Lieutenant General, Confederate States Army. Perhaps the finest corps commander in the Confederate Army, Longstreet under-performed during his tenure in the Western Theater but made up for it by successfully winning the Second Battle of Big Bethel. Besieged Fort Monroe before rushing back to relieve Lee's position, but held back by Sheridan and Hancock. Surrendered his corps after finding Richmond occupied and Lee surrendered.
- J.E.B. Stuart: Major General, Confederate States Army. Excellent cavalry general, led a long series of raids through the Shenandoah Valley. Criticized for his lack of participation at Gettysburg, Stuart tried to make up for this post-battle, holding Meade during the Anglo-Confederate Assault on Washington, but was eventually forced through. Tried to break through Sheridan's cavalry during the beginning of the Battle of Hanover Junction and very nearly succeeded, but his cavalry could not breach the Union Gatling gun batteries. Rebuked by Lee for not breaking through Sheridan's thin line, so he attacked the following day and managed to break Wilson's cavalry. Since he lead from the front, he was shot at by retreating Union men, and was killed.
- Braxton Bragg: Major General, Confederate States Army. Personally a brave man, but an ineffective and paranoid commander. Alienated himself from his underlings, who clamored for his removal. Shot by Forrest during a one-sided duel and removed from command by Davis.
- Nathan Bedford Forrest: Brigadier General, Confederate States Army. Ex-slave catcher turned cavalry general, Forrest was an inventive and intuitive commander. Challenged Bragg to a duel after being given foolish orders, and shot him in the foot out of disgust. Court-martialed for this action.
- Jefferson Davis: President of the Confederate States of America. Vehemently defended the rights of Southern interests to hold slaves as property and expand the property-holding rights of slave holders. Infuriated by the British refusal to outright to acquiesce to an alliance. Accepted a French alliance, but began to seriously reconsider as information from New Orleans of French posturing became more and more evident. Captured by USCT men of Weitzel's Union group, and guarded by the 54th MA Regiment. Post-war, he had only good things to say about the professional conduct of the 54th.
- James "Big Jim" Smoke*: Indiana Copperhead and self-styled anti-Lincoln patriot. Lead Copperhead movements to raid Federal arsenals and release POWs from their camps. Managed to infiltrate President Lincoln's secret service, unknowingly approved by Lafayette Baker. Attempted to kill Lincoln during the confusion after the destruction of the Federal Arsenal, but was in turn killed by Lincoln.
- Garnet J. Wolseley: Brigadier General, British Army. One-eyed intelligence officer turned Commander who took part in the majority of the battles in the New England theater and protégé of James Hope Grant. Masterminded the British attack on Portland to secure Halifax, and fought in the Battles of Kennebunk, Claverack, Chazy, and Saco. Intelligent and resourceful counterpoint to George H. Sharpe, Wolsely was field promoted three times because of the death or incapacitation of his superior commanders. Presumably surrendered the Portland Field Force after the Battle of Saco.
- James Hope Grant: Lieutenant General, British Army. Eccentric commander of all Imperial Forces in North America, and veteran of the Indian Wars. Took command of the Portland Field Force during the Battle of Kennebunk, and was resigned to defeat until the timely arrival of the Royal Navy. Later took command of the Montreal Field Force after the defeat at Claverack, leading it on a campaign a month before spring grasses began to sprout and striking the unprepared Army of the Hudson. Wounded during the retreat, he sent Wolseley to take his place in the Portland Field Force during 1864. After realizing that the Grand Trunk Railroad had been severed, he took the Guards Brigade stuck in Brighton and force marched them to Gorham. The loss of the Portland Field Force meant the British-Canadian armies defending Canada were almost completely gone. He retreated with the Guards Brigade to Quebec City and defied all expectations by withstanding siege until the Treaty of Havana.
- Lord Frederick Paulet: Major General, British Army. Led the initial invasion of New York in 1863 with vicious glee, until being halted at the Battle of Claverack. A vacillating commander, he relied on Wolseley's good judgement on where to deploy his reserves and very nearly won the day. The same battery of coffee mill guns that destroyed the First Brigade of the Grenadier Guards took Paulet's life.
- Charles Hastings Doyle: Major General, British Army. Competent veteran of the Crimean War, he took command of the Portland Field Force after the death of its first commander during the First Battle of Portland. Doubly lost prestige during the Battle of Kennebunk as Hope Grant took the glory for the victory and he was blamed for the Portland garrison successfully sallying out and destroying the besieging camp. Finally managed to take Portland after seven months, and redeployed south to meet the oncoming Army of the Hudson. Decisively outfought during the Battle of Saco, and he lost his life leading his reserve in to try and save his right flank.
- William McBean: Colonel, British Army. Another veteran of the Indian Wars, where he served under Hope Grant. Decisive and brave commander willing to go against long odds, McBean's 78th Foot overran Cobham's brigade and held the British-Canadian rearguard during the Battle of Chazy. Later field promoted by Wolseley to command the 12th Brigade, he led a charge on the XI Corps and fell to its fire.
- George Denison: Colonel, Canadian Militia. Commander of the Royal Guides scout cavalry and able spy catcher, Denison assisted in British-Canadian intelligence estimates throughout the New England campaigns. Captured at the Battle of Saco by the very same men whom he had captured earlier in the war.
- James Yorke Scarlett: Lieutenant General, British Army. First response to the Irish Rebellion, Scarlett lost the Battle of Tallaght, but initiated a crippling siege.
- Robert Napier: Major General, Indian Army. Took command from Scarlett upon his arrival in Ireland, where he assembled the 60,000 strong force to oppose Dublin. Broke through the defenses of Dublin and gave the defenders lenient enough terms to give them the desire to surrender.
- Alexander Milne: Vice Admiral, Royal Navy. Commander of the North American and West Indies Station, Milne initiated the British counter-blockade of the United States, taking Martha's Vineyard as a forward outpost. Given a black eye for the British defeat at the Third Battle of Charleston.
- James Hope: Admiral, Royal Navy. Commanded the ironclad fleet during the Battle of the Chesapeake, but was overwhelmed by American firepower.
- Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha: Second to the line to the throne of Great Britain. Naval ensign aboard HMS Raccoon during the Third Battle of Charleston, where he was wounded and captured. Recuperated in the White House under the gentle supervision of Mary Todd Lincoln, whom he despised. Discharged to the United Kingdom at the end of 1863, where he bitterly complained about his treatment under Mrs. Lincoln being unsuitable for royals. Captured again after the Battle of Havana, and Mrs. Lincoln offered him her consolations from his POW camp.
- Benjamin Disraeli: Vocal member of Parliament and later Prime Minister, leader of the Tory (Conservative) Party. A calculating and sangfroid individual, Disraeli acknowledged that the war in America was foolish, but escalated it because of the honor of empire. Far more concerned with Russian ambitions around Istanbul than North America, Disraeli's prestige took an enormous hit for the triple calamity of the Joint Raid. Later acquiesced to peace with Lincoln and agreed to the Treaty of Havana after forming a coalition cabinet.
- François Achille Bazaine: Marshal of France, French Imperial Army. French commander of the Army of Louisiana. Won the critical Battle of Vermillionville, but had a falling out with his Confederate allies such that the severing of his army's supply lines at Port Hudson could not be assisted with. Too late to prevent the Army of Louisiana's destruction, he returned south to New Orleans after the battle and was likely captured by the Union men of the Corps D'Afrique. In the real timeline, he was severely discredited after losing several battles in the Franco-Prussian war and died fameless.
Neutral parties
- Karl Marx: Journalist and Provocateur, Marx saw the British entrance into the American Civil War as the Bourgeois element coming to crush the nascent workers and farmers of the United States. Wrote articles for the New York Tribune from his post in London.
- Ferdinand von Zeppelin: Captain in the Prussian Army and observer in the Union Army. He was enamored by Lowe's balloons and assisted him on several occasions; the pair became lifelong friends. They later designed the joint German-American Von-Steuben class bomber airship.
- Helmuth von Moltke the Elder: Prussian Army general; researched and developed new methods of warfare and was very intrigued by the American use of balloons and repeating arms. In the real timeline, Moltke the Elder led the successful Prussian campaign over the French in 1870.
References
- Tsouras, Peter (2008). Britannia's Fist: From Civil War to World War.
- Tsouras, Peter (2010). A Rainbow of Blood: the Union in Peril.
- Tsouras, Peter (2015). Bayonets, Balloons & Ironclads: Britain and France take sides with the South.
See also
- Harry Turtledove's Timeline-191 series
- Robert Conroy's 1862