Well I am being a little mean to McClellan. Truth is he was an excellent organizer and administrator, who reinvigorated the AotP after both First and Second Bull Run, and he could also make good plans. Unfortunately, his record in the field is mixed to be charitable, and the only campaign he planned and led was a strategic failure of the highest order. History would probably remember him better if he had never led men in battle, or if his wife had never published his correspondence, or if he hadn't run for president in 1864...
Wrapped in Flames: The Great American War and Beyond
- Thread starter EnglishCanuck
- Start date
Well I am being a little mean to McClellan. Truth is he was an excellent organizer and administrator, who reinvigorated the AotP after both First and Second Bull Run, and he could also make good plans. Unfortunately, his record in the field is mixed to be charitable, and the only campaign he planned and led was a strategic failure of the highest order. History would probably remember him better if he had never led men in battle, or if his wife had never published his correspondence, or if he hadn't run for president in 1864...
As ever I am delighted by the writing and quality of scholarship in this thread but thoroughly depressed by the subject matter: I suspect my poor old heart can only cope with one almighty and slaughterous century of civil war amongst the English-speaking peoples (and FILLING THE GAPS got there first, in my case).
As ever I am delighted by the writing and quality of scholarship in this thread but thoroughly depressed by the subject matter: I suspect my poor old heart can only cope with one almighty and slaughterous century of civil war amongst the English-speaking peoples (and FILLING THE GAPS got there first, in my case).
If it helps I don't plan on being quite so slaughter happy with the English speaking world as Harry Turtledove turned out to be by 1944
Can't speak for the rest of the 1800s however...For the upcoming action this map will prove somewhat helpful, but unfortunately not all the key landmarks are named and it is from 1857. I can try and whip a rough map up if people would like?
Chapter 28: War Means Killing Pt. 4
Chapter 28: War Means Killing Pt. 4
“I have never seen a more lovely day. The very few clouds that hung on the horizon only served to throw into relief the bright blue of the heavens – a blue such as we dream of when we speak of Italian skies, but never seen in England. In the distance lay our fleet mirrored in the still deeper azure of the Black Sea, and the same color as pure and deep in the harbor of Sebastopol contrasted well with the brilliant white of the handsome buildings that surrounded it. Light puffs of smoke rose above different parts of the lines, and every now and then what seemed to be a little fleecy cloud would suddenly appear in the heavens. This was the bursting of a shell.” – Phillip Rathbone observing the siege lines at Sebastopol, April 1855
“Since the arrival of William Paulet’s 3rd Division in mid-June, Pennefather had been able to stretch his siege lines around Portland further west, and definitively cut the rail lines, ensuring that the city was cut off except by road and the Oxford canal to the rest of the United States. With three divisions, and some 32,000 men now under his command, he had set to the task of attempting to besiege the city completely.
However, it was a siege that neither Pennefather nor London desired. In the minds of the mission’s planners it was meant to be a quick sweep down on a poorly defended port which would connect Maine to Canada via rail and ease the supply problems faced by the British in the winter. Now it tied down three divisions and necessitated a significant investment by the Royal Navy.
Since June there had been significant pressure from London for Pennefather to push the enemy from the city, a mission which Pennefather faced considerable difficulty in carrying out. Even with the arrival of Paulet’s troops, including the first Maritime Volunteers enrolled into Imperial service, he had at best numerical parity with the Army of New England which lay inside the defences. Keye, for all intents and purposes, led the troops in the field. The technical theater and army commander, Benjamin Butler, rarely bestirred himself to the siege lines outside of Portland, preferring to stay at his headquarters in Boston and organize the defences of the principle ports.
However, he had considerable problems with his subordinates. Keye enjoyed the command, but felt increasing frustration as his requests for more men and material were increasingly ignored by Butler in Boston. This caused considerable friction as Butler, a darling of the Radical Republican faction for his contraband policy and the Democratic Party for his pre-war politics, was impossible to remove from his position and he commanded considerable sway within New England itself. Though he made some effort to manage the siege, so far as he was concerned, the British were simply stuck in place, which on a basic level was in accordance with his directives from Washington. The commander of the North Atlantic Fleet, was a more difficult problem.
Flag Officer Charles Wilkes was, in his own way, as much of a darling to the nation as Butler was to the Radicals. Wilkes, 62 at the time of the Portland siege, had had a colorful and checkered career in the navy. Formerly known for his epic South Seas expedition, in which he had sailed around South America and up along the west coast, to the Pacific Islands, and finally to Washington state. However, he had lost one of his ships (for which he was court martialed) and brutally punished his crew and officers. This black mark on his career saw him shunted to the Coast Survey until the outbreak of war. There he had undertaken his boarding of the RMS Trent, which served as the catalyst for the British intervention. Upon his assignment, Secretary Seward had been warned “He will give us trouble. He has a superabundance of self-esteem and a deficiency of judgment. When he commanded his great exploring mission he court-martialed nearly all his officers; he alone was right, everybody else was wrong.” With a reputation of being overzealous, impulsive, and sometimes insubordinate, his assignment to squadron command had been contentious. In stepping into the role of a national hero, he was impossible to ignore however.
Here he feuded with Butler almost endlessly. Butler’s brother Andrew ran a runner cartel from Boston, and hoped to cooperate with the navy on obtaining important (and for Andrew, lucrative) supplies for the war effort. Wilkes refused to disclose naval activities to the Butler’s, and in return Butler made a litany of complaints against Wilkes for his “insubordinate” behavior to a superior officer. The recriminations amongst the army, navy, militia, and volunteer officers, and the problems this caused in the overall defence of New England, were legion. However, though there was tension, Wilkes often unpredictable actions kept the Royal Navy blockading squadron on its toes.
In the British camp, after the setback in early May, recriminations between army and navy were just as great. Pennefather, blamed the navy for the problems in the initial assault, while Admiral Johnstone made it clear his captains had acted properly. This had delayed army and navy cooperation in clearing the obstacles near Portland Harbor, and the siege had taken on a pretense of a race to see who could blast through the fortifications of Portland first. This resulted in the naval bombardments of Portland on May 28th, June 4th, and June 17th in 1862. While Pennefather worked to emplace his guns to greatest effect, and near nightly and daily bombardment followed as the guns sought to reduce the fortifications.
It took until July for the problems to be smoothed over between the commanding officers, with the help of direct pressure from London. By that point, conversations between the army and navy heads had brought forward a good plan for the seizure of the city. His greatest frustration was in preventing Keye’s field army from interfering with the city’s capture. He did not desire to be trapped in the city himself once he had taken it, nor did he want to pursue Keye across Maine in order to end the threat it represented. “It would not do for our army to enter the city in triumph only for the American Army to withdraw to Canada and make our whole effort pointless. We do not need another Sebastopol.” He would write this to Lewis who in turn would only echo the Cabinet’s stated policy to seize the city.
One of the principle lines of supply and communication still open to the city (despite near constant shelling) was the Oxford canal. Through this vital line of communication supplies could still flow which allowed for sustenance of the army. To ensure it had remained open Keye had fortified that portion of the line considerably. In this he was aided by geography as the hills on the north bank of the Stroudwater River allowed the defenders to shoot down on any attackers, meaning that considerable casualties would be taken if any force tried to assault it. This had been made painfully obvious during a probing attack near Stroudwater Village on June 17th which had been repulsed with heavy casualties amongst the attackers.
To that end Pennefather had probed the lines looking for weaknesses throughout June, and had found depressingly few. However, where the geography of the defences worked against him, it also worked in his favor. The trenches along the Fore River, by necessity, had their backs to the water. While they in theory could be easily resupplied and controlled by armed tugs in the river and boats which ferried men and supplies across, if the lines were overrun the men there were trapped and the city open to artillery barrage. The trenches at Fort Preble were strong, and supported by the guns of Fort Scammel and batteries along the shore, but those on the river were much more vulnerable to Pennefather’s siege artillery.
There were two key points in the defences Pennefather intended to reduce in July. The first were the twin earthworks supporting the trenches on Long Creek, Fort Long and Fort Casey which kept the trench lines even, the other was an earthwork named Fort Hamlin which sat astride Spring Road protecting the bridge there. In order to make this work easier Pennefather coordinated his future attacks with the navy, especially to reduce the guns protecting the harbor. His siege guns would reduce the strong points in the way of his impending attack, while the city was made progressively defenceless by the naval forces.
After the June 17th attack, Pennefather concentrated largely on slowly reducing the trench lines along the Fore River and moving his artillery closer to the city. In conjunction the forts were to be reduced by the navy. This was made more difficult as when guns were silenced the American defenders threw earthen batteries up, which while less powerful, remained an annoyance.
Despite the best efforts of the defenders, by the end of July Fort Preble was a ruin, and Fort Scammel had been silenced. Only the batteries on Hog Island presented any real opposition to the British ships, but Corchane’s ironclads proved more than capable of withstanding the guns in order to remove the torpedoes laid so desperately by the defenders.
It would be in these actions that Benjamin Jackson, a Nova Scotian serving aboard Warrior would be awarded the Victoria Cross. While undertaking to clear torpedoes in a launch alongside his fellows at night, a flare was sent up and he became exposed to enemy fire. Despite the fire, and the wounding of most other members of his crew, he would work diligently to clear torpedoes from the waters of the Fore River before rowing his comrades back to safety…
Pennefather set the main attack to commence along all fronts for July 25th. It would begin, on the night of the 24th however with specially chosen storming parties selected from volunteers from the regiments. “Parties of 100 or 150 (sometimes 200 or 300) were selected and formed up closest to the points to be assailed. At a sign from the officers who are going to lead the men creep over the top on all fours. Not a word is spoken, but at a sign from the officers – in they go. In less time than it takes to write this it is all over, the bayonet has done its work and the defenders are all destroyed or taken prisoner.”
Keye had been expecting a large attack for some time however, and so had concentrated Casey’s division at Westbrook as his reserve. The ever weakening state of the defences of the Fore River had prepared him to evacuate the garrison should the south bank be taken. Pennefather’s assault was designed to prevent just this occurrence. Just before dawn on the 25th however, a great bombardment began. “Thunder split the sky, unnaturally loud, and the whole shore lit up like the midnight sunrise.” One awestruck Maine militiamen would write afterwards, upon witnessing the beginning of the bombardment.
The siege guns under Rowan, and the mortar frigates and ironclads under Corchane began their own attack as well. In the early dawn light shell and shot fell on the defences, many streaking high and into the docks and suburbs of Portland itself, which further distracted the defenders as they sought to extinguish the resulting flames.
On the banks of Long Creek, the two earthworks were assaulted simultaneously, the storming parties having done their brutal work the night before. Taylor’s Division lead the charge. Fort Casey on the north bank was assaulted by the 29th, and 61st Regiment of Foot lead by Brigadier Brown, Fort Long was assaulted by the 53rd, and 78th under Brigadier Ewart. The two forts, though well made, had been weakened by the bombardment and cut off by the storming parties. Fort Casey, manned only by Home Guard, fell quickly. However, Fort Long had just had the 75th New York rotated into the line. Commanded by Colonel John A. Dodge, they had been slated to form part of the planned assault on New Orleans in February, but instead had been transported north to Portland with Williams Division. Having already seen some hard fighting at Alewife Brook, they were prepared for the assault.
They poured fire onto Ewart’s men as they two regiments sallied forth. Despite being cut off and outnumbered they fought tenaciously. Ewart was required to commit his full brigade to the action until finally Captain Alexander Mackenzie of the 78th raised the regimental colors above the fort. By that time over half of the 75th had been killed or wounded, including Col. Dodge…
Pennefather’s main attack would be carried out by Trollope’s Division. Trollope’s troops had been in the siege lines skirmishing with the American troops since May, and had held off Keye’s attempts to shift the British lines shortly after landing. The result was Trollope was well familiar with the ground he was going to assault. Trollope himself was experienced in siege warfare, as he had commanded brigades in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Divisions in the Crimea while serving in the trenches around Sevastopol, and he had previous experience in North America as Doyle’s predecessor in the Atlantic colonies, and had commanded the garrisons in the Ionian Islands where he had skirmished with insurgents there.
Trollope’s three brigades were led by BG John Cole (1st Brigade), Col. Charles Hood (2nd Brigade) and BG Alexander Gordon (3rd Brigade). Cole’s 1st Brigade formed the reserve, while Hood and Gordon’s brigades would be the tip of the spear assaulting Fort Hamlin.
The line along the Spring Road was held by William F. Smith’s division. His troops had been in good spirits despite the bombardment thanks to the repulse of the British on the 17th. His own brigades were led by Winfield S. Hancock (1st Brigade), William T.H. Brooks (2nd Brigade), and John W. Davidson (3rd Brigade). Hancock’s 1st Brigade had led the counterattack which repulsed the British with such heavy losses on the 17th of June, while Brooks brigade of Vermonters had performed admirably in their actions across the campaign and siege, taking the fight to the British wherever possible. Only Davidson’s 3rd Brigade had been relatively unbloodied in the fighting thus far. However, as the guns opened up on the 25th, Davidson’s men found themselves in the line of fire as Trollope’s brigade charged home at Fort Hamlin.
Davidson’s brigade had some 3,600 men ready for action that morning. Facing him were 7,500 British regulars, supported by heavy guns. The men of Gordon’s brigade led the way, the men of the 45th Regiment of Foot leading the charge. The heavy bombardment had reduced the number of guns available to Davidson’s men, but those that could fired back with admirably swiftness and the first assault bogged down. Gordon’s brigade was thrown in in its full strength and soon the fighting was raging in the trenches as men shot and bayonetted one another in close confines. The ferocity of the fighting was such that Davidson’s men were pushed back, save for one regiment. The 7th Maine.
Under the command of Lt. Col. Selden Connor, the 7th had originally mustered for service in Virginia, but when war with Britain had threatened they had been dispatched home with Smith’s division. Selden had been born in Fairfield Maine, and along with the men of his state he fought with a ferocity that can only come from men defending home and hearth. Despite lacking any combat experience, the men held firm and fired as fast as they were able into the attacking regiments. Even when the other men of Davidson’s brigade had withdrawn, they formed into a rough line and were driven to the base of the earthwork fortifications of Fort Hamlin itself, only surrendering when they came under fire from British fire in front of their position and above it. When a soldier raised a white shirt to indicate surrender, Gordon himself came forward to accept it. They had held up the British assault, on their own, for over an hour.
With Fort Hamlin fallen though, a gaping hole now existed in the Union lines west of Portland, which was made worse by the fall of the positions on the south bank of Fore River, now Pennefather began to move his heavy guns forward. Keye was suddenly threatened with the city being completely cut off. He began to move Casey’s division forward, but Pennefather unleashed another surprise.
While his cavalry had largely been restricted to harassing the Union flanks and protecting supplies moving from Cape Elizabeth to the siege lines, Pennefather had gambled on the American positions in their rear being unfortified, and so prepared to mount an audacious cavalry movement to completely break up the American rear. His 1st Cavalry Brigade, under BG John Foster of the 16th Lancers, was thrown through the gap. Comprised of the 9th, 12th, and 16th Lancers, along with a battery of Royal Horse Artillery, it contained perhaps the most singular oddity of the campaign in Maine, breaking through the trench lines they charged as though on the fields of Flanders or India against Davidson’s retreating soldiers. The true shock of a lance attack was enough to route Davidson’s men, even though the terrain was not even remotely suited to such a display. However, a successful cavalry charge nearly took place.
The counterattack under Hancock showed that infantry who did not break would do to cavalry what Wellington had done at Waterloo to the French cavalry. Hancock, upon hearing the reports of cavalry, marched his men to Capisic Pond, where he ordered the men to form square. Foster’s troops attempted to break them with shock action before they could form, but Hancock kept his men well in hand, and the attack was repulsed with the predictable result of cavalry facing prepared infantry. However, when the fresh troops of Cole’s brigade arrived, supported by the Royal Horse Artillery, Hancock was forced to withdraw, lest he be blown away by superior British firepower. Foster’s bloody cavalry began to move, in conjunction with Gordon’s infantry, towards Black Cove…
…despite Casey’s valiant counterattack, the British stood firm in their gained ground by the night of the 25th…
At dawn on the 26th the siege guns of Pennefather’s army sounded again. This time they were bombarding the burning hulk of the old Macedonian, which was soon wrecked at the mouth of the Fore River. Corchane’s ironclads were at the mouth of the harbor, and the city was well and truly cut off. The only troops inside were the battered remnants of William’s division, and the remaining 3,000 militiamen under Virgin’s command. Pennefather began negotiations for the surrender of the city.
Keye attempted to attack the fresh British positions, but the movement of men and artillery made any attempt to break the British lines near impossible as British guns hammered any forward movement. For two days this would continue, until Keye, recognizing the inevitable, withdrew his men to the fortified position at Westbrook. On the evening of the 29th Pennefather wrote to Virgin, who was by now de-facto commander of the garrison in Portland:
“To the Commander of the American garrison, I request that an armistice be undertaken to discuss the surrender of this city to avoid any further effusion of blood. I propose the following terms: the men remaining under arms inside should lay down their arms, and surrender themselves to the custody of my command. Their stores, and supplies shall be surrendered to this army. In exchange we shall parole those who offer to it, and transport to a place of imprisonment, those who refuse this offer. The personal property of the men, and the citizens of this city shall not be interfered with, and the city itself shall not suffer an further damage. If these terms are refused, I am prepared to use every heavy gun ashore and afloat in order to reduce the remaining defences and take the city by storm. I will require your reply come the dawn of the 31st”
This short, yet terrifyingly to the point, correspondence left Virgin with few options. Consultations with the mayor, and the Volunteer officers remaining to him left them with but one option.
At dawn on the 31st Virgin, accompanied by his aide, and Mayor William Thomas, emerged under a flag of truce to meet Pennefather and his staff. They met at the home of Warren Brown on the shores of Black Cove. With pleasantries dispensed early on, Virgin and Thomas agreed to Pennefather’s terms, and would surrender the remaining 6,000 soldiers inside the city. This was communicated to Keye via messenger from Virgin’s staff. The news was from there transmitted by telegraph to Washington…”– Empire and Blood: British Military Operations in the 19th Century Volume IV
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“To the last, I grapple with thee; From Hell's heart, I stab at thee;” – Captain Ahab, Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, 1851
“The fall of Portland would free up considerable naval power that the British were hoping to send elsewhere, especially with the setbacks at New York worrying with Admiralty. This was presupposed in Washington where the fall of Portland caused alarm, and Welle’s, in concurrence with Lincoln, was determined that the navy should make some effort to discomfort the blockaders before they could properly reposition their forces along the Union coast.
Orders were sent out mid-August for the commanders of the various squadrons to harass the British ships, and attempt to inflict as much damage as possible. This would lead to the two major naval events of August, the Battles of Cape Henlopen and the Battle of Massachusetts Bay…
…the Delaware Bay Squadron under Commodore Samuel F. Dupont had gained acclaim in March for Dupont’s burning of the British sloop Rosario, which had been seen as a success in light of the devastating Battle of the Keyes. Added to that had been Farragut’s success at Little Gull Island, which had seen a sharp rise in morale amongst American seamen.
In August 1862 Dupont’s squadron consisted of his flagship the USS Wabash(42), the USS Monongahela(10), the converted steamers Pocahontas(6) and Isaac Smith(6), and the gunboats Ottawa(5), Seneca(5), Pembina(5), and Penguin(5). They had carried out a few skirmishes with the British blockaders since March, but in light of the disadvantage in guns Dupont had declined to mount a serious challenge to the British blockaders. That had not stopped him from sortieing to protect runners and raiders from breaking out.
The Royal Navy, by and large, had been content to attempt to enforce the blockade rather than go after Dupont’s squadron. The Delaware Squadron was under the command of Rear Admiral Robert Smart from Donegal(101) he had the aid of the vessels Immortalité(51), Niagara(12), Vesuvius(6), Clinker(3) and Steady(5). With an overwhelming advantage in guns, Smart felt he had little to fear from the American squadron, save for an attempted sortie by Wabash, which saw him keep Immortalité on near constant alert, which tended to exhaust her crew. Smart, had largely seen combat against pirates and raiders in the Mediterranean, while serving on vessels which worked to apprehend the African slave trade. He was in that capacity, well-adjusted to running down blockade runners and raiders, but as seen by his lackluster attitude towards the American squadron, not well adapted to combat.
So when Dupont did sortie on August 9th, he was almost caught unawares.
Dupont came south through the bay, with Wabash leading the converted steamers, the two gunboays Ottawa and Penguin lagging behind. They were spotted almost immediately by Clinker, who sent up a flare alerting Immortalité, who in turn sent warning to Smart in Donegal.
The two squadrons met just west of Cape Henlopen. Dupont had hoped to take the gunboats unawares in a repeat of his action in March, but with the frigate waiting for him, and the battleship coming in, Dupont resolved to simply hit the blockaders and run. He turned his ships in an impressive line, raking the British vessels (and seriously damaging Clinker in the process) while turning to move to the safety of the upper reaches of Delaware Bay. The British frigate, soon supported by Donegal and Niagara, moved to pursue, but the chase action was called off as Dupont’s ships passed Nantuxent Cove, as Smart feared being lead into a trap involving torpedoes.
Dupont’s less than aggressive performance led to demands he be cashiered, or hauled before the Committee on the Conduct of the War. However, the damage inflicted on Clinker forced the gunboat to retire to Bermuda for repairs, and the negligible damage suffered by Dupont’s own fleet was seen as decent compensation, especially in light of the damage incurred at Massachusetts Bay…
…Wilkes, unlike his fellow commanders, had received his orders with aplomb. He was determined, it seemed, to cement his place in history as an American hero. He even felt he had a force powerful enough to eclipse Farragut’s victory at Little Gull Island. He could argue his squadron was just as strong as that which had bested Sotheby at Little Gull Island.
Come the 11th of August 1862 his squadron was most likely one of the strongest in the Union Navy. With his flag in the San Jacinto(12), Wilkes had a strong squadron of five steam warships, six gunboats, and two ironclads including; Housatonic(14), Wachusett(10), Powhatan(14), Canandaigua(6) Sagamore(5), Aroostook(5), Chocura(5), Huron(5), Marblehead(5), and Penobscot(5), Nantucket(2), Nahant(2) for a grand total of 90 guns.
The British squadron under Commodore Arthur Forbes, was smaller in its overall number of ships, but had a massive advantage in the number of guns it could deploy. Forbes squadron included the liners Hero(91)[F], Caledonia(40), the screw frigate Severn(51), the corvette Chanticleer(17), and the gunboats Goshawk(4), Vigilant(4), and Alacrity(4) with eight ships and 211 guns. However, like Milne had predicted, Hero was better served as a flagship and deterrent, and could do little to police the waterways, with that duty falling on the smaller vessels. His newest vessel though, Caledonia, was a reaction to the events in Lower Bay.
Caledonia was originally one of ten Bulwark Class battleships ordered and laid down at the end of the Russian War, and was among the five ordered to be converted to ironclad battleships in June 1861. These had been ordered rushed to completion upon the discovery of the American ironclad program. Though Milne would have preferred smaller ironclad vessels versus more “impractical liners” the needs of the River Class ironclads, and the conversion of other vessels meant these were the only ones available to be rushed to completion. Fitting out and launching in July, Caledonia was among the first of her sisters to arrive in North America, and she represented an advantage to the blockaders both in terms of firepower, and in terms of armor for challenging the two American ironclad vessels…
Wilkes hoped to emulate Farragut’s successes from earlier in the year, and so leaving only the gunboats Aroostook, Chocura, and Marblehead behind, he led the charge out Hypocrite Channel early on the morning of the 11th of August. The blockade that day was undertaken by Severn, and the gun vessels Goshawk and Vigilant off of Massachusetts Bay, with Chanticleer in squadron with Alarcity and Caledonia patrolling the North Channel. Hero had returned to Martha’s Vineyard for supplies, so Forbes had transferred his flag to Caledonia.
The initial sortie caught the blockaders by surprise, and they churned north towards The Graves, and Forbes ironclad. Wilkes, inexplicably confident now that the British had seemingly turned tail, gave chase.
The two squadrons would collide just north of Maffit Ledge, where Caledonia, Severn, and Chanticleer had formed in squadron, with the gunboats acting as a secondary squadron behind them. Wilkes, with San Jacinto, Housatonic, Wachusett, Powhatan, and Canandaigua, led his vessels straight into the teeth of the British formation, while the gunboats shepherded the much slower ironclads up from behind coming in, they hoped, on the rear of the engagement.
The steamships engaged in a ragged line, with the British ships working to shield the gunboats while battering their American counterparts. Wilkes vessels, for their part, sought to engage the British vessels in a melee. Wilkes took San Jacinto and Housatonic into the fray against Caledonia, while Wachusett, Powhatan, and Canandaigua sought to cut off the frigate and corvette…
…the armor on Caledonia frustrated the best of Wilkes fire, and Caledonia’s broadsides soon had shredded San Jacinto’s rigging, while Housatonic floundered with multiple holes appearing near the waterline. The brutal fire from the, for all intents impenetrable, ironclad soon had Wilkes shearing off, while his other consorts sought to do the same. However, they soon ran across the hapless gunboats which were now seeking to disengage from their short contest with their British counterparts.
The ironclad Nantucket was being towed to safety by Canandaigua, but her sister Nahant proved to be slower than her sister, and the rougher waters of Massachusetts Bay slowed her progress. She was soon descended on by the pursuing British vessels, and like her sister Monitor, had her gun ports blasted shut by the intensity of her fire. However, her armor prevented her from suffering crippling damage, but soon her smokestack was punctured repeatedly and her crew was soon blinded by smoke and burned by steam, and she drifted to ground on Green Island. Housatonic, her pumps working diligently, suffered a similar fate as her steering was soon disabled by shot from her pursuers, and ground herself on Devil’s Back Rock.
The remainder of Wilkes’s squadron would retreat down the Boston South Channel to safety, the British content to scoop up their prizes grounded on the rocks. Housatonic would be burned by her crew to prevent capture, but Nahant, damaged as she was, would fall into British hands and be towed back to Halifax for examination…
…the results of August, with the fall of Portland, the bloody battles in Kentucky and Virginia, and the disappointing actions on the seas would prove to become legendary in American military history. They would be aptly surmised by Secretary Welles with a section from his diary on August 30th recording: The national mood is depressed, and we have had no victories. August it seems, has been a black month for American arms…” – Troubled Waters: The Anglo-American War at Sea, Michael Tielhard, Aurora Publishing, 2002
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And with that we at last reach the end of August 1862 and move in to September. Next up we get a wee break from the battlefront and we move on to some politics and logistics in Chapter 29.
RodentRevolution
Banned
Well that was all executed with your customary flair and was certainly edge of the seat (in the case of the naval stuff check the life preserver) stuff. Well done this work continues to reward a detailed reading.
Thank you! I am glad people seem to be enjoying it! I am also glad to be taking a break from writing battle scenes for the next installment to concentrate on the less extravagant but more important important issue of finance!
Well there was a reason he was able to start an international incident historically...
Sortieing out beyond reason is something I could easily see him doing after reading a bit more about him. He was quarrelsome, insubordinate, and generally unpleasant as a commander. The bit I quoted about him court marshaling all of his officers is not even his most outrageous thing. Reading about the South Seas expedition shows he was a little unhinged, and in all probability not particularly suited for command. I think it's safe to say he won't be leading a fleet any time again soon!
Well he's most likely about to end up dragged before the Senate, which will probably do worse for his reputation once he starts speaking rather than the reverse. so his reputation TTL (coupled with the loss of two ships in his squadron and great damage to others) will be rather poor.
Presently in a different time zone so my final edits will be done when its morning in North America but evening here!
Awww I was hoping that it meant that there were going to be two chapters...It's a mystery
RodentRevolution
Banned
It's a mystery
Technically 30 will still be inbound, just for a mite longer than expected, be good to see 29 turn up though