Chapter 33

Here is the great thoroughfare from Albemarle Sound and its tributaries, and if the enemy obtain lodgments, or succeed in passing here, he will cut off a very rich country from Norfolk market.

– Flag Officer William F. Lynch to Stephen R. Mallory Roanoke Island: the tollgate between Pamlico Sound, now in Yankee hands, and the Confederate waters of Albemarle Sound.

Eight big rivers emptied into Albemarle Sound, the North, West, Pasquotank, Perquimans, Little, Chowan, Roanoke, and Alligator, as well as four canals. Two railways had their terminus there. Albemarle Sound was the back door to Norfolk, and with the Yankees guarding the front door, it was the only way in. Possession of Roanoke Island meant, ultimately, possession of Norfolk, Portsmouth, the naval yard, and virtually all the commerce coming into North Carolina.

Roanoke Island was important, and the Yankees knew it, so they sent over one hundred ships, armed vessels and transports, carrying seventeen thousand men, to take it back.

The Confederates knew it too, but they allowed only one thousand men, two hundred of whom were sick, and the seven vessels of Lynch’s mosquito fleet to oppose them.

January 20, 1862. The wind was singing around the wheelhouse and Samuel Bowater could feel the Cape Fear jerk at her anchor chain as Jacob woke him. He looked out the window. The sky was dull, lead-colored, the waves whipped into a froth. The weather had not been agreeable in some time. It promised to get worse.

Bowater dressed quickly, stepped out into the wheelhouse. Jacob brought coffee. Harwell was there.

“Good morning, Lieutenant.”

“Morning, sir.”

“Engine room?”

“Steam’s up, ready to get underway.”

“Coal?”

“Starboard bunker half full, port bunker three-quarters. Fresh water topped off. Chief Taylor reports the problem with the web bearings is fixed.

He says the grates are clean as of now, but said…the…ahh…poor-quality anthracite coal produces a lot of clinker.”

Bowater nodded. He could just imagine the way the chief had really phrased it. Taylor took a special pleasure in shocking Harwell because Harwell was so very shockable.

The wheelhouse door opened, and the blast of wet air filled the wheelhouse with noise and cold. Tanner stepped through, shut the door. He was wearing a greatcoat, wrapped tight around him, a tarpaulin hat. “Sea Bird’s signaling ‘Get underway,’ sir.”

“Very good. Mr. Harwell, let us get the anchor up.”

Harwell saluted, disappeared, and Bowater stepped up beside the wheel and looked out the window. Most of the mosquito fleet was visible to him, riding at their anchors. They were in Croatan Sound, the passage between Roanoke Island and the North Carolina shore, roughly three and a half miles wide. The fleet was clustered off Pork Point on Roanoke Island.

Bowater’s eyes moved to the Sea Bird, flagship of Commodore Lynch.

She was a side-wheel steamer, a former passenger boat, now mounting a thirty-two-pounder smoothbore and a thirty-pounder Parrott. Black smoke peeked out of her funnel, only to be whipped away in the wind. The signal flag, “Get underway,” stood out straight and flat in the wind, as if it was painted on a board.

Raleigh had steam up as well. She was a tug, like Cape Fear, but smaller, built for canal work. She sported a thirty-two-pounder forward.

The other vessels in the fleet did not have steam up. Bowater could see CSS Curlew, 260 tons, an iron side-wheel steamer, the most substantial vessel of the fleet. There were also the Ellis, Appomattox, and Beaufort.

Each was a tug. Each mounted a single thirty-two-pounder.

Anchored astern of Cape Fear was Fanny, the iron-hulled screw steamer taken from the Yankees a few months earlier, and the former tug, now CSN gunboat Forrest. That was it. The mosquito fleet. The ships that stood between the Yankees and Albemarle Sound.

From forward came the clank of chain coming in, and Seth Williams came in from the wind and blowing spray, took the beckets off the wheel, stood ready.

Clang…clang…clang… Bowater looked out the window. Harwell, bundled up in oilskins and sou’wester, waved his arm in a chopping motion.

Up and down, the anchor right under the bow. Bowater rang slow ahead.

The Cape Fear began to drift, her anchor free, windborne. The prop caught the water, drove her ahead, Williams met her with the wheel. Underway. To starboard, Sea Bird was butting the chop, steaming ahead, and Raleigh as well.

Those two, Seabird and Raleigh, had gone down sound the day before, scouted out the Yankees. Their report was not encouraging. Dozens, literally dozens, of ships coming in over the bar to Pamlico Sound.

Gunboats, troop transports, supply ships. They were struggling with the breakers over the bar, but one by one they were managing to get their vessels over.

No one of the mosquito fleet doubted they would, because the officers of the mosquito fleet were all former officers of the United States Navy, and deep in their divided hearts they believed their old service capable of anything.

So the Confederate Navy would be the Spartans, and Croaton Sound their Thermopylae.

Bowater stepped out of the wheelhouse, out of the envelope of steam heat, into the brunt of the wind. It pulled at his sou’wester, tugged at his oilskins, found every tiny imperfection in the covering.

The Cape Fear rolled with the uncomfortable corkscrew of a following sea, but Bowater hardly noticed. He stared ahead, watched his beloved bow parting the seas, thought about what they would do next. Sink pilings like mad. Bring more ammunition to Roanoke Island. Try to augment the crews of the mosquito fleet. Drill. Wait for the Yankee tidal wave to wash them away.

And that was what they did. For eighteen days they prepared for the coming of the enemy. And then, on the 7th of February, the preparations were over, because the Yankee fleet was underway.

Thirty gunboats and schooners, the hammerhead, led in the van. Their job was to pound away at the Confederate defense, to beat a hole in it, though which the troops, seventeen thousand troops, would pour.

The mosquito fleet was drawn up, line abreast. They were above the northern pile line, near the north end of Croatan Sound, bow guns pointed downriver. They were anchored, with steam up.

To the east, Roanoke Island. Sandy, covered with low, coarse bushes, dune grass lying down in the wind. Like all of the barrier islands, it looked like no place a person would wish to live.

Fort Bartow, on the shore of Roanoke Island, guarded the pile line.

Bartow was a sand-and-turf construction mounting six long thirty-two-pounders. To the west, on the North Carolina mainland, Fort Forrest, with twenty-two-pounders.

Fog sat like cotton batting on the water. At nine it thinned, lifted, swirled away, and behind it, a watery sunlight, visibility clear down to Pamlico Sound.

Two divisions of Yankee gunboats steamed north.

Bowater stood on the boat deck, at the rail, looked out over the water.

He wore only his gray frock coat and cap. No oilskins, no sou’wester. It was the nicest day, weatherwise, they had enjoyed in a month.

He put the field glasses to his eyes. The masts of the Yankee steamers looked like winter-bare trees; the smoke from their stacks rolled away to the west.

Heavy footsteps on the ladder. Chief Taylor appeared. He was wearing a frock coat as well, clean and pressed. Pants quite devoid of stains or smears of coal dust. He had shaved.

Bowater looked over at him and failed to hide his surprise.

“Ain’t every day a man gets to fight in a gen-u-ine fleet action, Cap’n.”

“No, indeed. And it would seem our Yankee admiral is moved by the same spirit.” Bowater handed Taylor the field glasses and Taylor took them, put them up to his eyes, scanned the approaching enemy.

“It’s a ways off,” Bowater continued, “and I’m not as current on the U.S. Navy flags as I once was, but I do believe he is flying the signal ‘Our country expects every man to do his duty.’”

Taylor held the glasses to his eyes, chuckled. “Now ain’t that original?”

He watched the fleet for a moment, then added, “It does appear they are forming in two divisions.”

The Yankee fleet, thirty or so gunboats, was coming on in two clusters.

Vessels in the southernmost division were towing troop transports. They peeled off, headed east, made for the sandy beach at Ashby Harbor, four miles down the sound. The advance division of Yankees steamed up sound, made right for the fleet and Fort Bartow. They would keep the Confederate

forts and the Confederate ships under fire, see that the Yankee troop transports were unmolested.

“Reckon I’ve seen enough of this here tactical situation, Cap’n. I believe I will retire to the comfort of my engine room.”

“Very well, Chief.” Taylor turned, disappeared down the ladder and aft.

Bowater was alone on the boat deck. He tapped his fingers on the rail, fought the nausea in his gut. Wondered if the other captains, if Lynch and Parker, Hunter and Cooke, felt the same. Probably. Waiting, waiting, it was always the worst. Let the iron start flying, let that linkage in the mind switch from fear to fight.

Four bells, they rang out from the mosquito fleet, a discordant clanging under a thin overcast sky, and the first gun went off. From a mile down Croatan Sound, from the Union gunboats arranged in a long line abreast, dark squares on the water, wheelboxes bulging at their sides, thin, truncated masts pointing up, swaying in the swell, came the sharp bang of a rifled gun. The smoke jetted from the bow of a big side-wheeler, middle of the attacking division. The shell screamed by, not too close to the Cape Fear, plunged into the water a quarter mile beyond the mosquito fleet.

The battle had begun.

Bowater turned his field glasses on the Sea Bird. The gun crew was swarming around her thirty-pounder Parrott forward, running her out, twisting the elevation screw. From the flagstaff on top of her wheelhouse, the signal flag snapped out: “Engage the enemy.”

“Mr. Harwell! When you are ready!”

Harwell grinned, waved, turned to his gun. He twisted the elevation screw, fiddled with the traverse, calling for the men with handspikes to nudge it here or there. He stepped back, jerked the lanyard. The gun went off with a satisfying jar that shook the vessel under Bowater’s feet. He felt himself go calm, as if the smell of spent powder carried with it some powerful drug. He saw the shot fall three hundred yards short of the Yankee fleet.

“You are short, Mr. Harwell!” Bowater cried.

“Aye, sir!”

Harwell fiddled with the elevation screw. Not much thread left-the gun was pointed nearly as high as it would point.

Oh, hell and damnation… Bowater thought. And once more, the guns won’t reach…

The gunfire rippled along the line of Yankee gunboats, blasting gray smoke from the big rifled guns in their bows, sending the shells screaming overhead, plunging around the Confederate fleet. Iron shrieked by, tore up the railing on the starboard side of the boat deck. A shell hit the boat in its davits, turned it into a cloud of white-painted splinters that flew high in the air and then fluttered like autumn leaves onto the boat deck, the main deck, the fantail, the water.

Seven converted tugs and paddle wheelers in the mosquito fleet. Short of ammunition, short of men. They rode at their anchors, fired back as fast as they could, but their shells would not reach the Yankees. It was Fort Hatteras all over again. They could do little but endure the pounding.

And they were not getting the worst of it. The second division of Yankee gunboats turned their attention on Fort Bartow, a larger and closer target. They positioned themselves in such a way that only three of Bartow’s guns would bear on them, and from that place they opened up. At times the fort seemed to be nothing more than a cloud of smoke and flying sand and dust kicked up by the exploding shells. But through it all, the stab of muzzle flash, as the garrison fought on.

Bowater paced, pounded his fist on his thigh, muttered curses. “Mr.

Harwell! Hold your fire!” He was sick of wasted effort, wasted shells.

Then, through the din and scream, he heard the sound of anchor chain coming in. He looked to the left. Sea Bird was winning her anchor. A new flag was going aloft: “Close with the enemy.”

“At last!” Bowater leaned over the rail. “Mr. Harwell, let us get the anchor in. We are closing with the enemy!”

“Aye, sir!”

The anchor came aboard, the Cape Fear was underway. Bowater swung her north, let the other vessels find their place, came in astern of Curlew as the mosquito fleet threaded its way through the obstructions that they themselves had set.

They closed with the Yankees. Half a mile away, nearly point-blank range, and both fleets opened up. But the Yankees had more than twice the guns, and the Yankees, it seemed, had all the ammunition they could want.

The shells came through the smoke. They ricocheted off the water, plucked sections of bulwark and cabin away, whistled and screamed through the air. The Parrott banged out, once every few minutes, whenever Harwell had his shot. The mosquito fleet kept up the fire, the Yankees

returned it, three for one. The world was reduced to a haze of powder smoke, the blast of artillery, explosion of shells, the howl of flying metal, weird-sounding through numbed ears.

Eight bells, noon, one bell, two bells in the afternoon watch, and the firing did not subside, and Bowater did not know how any of them were still alive in the midst of it, still moving, ships still floating under them.

He paced back and forth. He stood in the wheelhouse, gave directions to the helmsman, rang the engine room when needed. No maneuvering, though, not really. Nothing fancy. The days of weather gauge and raking shots and fleets tacking in succession were gone, the brilliance of a John Paul Jones or Horatio Nelson part of another time, when wind was the chief tactical consideration.

Finesse and seamanship were no longer part of the equation. Two clusters of gunboats, slugging each other, hitting hard, pounding away until someone dropped. They were not fencers, they were brutes with clubs, flailing at one another. It was exactly the kind of fight that the mosquito fleet could not afford. But the only other option was to run, and that was no option at all.

Tanner bounded up the ladder. “Mr. Harwell’s compliments, sir, and he has four shells left.”

Bowater nodded. Then what? The howitzers were worthless at that range. Get closer? The Yankee rifled guns would tear them apart if they tried.

The gunfire was like a rainstorm, it would swell to great intensity, dozens of guns firing at once, a wall of noise, then taper off to a gun or two, clear and conspicuous in the quiet, then swell again.

It fell off now, two guns from the Yankees, a gun from the Ellis.

Forward and below, Harwell fired the Parrott.

Three shells… Bowater thought.

Half a mile off, a Yankee gunboat stood bow on to the Cape Fear.

Bowater saw the plume of gray smoke, the yellow muzzle flash. He heard the scream of the shell and at the same instant the crash of wood, the tremor through his feet, as the round smashed its way into the Cape Fear’s deckhouse. He half turned, half spun with the shock of explosion as the shell went off. The boat deck abaft the wheelhouse blew apart, like a volcano erupting out of the guts of his ship.

This is it, this is it… Bowater thought, and he could only marvel that they had stood in line of battle for as long as they had before taking that fatal shell.

Four shells… Taylor thought. He had been counting, through no conscious effort. It was just the way his mind was. He could not keep himself from processing numbers. So he knew how many shells there were, and he subtracted one each time he felt the bone-jarring crash of the Parrott gun going off, delivering a concussion to the tug that she was never designed to endure.

Wonder what the Hero of Veracruz will do now?

It had been a dull battle thus far, his first and likely only fleet action and he had spent most of it standing there with his thumb up his ass. Underway briefly, then just turns to maintain position. A little ahead, a little astern.

Finally he turned the throttle and reversing bar over to Burgess.

“How we doin’ there, Moses?” he shouted.

Moses tossed a shovelful of coal into the firebox, straightened, looked at the steam gauge. “Twenty pound, boss! Nice and steady.”

“Tommy! What’s the coal look like in them bunkers?”

“Black, boss, black as my black ass!”

“Shaddup, smart aleck. How much coal’s in there?”

“Little less den half, port side. A quarter, starboard.”

Taylor nodded, chewed his unlit cigar. That was not good. The coal was their only armor, the only substantial thing between them and a shell right in the boiler.

Hieronymus Taylor had to make a conscious effort not to think about what would happen if the boiler exploded. He had seen men scalded, some bad, but never one scalded to death. He could barely imagine what it would be like to stand in the way of a full blast of steam. He saw images of skin falling off, eyes seared out, bloody pulped bodies writhing on the deck plates. If he thought too long about it he knew he would run screaming from the engine room, so he pushed the images from his mind.

He ducked under the piping, stepped aft to where the twenty-inch-wide piston maintained its slow, rhythmic stroke in the big iron cylinder. Psssst, thump, psssst, thump, psssst, thump, steam and metal keeping their perfect beat. He reached down to the crankshaft, touched his fingertips to smooth bearing. He examined the color of the oil that stuck there. Black. The shaft

was running hot, but Taylor knew from experience that it always ran a bit hot, and he was not concerned. He threaded his way out of the engine maze, into the ten feet of open space between engine and boiler.

The Cape Fear vibrated, rumbled with the sound of the Parrott going off. Three shells…

And then there was a crashing sound overhead and Taylor looked up and a shell blew apart in the fidley, fifteen feet overhead. The boat deck-the roof over the engine room, two decks up-was torn apart and the air was filled with the explosion and the higher-pitched noise of shrapnel streaming past, smashing into the engine, the boiler, the steam pipes, pinging and ricocheting off metal.

Dull afternoon light streamed in, lit up the cloud of coal dust and steam and black smoke from someplace. Tommy was shrieking, lying on the deck plates, but the rest of the black gang stood frozen and Taylor stood frozen and all he could think was that the boiler was about to blow and there was not one damned second left to get their dead asses topside.

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