On October 21, in the early hours of the morning, six black-painted gunboats slipped into the inner harbor of New Baltimore. They had entered Chesapeake Bay separately some days earlier flying false colors of various South American nations, rendezvousing at a remote cove and moving out after sunset. At full speed they ran directly under the guns of Fort Fisher on Fells Point.
The raid was a fast one, lasting a mere forty-five minutes, but significant damage was done to the docks and repair yards. The monitor Assateague, under repair at the time, was holed at her water line and sank in thirty feet of water. Federal response to the raid was impeded by the simultaneous eruption of fires and explosions in a dozen widely scattered parts of the city. Frightened crowds gathered in the streets, impeding the attempts of firemen to deal with the rapidly spreading conflagrations.
The raiders fled back into the darkness at their fastest speed, their way lighted by the glare of the burning town behind them. It took more than an hour for a pursuit to be mounted. As it started out, it was discovered that the raiders had taken the opportunity to sew the main channel with mines on their way out. The sloop-of-war Governor Payson struck one of these and sank with the loss of more than half her crew. The Federals slowed their pursuit so that smaller boats attempted to sweep a path for the rest.
Worse, as the pursuing vessels, twelve in number saw dawn well out in Chesapeake Bay, Admiral Roarke, aboard the Washington found not merely six raiders ahead of them, but fifteen ships spread out in a long arc and advancing towards the Federal squadron. Roarke was familiar with some of the attacking vessels, having fought against them in previous engagements. Others were unknown to him and did not look like any he had seen in Nationalist service before.
Soon the battle was joined, as shells arced towards the Federals. Their gunnery, the Admiral noticed was excellent, better than most of his own ships. The arms of the arc were moving so as to threaten Roarke’s squadron's flanks. His enemy had laid a trap, baited by the raiders. No time for anything clever, he thought. He ordered full speed ahead towards his enemy's line. With luck, he would punch through and initiate an attack of his own.
It was just past seven in the morning.
The battle raged for all of the morning. Roarke was a tenacious fighter, but in the end, outgunned and out-manned, the Federal squadron began to come apart as individual ships were forced to break off and retreat as best they could towards home. Roarke's flagship, the George Washington lost her propeller and steering tackle late in the battle and was forced to strike her colors and surrender. By then, it was obvious that the damage done to the squadron was crippling. More than half the Federal ships were lost or captured. Poor Roarke tried to take his own life that evening but was prevented by an alert fellow officer. He was fated to spend the rest of the war incarcerated in New Charleston.
The “Trafalgar Raid” was successful enough to cause consternation not just in New Baltimore, but in Federal towns up and down the eastern coast. There were political repercussions in Memphis as well. Within the ruling elites, political judgments began began to be re-examined. The worrisome fact that the raid had been coordinated with with organized sabotage and arson called into question the security apparatus of New Baltimore. Within the week, the Chief of Police of the city and the local commander of the National Police were sacked and a dawn to dusk curfew imposed. Elsewhere, attentive minds made their own conclusions and adjusted their own plans.
