Britannia's Fist: From Civil War to World War: An Alternate History (14 page)

“I’m almost as worried about Louis Napoleon and his ambitions in Mexico as I am about the British and their rams. He conducts his foreign policy simply as a means to strengthen his hold on power in France. As a monarch he feels no affection for our experiment in government by the people. As a monarch of the French, he must consider the affection of the French people for the United States and their decided dislike of slavery. Now he’s got himself stuck in Mexico. He thinks that if the South wins, the Monroe Doctrine will be a dead letter, and he will be allowed to keep what he has stolen. He doesn’t know our Southron countrymen,” he said mimicking the Confederate transformation of the word “Southern.” He went on. “It would not take them long to cast covetous eyes on Mexico. But what he thinks is more important than what is. If we win, he knows that we will not let him keep his Mexican Empire. On his own, he will do nothing.
¹⁴

“Adams in London and Drayton in Paris have kept us informed of his attempts to organize the great powers to force an end to our war on terms that would ensure Southern independence. Last year the Russians turned him down, and the British were not eager to be led in anything by
the French. So he waits. Mr. Drayton pointedly asked the French foreign minister, Drouyn de Lhuys, what the Emperor’s current policy was toward the United States. The Frenchman must have been at his wit’s end to actually blurt out the truth. ‘He has none. He awaits events.’
¹⁵

“I’m just afraid that in order to keep his Mexican spoils, Louis will get in deeper than he can handle. That reminds me of a story. In early days, a party of men went out hunting for a wild boar. But the game came upon them unawares, and scampering away they all climbed the trees save one, who, seizing the animal by the ears, undertook to hold him, but despairing of success cried out to his companions in the trees, ‘For God’s sake, boys, come down and help me let go.’ So far John Bull and the Czar are still up in those trees.”
¹⁶

Sharpe smiled. “Mr. President, the French are eminently an idealistic people. They will fight more for ideas than interests, and if the Emperor can convince them that France has been grossly insulted by an affront to French glory—glory simply does not translate fully into that concept the French feel for themselves as expressed by their word ‘gloire’—if he can tie Mexico to
gloire
, then the leash on his action is slipped. But I don’t think he will act without Britain, and Britain will not be pushed into it.”

Lincoln leaned forward intently, “Exactly why I told you of our plan to stop the Laird rams from getting out to sea. I have taken you into my confidence on this matter, Sharpe, because we may well have need of the sort of intelligence on the great powers that you have been putting together about the rebels.”

He leaned back on the bench, one arm draped over the back. “The job is yours, Sharpe. You will report to me alone. I will have a chat with Seward, Stanton, and Welles to make sure they realize that you will not be stepping on any toes.”

“Mr. President, I am truly honored,” Sharpe said. Yet he hesitated at the enormity of the offer. Although seconded to Meade’s staff, he was still the official commander of the 120th NY and took a deep concern in the welfare of the regiment. Every month the men gave him their pay. He traveled to Washington to deposit it in the Rigg’s Bank and sent a check to his uncle’s bank in Kingston. His uncle then paid the money out to the families of the soldiers. It was the only regiment in the Army that had such an efficient way to care for the families of the men.
¹⁷
It was a small consideration compared to the power of the position he was offered, but these men were his neighbors. To come to Washington, he would have to resign his commission and abandon his men. He explained his concern.

Lincoln, rather than seeing an obstruction, was moved by Sharpe’s concern for his men. “I’ll tell you what, Sharpe. You will not need to resign. I would prefer you kept your commission, and I will see about getting your Kingston boys duty in the garrison of Washington. Some of these big artillery regiments are getting fat in the forts here and could use some exercise with the Army in the field.” He offered his hand. “Deal?”

Sharpe took it. “Deal.”
¹⁸

Captain Hancock shut the door to his office as he motioned Wolseley to a seat. He opened the safe in the corner and drew out some papers that he handed his guest. “The assistant quartermaster general of Canada should find this most interesting. We have a prolific source in the American War Department who copied this for us.”

Wolseley’s single eye raced across the pages. It was a letter from the governor of Maine, Israel Washburn, to Lincoln and dated October 1861. He realized it was a very important document and nothing less than a shrewd and insightful assessment of the strategic importance of Maine and an appeal for resources to properly defend the state.

Portland should be made the great naval depot of the United States on the Atlantic Ocean. Its geographical position commands Canada on the north and the lower provinces on the east, if properly fortified, as lines of railway… radiate from it to Quebec and Montreal and to Saint John and Halifax.

The harbor is one of the finest on the Atlantic Ocean, or in the world, and can easily be so fortified as to be as impregnable as Gibraltar, and far stronger than Quebec, Sebastopol, or Cherbourg.

Halifax Harbor, the great British naval depot on the American continent, is now occupied by the combined fleets of England and France. Close the outlet of the great gulf lying between Cape Cod and Cape Sable, and unless Portland is defended the whole peninsula east of Lake Champlain is easily subjected to foreign control.

If Great Britain held the harbor of Portland and the line of railway to Montreal and Quebec she would drive American commerce from the ocean and the great lakes.
¹⁹

Wolseley glanced up and shook his head. Hancock said, “I thought you would be impressed. But do read on.”

An enemy in possession of Portland would find it to be the terminus of the longest line of railroad in the world. The Grand Trunk Railway of Canada embraces a line of 1,131 miles… It extends from the Atlantic Ocean at Portland to Lake Huron, a distance of 794 miles, with a branch to Detroit of 59 miles, a branch to Quebec of 96 miles, and to the River du Loup of 118 miles.

Wolseley’s eye bulged at the next sentence. “This line has the capacity to move 10,000 troops between Portland and Quebec or Toronto and Detroit in a single day.”
²⁰
It went on to describe the European and North American Railway, which from its Portland terminus ran through Bangor and Saint John to Halifax over a distance of 576 miles.

Without it the complete defense of our coast would be impossible, for the British fleet, holding command of the ocean, would prevent any attack on the lower provinces by water. Holding Halifax, the line to Quebec by the Saint John Valley would be kept open, and an overwhelming force would be thrown into New Brunswick, Canada, or Maine at any moment.
²¹

Wolseley looked up, “And do you know if the Americans have taken any of this excellent advice to properly fortify Maine? My office has only the most superficial information on these matters. This, of course, is the purpose of my visit.”

Hancock responded, “None of the coastal forts in Maine were completed when this war began. There was a flurry of activity initially, but not much substantial improvement. Maine is far away from the fighting. None of the forts have their full complement of guns, and what they have are not all of modern types. There are three forts in Maine of any importance.” He brought out a map. “See, the northernmost, Fort Popham, guards the Kennebec River, and the other two, Forts Gorges and Preble, guard the entrance to Portland Harbor. As far as we can ascertain, the garrisons are home guards, frequently rotated.”

Wolseley stood up and began to pace up and down the office. “Hancock, when the Trent Affair nearly brought us to war, the government
decided to reinforce our weak garrison in Canada with more than ten thousand men. They were sent over late in the year through dreadful weather. They had to travel by sled up the snow-covered trails paralleling the St. Lawrence and from there scatter to a dozen garrisons. It would be impossible to repeat this in wartime. We have eighteen thousand men in Canada now and a growing colonial defense force, but I’m afraid that any American attack would be with numbers that would overwhelm us, and Maine would be the logical starting place. It is the normal port of entry for much of Canada’s commerce, and as Governor Washburn has so carefully pointed out, railroads radiate from Portland throughout Canada. Invasion armies could ride the rails and splinter our defenses so rapidly that we would be unable to mass sufficient forces anywhere to successfully defend anything.”

Hancock nodded. “I’ll have a copy of this sent you in the pouch; wouldn’t do for some officious customs officer to find it on you. I think I will inquire into this Colonel Sharpe as well.”

Wolseley stopped his pacing and fixed his eye on Hancock. “Railroads can run in two directions, you know, Hancock.”
²²

Sharpe discovered that Lincoln’s offer entailed more attendance on the President in his travels about Washington. Lincoln explained as they alighted in front of the Ordnance Bureau, “If I introduce you about town as someone in my confidence, you will be taken a lot more seriously. I don’t intend to do this thing by halves.”

On the drive from the Navy Yard, Lincoln had vented his frustration in working with the chief of the Ordnance Bureau, Col. James W. Ripley. The essence of that problem was found in the nickname he had acquired within his own bureau as “Ripley van Winkle.” Ripley rejected any new innovation in firearms technology as “new-fangled gimcracks” and a nefarious plot to slow down the production of the tried-and-true basic weapons determined by the Ordnance Bureau to be the proper and sufficient arms for the Army.
¹

“I swear, Sharpe, the man defines stubborn and single minded. Every time I want a new idea tried, I must undergo the labors of Hercules to get him to do it. He reminds me of a story. During the Creek War a requisition was made on a certain lieutenant of ordnance, stationed at the South, which he refused to comply with, on the ground that it had not reached him through the channel pointed out by the regulations. He soon after received a message from Gen. Andy Jackson, the substance of which was that if he did not make the issue immediately he would send a guard to arrest him and bring him into camp, and there hang him from the first tree. The requisition was, of course, promptly complied with.
²

“What makes it so painful, Sharpe, is that it was Ripley who told this story about himself! As I said, I only retail my stories, and some of them come with thorns. I’m constantly suggesting he order some of these new breech-loading or repeating weapons, but he always argues against it, like a dog defending his last bone. I tell you, I envy Old Hickory’s willingness to hang a man to be taken seriously. We wouldn’t have had this war if a man like Jackson had been in office instead of Buchanan, who simply sold off the store before I took office. When South Carolina made its first threat to secede, Jackson announced if they dared, he would march the Army into the state and hang the first traitor from the first tree with the first rope. You never saw the chivalry come to heel so fast.

“But no one takes me seriously on that. The nearest I can come is to personally go to this office and give him a direct order to buy so many of these weapons. That is about as close as I can come to threaten to hang him. And it works but not as well as the specter of a tree and rope. He issues the contracts, but then in the fine print he stipulates that if the order is delivered even one day late, the contract is canceled.”

“Why don’t you simply dismiss and replace him?”

“Hah! Easier said than done. There were few truly qualified men in the Army when this war started. The people and Congress had been happy to keep the Army small and penurious. A pinched purse is no friend to a new idea. We planted lieutenants in a bed of punctilious forms and now have harvested colonels who cannot think beyond what has been done before. The motto of the Ordnance Corps might as well be the one coined by Voltaire—‘Learned Nothing and Forgotten Nothing.’ Do you know that he refused to purchase breech-loading weapons for [Hiram] Berdan’s rifles, the finest sharpshooters in the Army? Let me tell you how I finally got the 1859 Sharps rifle into the hands of his sharpshooters.

“The sharpshooters were barely settled into their camp when their prowess began to cause quite a stir among folks. Visitors buzzed around them like flies on molasses. So not to miss the fun, I showed up trailing Generals McClellan, [Irvin] McDowell, and [Joseph] Mansfield and a lot more stars, the Prince de Joinville and his considerable French entourage, and three cabinet officers. Quite a party.

“I reviewed the men, and then we went down to the rifle pits, where they had been practicing. Everybody got to fire at targets at six hundred yards. Well, all of these important people could only get about one in four rounds into the targets. They wouldn’t have made it on the frontier, that’s for sure. Then Tom Scott, the assistant secretary of war
back then, and a friend of Ripley, sneered something powerful at Colonel Berdan, asking him how he could compare his knowledge of ordnance with the phalanx of ‘experts’ in the government. I knew what he was up to right off. You see, Berdan had hoped to get on the good side of Ripley by agreeing to the muzzle-loaders, but then changed his mind and ended up on Ripley’s bad side. I guess his boys gave him an earful. But he only earned Ripley’s ill will. Well, now, Berdan did not rise to Scott’s bait, so Scott challenged him to try a shot at the target himself. Poor Scott—he and bad judgment went together. A target of a man was set up at six hundred yards and they wrote the name of Jeff Davis on it.” Lincoln laughed. “Now Berdan said that he was a bit reluctant to take a shot at a chief executive in the presence of another, and I said, ‘Oh, Colonel, if you make a good shot it will serve him right.’