Chapter 28

I immediately commenced an investigation for the purpose of learning all the circumstances of the affair Pope’s retreat, and am sorry to be obliged to say that the more I hear and learn of the facts the more disgraceful does it appear.

– Flag Officer William W. McKean, Commanding Gulf Blockading Squadron, to Hon. Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy The current was sweeping the USS Richmond sideways down the South West Pass, and there was nothing Captain John Pope could do.

They were in a world of warm, humid blackness. The only lights visible beyond the confines of the sloop were the taffrail lights of Vincennes and Preble, downriver from Richmond, and the three great fire rafts above, massive trunks of flame, sweeping down on her, no more than two hundred yards away. There was nothing Captain Pope could do but hope the Richmond drifted faster than the rafts.

He tapped his fingers on the cap rail for as long as he could stand it, then turned to the master, said, “Port your helm and come full ahead.”

“Port your helm!” the master shouted.

“Port your helm!” the helmsman replied and spun the wheel over.

“Helm’s aport!”

The master rang the engine-room bell, and Pope could picture the engineer down among his pipes and boilers and shafts, cursing at the captain, who once again rang for steam he did not have. But there was only the jingle of the bell in reply, the low vibration underfoot as the throttle was opened and the propeller began to churn water.

They stood fixed in place on the quarterdeck, waiting to see what the big ship would do. The screw made a gurgling sound as it roiled the water under the counter, but it did no good. They did not have the steam to turn the ship’s bow upriver. The Father of Waters swept them along through the night.

Pope began to compose his report. The Vincennes and the Preble proceeded downriver, while I maintained a position broadside to the enemy in order to cover their retreat…

No, no, no…who in hell would believe that? They’ll ask the pilot for a report, he’ll say we could not get our head around…

“Captain?” The pilot, Wilcox, stepped up, one hand on the rail, looking out into the dark.

“Yes?” Pope said. His voice sounded guilty in his own ears.

“We’re getting mighty close to the right-hand shore. I’m afraid we’ll be aground directly.”

“I’ve tried to get her head around but it won’t answer.”

“Perhaps if we go astern on the engines we can work off?”

“Perhaps. Ring full astern.”

The bell was rung, the engine room jingled in response, and moments later came the jerky, screeching, clanging, hissing noise of two big steam engines turning in reverse, engines that were anything but reliable, particularly in reversing.

The fire rafts, drifting fast downstream, threw the occasional cast of light over the shoreline, illuminating the scrubby trees and dense marsh grass. The engines protested. All eyes on the Richmond’s quarterdeck were fixed on the shore, what they could see of the shore, in the fire rafts’ light.

The minutes ground by and the big ship swept downstream and the engines turned with the cacophony of something going terribly wrong, until, foot by foot, they succeeded in pulling the Richmond backward into midstream.

“Perhaps we have steam enough now to turn her head upstream?” Pope asked hopefully, but Wilcox shook his head.

“We don’t have room here to turn, sir,” he said. “We’ll have to wait until we are down by Pilot Town. Should be room enough there.”

For a moment Pope said nothing. Continue on like this? They were floating sideways down South West Pass, with fire rafts in pursuit and enemy gunboats behind them. There was an unsettled, nightmare quality to the whole thing. But what could he do?

“Very well, Mr. Wilcox, we’ll try again at Pilot Town.”

Robley Paine looked at his watch. Five twenty-three a.m. An hour and forty minutes after the initial attack. The ram and the fire rafts had scared hell out of the Yankee fleet, sent them skedaddling, but they did not seem to have done more than that.

The rafts had grounded on the western bank and were now burning themselves out. The ram had limped off after her initial attack. Lieutenant

Warley, who had command of her, was no coward, Robley knew that, so Robley had to imagine that she was disabled in some way. The engines, he knew, were hardly reliable.

But that was fine. They had done their work, the Manassas and the fire rafts. Now was the moment for the gunboats to plunge ahead, to blast holes in the fleeing Yankees, to make sure the Anaconda understood it was not the only dangerous beast in those waters.

“First light,” Paine observed. In the east, a band of gray was glowing dull near the horizon. Robley could see the bow of the Yazoo River and the bulwark of cotton bales bathed in the dull, blue-gray dawn. Beyond that, the Confederate fleet and the Mississippi River were still lost in gloom.

Kinney grunted, said nothing.

They had been waiting. In the dark, it was hard to know what was happening downriver. The fire rafts cast their wide circles of light, which reflected on the black hulls of the panicked Yankee ships. The mosquito fleet was able to follow behind the rafts, keep an eye on the enemy, until at last the fire rafts grounded out and the Yankees were swallowed up by the darkness down South West Pass.

The head of South West Pass loomed like a cave, and they dared not enter, because there was no way to know what was in there. Perhaps nothing. Perhaps the Yankees had fled clear to the Gulf. Or perhaps the Confederates would meet up with three heavy men-of-war, anchored, spring lines rigged, heavy broadsides waiting for the gunboats.

That possibility gave Robley Paine no pause. He would have gladly steamed ahead, attacked whatever he found, thrown himself and his ship at the Yankees, offered all up to the memory of his sons.

But Hollins was not so inclined, and Hollins was in command, so they waited. Paine stepped out of the wheelhouse, paced the hurricane deck, glanced up now and again. It was growing light fast. He could see the shapes of the other vessels of the squadron, to the east and west of him, shadowy vessels with plumes of dark smoke coming from their stacks. He could see the far banks of the river now, dark against the lighter sky.

He could not see the Yankee fleet. They were gone, driven from the Head of the Passes.

The sight of that empty water, where just two hours before a powerful enemy squadron had anchored, spread joy through Robley Paine like the light of the rising sun.

And then, hard on the heels of that good feeling, fear.

Hollins would never give up the fight as won? he thought.

He looked up at the Calhoun, Hollins’s flagship, wondering how he might determine the flag officer’s intentions. He saw a belch of black smoke pour from her stack, saw the water churn white as her side wheels began to turn and the five-hundred-ton steamer began to inch ahead, the eighteen-pounder rifle on her bow pointing the way, like the nose of a hunting dog on its quarry’s scent.

Paine stepped eagerly back into the wheelhouse. “Half ahead, Mr.

Kinney,” he said. He had been puttering about the river long enough that he was beginning to feel comfortable in his role of captain. “Keep pace with the flagship.”

Kinney grunted. “Flagship…” he muttered in a derisive tone, and it did sound a bit foolish, said that way, but Robley did not care. They were plunging ahead, down South West Pass, chasing after the fleeing enemy, and that was all he needed to know.

Kinney rang the requisite bells, and down in the engine room Mr.

Brown jingled back. The Yazoo River seemed to come awake. The big stern wheels began to turn and the bobbing, erratic motion of a ship stopped in the stream-underway but not making way, in the parlance of the mariners-changed into the steady rhythm of a ship steaming ahead.

Paine looked east and west. The others, the McRae, the Ivy, the Tuscarora, the Calhoun, and the Jackson, they were all gathering way, heading downriver in line abreast. Here was the bold advance, the waterborne cavalry charge. The fleet looked to Robley like a line of mounted knights, rolling forward.

And on this charge cried “God for Henry, England, and St. George!”

Robley Paine was not happy-happiness was a thing from his past-but he was at least satisfied.

They eased their throttles open, Commodore Hollins’s squadron, and churned the brown water white and under parallel trails of black smoke steamed the fifteen miles down the South West Pass to the sea.

Kinney fidgeted, chewed hard, spit on the deck and the sides of the spittoon. “Don’t know what in hell y’all think you’ll do, if you come on them Yankees…” he muttered, and Paine was not sure if he was looking for an answer, but he gave it to him anyway.

“We will go to battle with them, Mr. Kinney. We will fire on them and endeavor to do as much damage as we can.”

“‘Fire on them…’” Kinney muttered. Paine did not answer again.

The fleet was capable of eight knots over the ground, with the boost they got from the current, and the marshy shore seemed to fly past. The sun broke the horizon and turned the sky a light, hazy blue. Two columns of smoke rose from stacks somewhere down the South West Pass, and the Confederate fleet was closing fast.

“Come left, you stupid son of a bitch,” Kinney growled at the helmsman, who turned the big wheel a few spokes. The pilot was becoming visibly more nervous with each mile made good and turning his fear into abuse.

“Steady, Mr. Kinney,” Robley said, hand resting on the butt of the Starr.

“Don’t lose your nerve yet. The iron has not yet begun to fly.”

“‘Iron fly…’ Ain’t what I goddamned signed on for! How many time I got to tell you? You never said nothing about fighting no Yankees.”

“Mr. Kinney…” Robley pulled the Starr from his holster, spun the cylinder to see that each chamber was loaded. “Please be assured that you have much more to fear from me than you do from the Yankees.”

Kinney looked from the pistol to Robley’s face. He turned, stared out the window at the water under the bow. “‘More to fear from me…’ Crazy son of a bitch…” he said, lower this time, low enough so as not to invite response, which Robley did not provide.

South West Pass was all but straight, a boulevard of water through the delta, and soon the Yankees were in sight, clustered around the bar, one ship on the Gulf side and two still inland of the muddy shallows. The largest of them, the steamer, was pouring smoke, which made a sharp angle as it roiled from her stack and blew away to the south. The ships were motionless, as far as Robley could tell, the steamer broadside to the river, the smaller one with her stern pointed right at the Confederate fleet.

Robley picked up his field glasses, swept the ships on the bar. “They are aground,” he said. “I do believe they are aground.” It was too much to hope for. The enemy stranded in the mud, right under his bow gun.

He stepped from the wheelhouse and forward, to the edge of the hurricane deck. Below him, the gun crew sat on the deck, leaning against the cotton wall, or stood gazing forward at the distant Yankee ships.

“Gun crew!” Paine called, and the men looked up. “The Yankees are aground! Load and run out!”

The men went through the drill, silent and fast, just as they had done so many times dockside in New Orleans.

“Fire!” Paine shouted out, much louder than necessary. The gunner pulled the lanyard and the ten-inch Dahlgren fired with its great throaty roar, flung itself back against the breeching. Paine could see the shell make a black streak in the light blue sky as it sailed toward the Yankees, shrieked through the rigging, and plunged into the water beyond the bar.

“Lower! Lower! You’re firing right over their damned heads!”

On either side of the Yazoo River the other gunboats were opening up, firing their heterogeneous collection of artillery, an eighteen-pounder Dahlgren, an eight-inch rifle, an eight-inch Columbiad; they all fired as fast as they could, pouring shot and shells into the stranded Yankees, hitting back in a way that the Confederate Navy had yet to do, after seven months of war.

The Yazoo River’s bow gun fired again, but Robley could not see where the shot fell.

And then the Yankees replied, the big steamer, firing her broadside guns at the mosquito fleet. The muzzle flashes looked dull and insignificant in the sunlight. A series of water spouts shot up from the river, two hundred yards short.

“Kinney,” Paine called, stamping back into the wheelhouse. “Slow ahead. We’ll creep up to point-blank range.”

“Son of a bitch! We ain’t in range of them Yankees here. We should stay here.”

“If we ‘ain’t’ in range, then we should get closer. But see here, I don’t need you just to ring a bell. I can ring the bell myself, and that will save me the cost of paying you your wages.” Robley reached for the bell cord, but Kinney was there, moving across the wheelhouse with two quick steps, snatching the cord practically from Robley’s hand.

“All right, all right, goddamn it…slow ahead!”

Robley nodded, left the wheelhouse, took his place on the front edge of the hurricane deck, where his view of the enemy and his own gun crew was unimpeded.

He looked right and left. The line of pugnacious gunboats blasting away, from the 830-ton, bark-rigged side-wheel steamer McRae to the fast

river tug Jackson, made his heart sing. Fighting back, that was the thing.

Was there anything more terrifying then sitting idly by, while the serpent wrapped itself around his new nation?

The turn of the Yazoo River’s stern wheels began to slow, the creaking note lowering in pitch, and the boat’s forward motion was checked. Paine whirled around, caught Kinney’s eye, and Kinney looked quickly away.

Paine crashed the wheelhouse door open as he burst in. “I give the goddamned orders! I say when to go, and when to stop, is that clear, Mr.

Kinney?”

“I reckoned it was time to stop. We getting damned close to being in range of them Yankees.” The shot from the steamer’s smoothbores was beginning to fall just a hundred yards or so beyond the bow, and some even falling around the boat.

“Slow ahead, Mr. Kinney,” he said, soft, and once again Kinney reached for the bell cord and tugged.

I will have to shoot that coward before we are through here… Robley thought. He held Kinney fixed with his eyes until he felt the stern wheels begin to turn again, felt the Yazoo River’s momentum build. She was out ahead of the others now, but that was where Robley wished to be.

Then, from deep below them, from somewhere near the bottom of the ship, a terrible wrenching sound of metal. Something snapped with a sharp report. The starboard paddle wheel stopped instantly, as if the hand of God had been laid on it, and the boat began to slew.

“Meet her, meet her!” Robley said to the helmsman. They had gone through this drill before. The helmsman spun the wheel, compensating for the off-center thrust of the single paddle wheel.

“Well, shit, reckon that’s it,” Kinney said with a hopeful tone.

“We have two engines, Mr. Kinney, and we have lost only one.”

“You don’t mean to keep on here?”

“Slow ahead, Mr. Kinney. I shall signal you when to stop.”

Paine walked out onto the hurricane deck. Am I mad? he wondered. He knew it was a terrible risk he was taking, driving the Yazoo River forward until she was within range of the Yankee’s guns. He could not muster even the slightest concern for his own welfare, or for that of his ship and men, which he considered no more than an extension of his own will.

Madness!

But can I be mad, if I understand that what I am doing is madness?

The bow gun fired again, and he traced the trajectory right to the big steamer’s hull. They were not above five hundred yards away, easy for their big rifle, and well within range of the Yankee’s broadsides.

The round shot was falling all around them now, kicking up spray that fell on the Yazoo River’s deck, but the gun crew was performing well, loading and firing, seemingly as oblivious to the shot as was Robley. He was proud of his crew. Were it not for Kinney, all would be perfect.

From the Yankee ship, a muzzle flash, a foreshortened black streak, and Robley watched as it slashed toward them, screaming by his ear, leaving a jagged hole in the wheelhouse astern. He was standing in the hail of iron, leaning into it, as if it was a cool rain at the end of a hot, humid summer day. He was revived by the gunfire, refreshed by the proximity of death.

You sulfurous and mind-tempting flames, vault couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts, singe my white head!

A Yankee ball came in on a flat trajectory, plowed down the hurricane-deck rail on the port side, snapping off the stanchions like a scythe through wheat.

Now what are the chances of that? Robley wondered as he looked at the unusual site, the twisted metal posts and rails, hanging at odd angles.

He turned to the wheelhouse, held up his hand for Kinney to ring slow astern, which would hold them on that spot in the river.

From the Yankees came a new note, a sharper crack, not like the flat, dull boom of the smoothbores. Robley brought his field glasses up to his eyes. The smaller ship, the one run bow first on the mud, had moved two guns aft and run them out of the after gunports. These were not smoothbores but rifles, Robley could tell by the higher pitch of their report.

As he watched through the binoculars, the port gun fired, the crack of the gun and the scream of the shell whirling past coming one on top of another. Exploding shells. This was dangerous stuff, much more so than the round shot. Robley felt exhilarated.

The air was filled with the sound of battle, a continuous rolling fire from the Rebels and the Yankees, the buzz of round shot passing close, the scream of the rifle shells, the occasional crash of shot hitting the Yazoo River, taking off bits of the superstructure, chipping away at the wheelhouse. And under it all, the hiss and puff and clank of the single engine, driving the single paddle wheel slow astern. And then it stopped.

Paine was aware first of the change in sound, some part of the tapestry of battle noise gone. And then the Yazoo River began to turn, to drift downstream, spinning broadside to the Yankee fleet, the current sweeping her into the deadly broadsides.

What…what… Robley was not sure what to do. They had never lost both engines. They had never been under fire.

Kinney appeared on the deck below, running forward with the awkward run of a short, stocky man. “Let the anchor go! Let the anchor go!” he shouted as he ran. Someone let fly the ring stopper and the anchor plunged down into the water and the chain raced out after it.

From the hurricane deck, Robley watched the action take place but did not know what to say. He turned and looked at the wheelhouse, but there were no answers there. How in hell did Kinney get down there so fast? Why didn’t he just call down from the wheelhouse?

The chain ran its length and stopped. The anchor grabbed hold and the Yazoo River spun around, bow upstream, hanging at the end of the chain, the Yankee shot falling all around and passing over her deckhouse to fall in the water beyond.

Now what in hell? Robley was at a loss. Robley, who was starting to feel his oats as ship’s captain, realized he had no idea of what to do.

Boots on the ladder and Kinney appeared on the hurricane deck, and behind him, Brown, the engineer, filthy, sweat-soaked, face streaked with coal dust, eyes red, watery, and utterly disingenuous.

“What is it, Brown?” Robley demanded.

“Lost the rod on the starboard engine. Now it’s a bearing on the port crankshaft. It’s a fucking mess.”

Robley shifted his gaze to Kinney, who met his eyes with defiance.

“You best signal one of them towboats to come over here, give us a tow upriver. Fight’s over, Cap’n.”

For a long moment no one moved, no one spoke. Paine, Kinney, and Brown, they stood facing one another.

Paine broke the silence. “I know you two.” He pointed to Kinney, put his finger right in the pilot’s face. “You are cock”-he moved his finger to Brown-“and you are bull, and you are both goddamned liars. Go get that engine going.”

“I done told you, the bearing…”

“Don’t you lie to me, you son of a whore!” Robley could feel his control slipping, the emotional dam he had built up to keep the rage contained crumbling. If it collapsed he did not know what would happen, and he was afraid. The dam was the thing that stopped him from simply roaming the streets and shooting down every son of a bitch who did not deserve to breathe, but still did, while his boys did not.

Brown took a step back. He looked frightened, frightened of what he saw in Robley’s eyes. “Cap’n, I ain’t…”

Kinney’s hand came out of his coat, a five-inch double-barrel Remington derringer in his meaty palm. “You’re a goddamned lunatic, Paine, and all your money don’t change that. Keep yer hand away from that pistol.”

Robley reached across his chest, put his hand on the butt of the Starr.

“I said keep yer hand away from that pistol,” Kinney repeated, his voice rising in pitch. Paine pulled the heavy weapon loose, swung it up.

“Put the goddamned gun down!” Kinney screamed, but Kinney had made a big mistake, because he was a coward, and cared for nothing but his own skin, and was as terrified of hanging for murder as he was of being killed by Yankees, while Robley Paine did not care a whit about any of it.

Robley pointed the Starr at Kinney’s trembling hand and just when Kinney realized he had better shoot, because Paine was beyond being threatened, Paine pulled the trigger. The Starr roared, and the.44 bullet hit the derringer with a sharp pinging sound, blew the gun and three of Kinney’s fingers clean off the hurricane deck.

Robley swung the smoking barrel around so that it was pointing right in Brown’s face, not six inches from the tip of his nose. “Slow ahead, Mr.

Brown,” he said, just loud enough to be heard over Kinney’s shrieks of pain and terror and the rumble of the big guns.

Six minutes later, with the shells and round shot still falling like hail around them, the Yazoo River’s port paddle wheel began its slow revolutions, the anchor chain was brought in, and the battered gunboat crept back to her place in the line of battle.

Captain Pope stamped the deck, slammed his fist down on the taffrail in frustration. They were taking fire from the Rebels, and none of the Richmond’s guns had the range to hit back. The dammed gunboats were too far away, save for the one stern-wheeler that had come so aggravatingly

close. They had watched her slew around and come to anchor, and for a happy moment thought they had shot out her engines or paddle wheel. But fifteen minutes later she was underway again.

He felt like an idiot. He did not think this would reflect well on him.

He turned to the signal quartermaster. “Make a signal to the ships beyond the bar-‘Get underway.’”

“‘Get underway,’ aye, aye, sir,” he said and turned to the bag of signal flags at his feet.

Damn, damn, damn… Pope thought. We have to do something. What?

The signal flag snapped up the halyard, fluttered there for five minutes, and then came down again. The scream of the Rebel shells, the boom of the port-side Dahlgrens, continued unabated, the smoke hanging thick on the deck before swirling away south.

“Sir?” Whitfield was crossing the deck, a worried look on his face.

Now what?

“Yes, Luff?”

“Captain Handy’s coming aboard, sir,” he reported with a puzzled tone.

“He has his men with him.”

“His…men? You mean his crew?”

“It would seem so, sir.”

“What, has he…has he abandoned his ship?”

“Ahhh…” Whitfield hesitated, but happily for the executive officer Captain Handy himself appeared through the gangway. He was wearing his dark blue frock coat and cap. Around his waist was wrapped the Vincennes’s battle ensign, great folds of red, white, and blue cloth.

“What the devil…?” Pope said as Handy climbed the quarterdeck ladder, stopped, and saluted.

“I am here, sir,” Handy reported, his voice near shouting to be heard over the din of the Richmond’s guns and the Rebel artillery.

“I can see you are here, Captain,” Pope replied, shouting and sputtering.

“What the devil are you doing here?”

“Your signal, sir. I am obeying your signal.”

“What signal?”

Handy, looking suddenly unsure, glanced around. “Your signal you just ran up. ‘Abandon ship.’”

“I didn’t signal ‘Abandon ship.’ I signaled for the vessel beyond the bar to get underway.”

“Oh. Well, sir, my signal quartermaster saw the signal flag, blue, white, blue, as did I. We interpreted that as signal number one, ‘Abandon ship.’”

“Sir, I do not know what you saw, or thought you saw, but I most certainly did not signal for you to abandon ship!”

“I am sorry, sir,” Handy shouted. “But I most certainly…”

Pope shook his head, cut him off in mid-argument. “Captain, I will not debate this point with you! Get your men and get back to your ship and defend it from the enemy in a manner such as is expected of you.”

Handy shut his mouth, straightened a bit, held Pope’s eyes, but made no effort to move. “The thing of it is, sir, before we abandoned her, so the Rebels would not take possession, sir, we set slow match to the power magazine.”

Pope’s mouth fell open of its own accord. “You…what?”

“Slow match, sir. The Rebels…she’s going to blow any minute, sir.”

For two hours, the mosquito fleet pounded the Yankees, and then they were done. Ammunition all but gone, coal bunkers running low, crews near the point of exhaustion, they put up their helms and stoked their fires to provide steam for their tired engines to stem the flood of South West Pass, steaming upriver to New Orleans.

Robley Paine sat on the stool in the Yazoo River’s wheelhouse, holding the Starr cradled in his lap. Five feet in front on him, sobbing and cursing, Captain Kinney piloted the boat north. Paine was confident that Kinney would do a proper job, because Kinney was aware that the next bullet would part his skull, the moment the Yazoo River touched bottom. It seemed a wonderful motivator.

Paine did not like the sound of the single engine. It was growing noticeably louder, crashing and clanging. But he had confidence that Brown would keep her turning as long as she was physically able to turn. The motivational techniques he used on the pilot seemed to work even better with the engineer.

Robley Paine felt satisfied. It had been a good expedition. It could have been better, could have been much better-they could have sunk or taken or crippled one of the Yankees-but still it had been good.

It was his first experience with naval warfare, and he had learned a great deal. It would take weeks, he knew, to sort out and codify all the lessons

from those twenty hours. But two of them stood out, big and bold, like headlines in a newspaper, two things he required to wage proper war.

He needed a crew of proper navy men.

He needed an ironclad.

The Vincennes did not blow up. A quarter gunner, who had been ordered to light the slow match, a man with more sense than the captain, understood that blowing the ship to kingdom come in the face of the mosquito fleet was absurd. He followed orders, lit the fuse, then cut the burning end off and threw it overboard.

He did not, however, tell anyone. For two hours Pope and Handy and the combined crew of two ships stood anxiously waiting for the massive shock of the sloop’s powder magazine to blow. When at last it was clear that the ship was not going to explode, Pope ordered the Vincenneses back aboard.

For the next ten hours they worked to get the ships off the mud and over the bar to open water, where they belonged. They set kedge anchors and heaved, they passed towlines to the small screw steamer Water Witch, and she pulled until she all but buried her stern, but it did no good. Aboard the Vincennes they started the water and pumped it over, threw round shot and spare anchors and finally the great guns into the river, but still they remained fast in the mud.

When darkness came they stood down. Pope sat on a quarterdeck hatch combing, his coat unbuttoned, his fringe of hair sticking out at odd angles.

The deck seemed to pull at him with a force greater than gravity.

He heard shoes on the quarterdeck ladder and looked up. The midshipman of the watch approached tentatively, which further annoyed Pope.

“What is it?” the captain snapped.

“Boat from Vincennes, sir, brought this note.” He held out a folded letter as if he was feeding a dangerous animal. Pope snatched it away, unfolded it, angled the paper so the light from the lantern behind him fell on the words.

SIR: We are aground. We have only two guns that will bear in the direction of the enemy. Shall I remain on board after the moon goes down, with my crippled ship and worn-out men? Will you send me word what countersign my boats shall use if we pass near your ship?

While we have moonlight, would it not be better to leave the ship? Shall I burn her when I leave her?

Respectfully,

Robert Handy

Good God! That son of a bitch is more eager to destroy his ship then the damned Rebels are!

“Is Vincennes’s boat still alongside?”

“Aye, sir. Waiting your reply, sir.”

“Go fetch my steward. Tell him I need paper and pen.”

Four minutes later the steward came hurrying aft, the midshipman leading the way. No one was slacking off in the old man’s presence tonight.

Pope stood and wanted to groan but would not in front of his subordinates. He smoothed the paper out on the wide quarterdeck cap rail and the midshipman snatched down the lantern and held it up for the captain, maintaining a discreet distance. Pope dipped the pen and wrote: SIR: You say your ship is aground. It will be your duty to defend your ship up to the last moment, and not to fire her, except it be to prevent her from falling into the hands of the enemy.

He paused in his writing, looked at the note. He knew the words he wished to use in the second paragraph, but he could not write them. It was not fitting for an officer and a gentleman to write the sort of thing he was thinking. Instead, he continued in a more even tone.

I do not think the enemy will be down tonight, but in case they do, fight them to the last.

You have boats enough to save all your men. I do not approve of your leaving your ship until every effort to defend her from falling into their hands is made.

Respectfully, your obedient servant,

John Pope

He folded the note, handed it to the midshipman, said, “That is for Captain Handy.”

The midshipman saluted, hurried away. Pope stepped across the deck, looked out over the dark water at the glowing lanterns on Vincennes’s deck.

…Crippled ship and worn-out men…Shall I burn her when I leave her?

Good God…

“The damned Rebels have the grit and the will to come down and attack us in paddle wheelers and towboats armored in cotton,” Pope said out loud,

certain that no one was near, “and that idiot Handy wants to abandon and burn a ship more powerful than the whole Rebel fleet because he is tired and stuck in the mud!”

Pope shook his head. Dear God…here is why this damned war will not be over anytime soon.

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