Текст книги "The Sea Hunters II: More True Adventures with Famous Shipwrecks"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

Соавторы: Craig Dirgo
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PART THREE
The Ironclads Manassasand Louisiana

I
Civil War Turtle 1861–1862

“Curse this boat,” Lieutenant Alexander Warley said loudly. “I feel like a horse wearing blinders.”

His command, the Confederate ironclad Manassas, was less than fifty yards downriver of Fort Jackson, some seventy-five miles south of New Orleans. Warley peered through the single bow port into the misty night. The clattering of the machinery, combined with the hissing of the steam boilers, was magnifying the tension Warley already felt. The Confederate ironclad was untested and only weeks from completion. And although the night of October 11, 1861, was unseasonably cool, Warley was sweating.

Fourteen feet of Manassas was underwater, with only the top six feet of the convex hull and the twin smokestacks rising into the air. Because of an Indian summer, the temperature of the Mississippi River had remained warm longer than usual. With the shroud of warm water around her hull, combined with the heat from the boilers, Manassaswas being warmed from without and within. Slipping downstream with the current, Warley wondered how he and his crew had found themselves here.

* * *

Farther south, at the Head of the Passes, the area of the Mississippi River Delta where the river forked into three separate channels, Commander Henry French, aboard the ten-gun Union sloop Preble,finished writing in his log and prepared to turn in for the night. After waiting for the ink to dry, he closed the logbook, capped his inkwell; and set his quill pen in the holder. Stretching in his chair, he rose to extinguish his whale-oil lamp, then changed his mind. Leaving the lamp burning, he walked through the passageway and up the ladder onto the deck. Saluting the deck sentry, he pulled a leather pouch from his jacket pocket and began to stuff tobacco into the bowl of his newest pipe.

Striking a wooden match, he waited until the strong sulfur smell was carried away by the wind, then touched the match to the bowl and puffed the pipe to life. Then he stared across the water. The night was black, with no moon, and a mist hung low over the water. The scant illumination came from lanterns on the deck of the twenty-two-gun flagship Richmond,and the few on the deck of the Union sloop Joseph H.Toone that was tied alongside. The sloop was off-loading coal for Richmond’sboilers, and French wished the loading operation was finished.

No captain enjoys having the maneuverability of his vessel compromised, and French’s feelings were heightened by the fact that he was at the mouth of an inland waterway and not far out to sea, as he preferred. Rivers were for flatboats and barges, not warships, French thought to himself. He drew in a mouthful of smoke.

“Sights or sounds?” he said to the sentry, after he exhaled.

“No sights, sir,” the seaman noted. “With the bunkers being reloaded, it’s hard to hear anything from upriver. Nothing indicates it won’t be a quiet night, though, sir.”

French puffed on his pipe while he smoothed his beard with his hand. “Where are you from, sailor?”

“Maine, sir,” the young man answered. “Rockport.”

“I imagine you’ve spent some time on the water, then,” French noted.

“Yep,” the seaman answered, “family of fishermen and lobstermen.”

French finished and tapped the dottle over the side into the water.

“I’m going belowdecks. You keep a sharp eye,” he said.

“Aye, sir,” the sailor answered.

Just then a small series of waves from far out in the gulf rocked Richmondand pressed her and Toone together. The sound of the hulls slapping washed across the water like distant thunder.

French climbed back down the ladder and entered his cabin on the Preble.Licking his fingertips, he pressed them against the wick of the lamp and climbed into his berth. Making himself comfortable, he settled in to sleep.

* * *

Lieutenant Warley coughed, then rubbed his watering eyes. The pair of smokestacks were failing to vent the smoke from the boilers. This was just one more problem to add to the many Warley had noticed with Manassas,the first armored warship in North America that would see battle. To begin with, the vessel was proving underpowered, and that was no wonder. The Confederate navy was underbudgeted, and the ironclad’s twin engines – one high-pressure, the other low-pressure – were worn out when they were installed. This was a common problem. The Confederates lacked the funds and the foundries to produce new engines themselves. Nor did the Confederates possess the large and modem shipyards of the Union.

The hull of Manassascame from a New England icebreaker formerly named Enoch Trainthat had last seen life as a river towboat. A group of enterprising Louisiana businessmen bought EnochTrain, then paid to have her razed at a crude shipyard across the river from New Orleans in Algiers. The ship’s masts and superstructure were cut off, the hull was lengthened and widened, and her bow was extended and rebuilt with solid wood. Then the worn engines and hardware were installed. Next, a convex iron shield backed by wood was built as the upper deck. In the bow, a rounded shuttered port that flipped up was cut and the hole for the smokestack punched through the top. Last but not least, the shipwrights bolted a cast-iron ram to the bow just below the waterline.

They named her Manassasafter the site of a recent Confederate army victory.

Then the businessmen applied for a letter of marque and reprisal, a document from the Confederate government giving them the right to sink Union vessels and take their cargoes as prizes.

Their dreams of grandeur above patriotism did not last. Commander George Hollins was in charge of building a fleet of warships to fight the expected fleet of Admiral David Farragut. Needing every vessel he could arm, Hollins sent Warley with a crew from the C.S.S. McRae to seize Manassas for the Confederacy.

The longshoremen aboard the ironclad defied the navy and shouted that they would kill the first man who attempted to board her. Warley, wielding a revolver, called their bluff. Cowed, the longshoremen abandoned the boat, along with one of the owners, who had tears in his eyes when escorted ashore. It was later reported that the Confederate government paid the businessmen $100,000 as compensation for the ship.

* * *

At this instant, Warley was ruing the day he had been assigned her command. To add insult to injury, he was having a great deal of trouble controlling Manassas’sdirection. To have steering control, Warley needed to exceed the speed of the current by at least a few miles per hour. Right now Warley was barely creeping downriver.

“Get the engineer,” Warley shouted to a deckhand standing nearby.

The man scampered down a hatch into the engine room. Warley was well known as a stern disciplinarian, and by the sound of his voice he was none too happy. Crouching down to avoid hitting his head, the deckhand crab-walked to the stern, where William Hardy, the ship’s engineer, was applying grease to the shaft leading to the propeller.

“Cap’n wants to see you,” the deckhand shouted over the din.

“Be right up,” Hardy said, wiping his hands on an already greasy piece of burlap.

Straightening his uniform, Hardy ran a wooden comb through his hair, then climbed up the ladder through the port. Walking forward, he saluted Warley.

“You wanted to see me, sir?” Hardy said.

“Yes,” Warley said. “How many inches of steam are we making?”

“About nine, sir,” Hardy noted.

Manassascould make nearly thirty before her boilers would blow.

“Why so little?” Warley asked. “I’m having problems with control.”

“It’s the fuel we loaded,” Hardy noted. “We have some seasoned wood and a half-load of coal – but if I burn that, we won’t have them when we go into battle.”

“So we burn green wood?” Warley said, wiping his nose, which was dripping from the smoke.

“Unless you order me otherwise,” Hardy said easily.

Warley nodded. Hardy was a good man and as fine an officer as he had aboard Manassas.“You made the right choice, William,” he said. “Let’s just hope next time we go out, it will be with a full load of prime fuel.”

“Yes, sir,” Hardy said, “that would be a blessing. For now, however, you have about fifteen more minutes of green wood.”

“Then that’s the way it is,” Warley said, dismissing Hardy with a crisp salute.

Turning the helm over to First Officer Charles Austin, Warley made his way to the bow, where the Manassas’ssingle nine-inch gun sat pointed downriver. He stared out at the blackness as he drew in breaths of clean air.

The Yankees were out there, and, seasoned wood or not, it was time for the rebels to visit.

The fog was growing thicker around the anchored Union fleet as Manassas steamed downriver. The flotilla was well armed. Richmond was armed with a total of twenty-six guns. The sailing sloop Preblecarried seven 32-pound cannon, two 8-inch rifled guns, and a single 12-pounder. Less heavily armed was the steamer Water Witch, which mounted only four small guns. More heavily armed was the sloop Vincennes,which carried a complement of fourteen 32-pounders, twin 9-inch Dahlgren smoothbores, and four 8-inch rifled guns. Because of the late hour, the decks of the Union fleet were quiet.

Engineer Hardy popped his head through the hatch into the pilothouse. “We’re into the good wood. You should feel an improvement.”

Charles Austin at the helm shouted. “I felt the speed pick up a few minutes ago.”

“Good,” Hardy said. “Fear not – when we attack, I have a little trick up my sleeve.”

“I’ll let you know,” Austin shouted after the retreating Hardy.

Manassas was the lead ship of a small Confederate force.

Just behind and off her port side trailed the small Confederate tug Ivy, which had come downriver a few days before. Ivymounted a new British-made Whitworth rifled gun. The Whitworth was a rare and expensive extravagance for the Confederate navy, effective and well built. The last few days, Ivyhad stayed upriver, harassing the Union blockaders by shelling the Union fleet from a distance of nearly four miles.

Calhoun, Jackson,and Tuscaroraalso left Fort Jackson to travel downriver for the attack. Calhounwas an aging vessel equipped with walking beam engines. Her orders called for her to stay away from action and fire her guns from a distance. Jackson was a newer high-pressure paddle wheeler, but the Confederates were concerned that the noise from her engines and paddle wheels would alert the Union forces, and she was coming downriver last. Tuscarorawas a small tug tasked with towing a fire raft the Confederates hoped to use to set the Union fleet ablaze.

Manassaswas close to the Union ships. Austin strained to see through the fog.

Frolic, a southern schooner the Union had captured when she tried to run through the blockade with a load of cotton bound for London, was manned by a skeleton crew. She was due to travel north for conversion to a Union vessel in a few more weeks, and only a few men tasked with maintenance were aboard.

The master of Frolic,a laconic New Yorker named Sean Riley, was having trouble sleeping. The monotony was wearing on Riley, and after tossing and turning in his berth, he finally decided to try the main deck to see if the fresh air would bring sleep. Carrying a thin wool blanket, he headed for the stem to make himself comfortable.

A sound of tapping reached his ears. Maybe it was a woodpecker, Riley thought. No, not a woodpecker – the tapping had a distinctly metallic tone. Must be from Richmond, which was anchored nearby. Riley climbed into the riggings to investigate.

* * *

“I saw a dim outline ahead,” Warley said to Austin, after returning from the gun port. “I have no idea if it’s a Federal vessel, but she’s slightly to port.”

Austin adjusted the wheel, then peered from the tiny port into the gloom.

* * *

“What in God’s name,” Riley blurted aloud.

A blackened leviathan from the depths was quickly approaching. If not for the round smokestack and noise, the unknown object might have been a whale that had lost its bearings and traveled from the Gulf of Mexico upriver. Like a hunter stalking prey, the black object was advancing on Richmond.

The time was 3:40 A.M.

Sliding down a line, Riley began ringing Frolic’s bell. Then he shouted across the water. “Ahoy, Richmond,there’s a boat coming down the river.”

Over the sound of the bunkers being loaded, no one on Richmondheard his pleas.

Riley ran into the pilothouse to find an aerial flare.

* * *

“Enemy dead ahead,” Austin shouted down the hatch to Hardy.

“Now’s the time, boys,” Hardy yelled to his engine-room crew.

Opening the door to the firebox, the black gang took turns tossing kegs of tar, turpentine, tallow, and sulfur into the flames. Almost immediately, the steam gauge began creeping higher. At the helm, Austin felt Manassas surge forward.

* * *

On Preble,a midshipman saw Manassasadvancing. He ran to warn Commander French. A few moments later, French appeared on deck in his long underwear. The Confederate ram was only twenty yards from Richmond—there was no time to give warning.

The explosive fuel tossed into Manassas’sfirebox gave the vessel speed but also raised the temperature inside the vessel. The crew of the ram was covered in sweat, and their heads were swimming from the heat. One crewman began to sing “Dixie.” The rest of the sailors quickly followed suit.

Inside Manassas,it became chaos. The sailors were singing at the top of their lungs, the Union ships were sounding their warnings, and the vibration of the propeller shaft through the deck was making Austin’s feet numb. He peered through the tiny port at the vessel looming above.

They were ten yards from Richmond when Riley’s flare streaked skyward.

“Fire the gun,” Warley shouted to the gun captain.

The shot from the cannon struck the side of Joseph H.Toone and exited from the other side. Then Richmond’sbell began to ring the call to arms. In the confusion, Austin never hesitated in his advance and never deviated from his course. Hands firmly on the wheel, he steered Manassasdirectly into the side of Toone. The cast-iron ram performed as designed. It parted the planks of the frigate like a knife through the belly of a fish. The ram wedged between a pair of thick ribs two feet below the waterline. Water poured into the hull through a six-inch gash.

Fortunately, it was not a fatal blow.

* * *

On board Manassas, Austin touched the tip of his fingers to his forehead. When he brought them away and into the light, he could see red. At impact his head had slammed into a bulkhead and opened a cut. He dabbed at the wound with his handkerchief. Later he could tend to the wound – right now it was time to make another run at the Union ship.

“Full astern,” he shouted down the hatch to Hardy.

In Manassas’sengine room, one of the condensers had sprung a leak, and the hold was filled with a thick cloud of steam. A crewman had been badly burned and lay off to one side, moaning. Hardy diverted the steam through one of the side ports on Manassas—a device designed to repel boarders by blasting them with a stream of scalding water and steam. Tying a rag over the split condenser pipe, he slammed the controls into full astern.

But Manassasdid not move.

As soon as the Union officers organized their crews to begin firing, Manassas would be taking direct broadsides. Austin wasn’t confident that the armor plating could withstand such an attack. He spun the wheel hard to starboard in an attempt to free his command.

Manassasshuddered as the propellers began to find purchase.

“Get us out of here,” Warley yelled to Austin.

Austin still had no idea the ram was wedged in Toone’shull. On Toone, a seaman aimed at Manassaswith a black-powder revolver. He was just about to squeeze off a round when a thin stream of scalding water struck him in the face. Screaming in pain, he flipped over the side into the river. At that instant, Manassas’s propeller shaft slowed, then reversed direction. The four-bladed bronze prop began to bite at the muddy water.

Deep inside Toone, the iron bolts holding the ram to the solid wood bow began to squeal like a pig stuck by a saber. Something had to give, and it would not be the interwoven layers of hardwood forming the bow. Manassascrabbed its way sideways.

And then, like a string of firecrackers being ignited, the nuts began to pop off.

The nuts, with portions of the bolts still attached, shot across the cargo hold of Toone and embedded themselves in the far wall. All at once, the ram was pulled from the bow of Manassas. With the wheel turned to the locks, the Confederate ram had little choice but to respond to the helm. Once free, the vessel slammed full abeam into Toone. Richmondand Toonehad been anchored perpendicular to the current, with their anchors upstream. This allowed the Union vessels a margin of safety in case of attack – the cannon were pointing upriver toward the enemy.

Manassas slipped under one of the hawsers holding the anchor.

The thick line slapped against the rounded wooden deck and pulled tight. Deep below the Mississippi River, Toone’sanchor was wedged against the hulk of a sunken French schooner. The wreck had lain in the mud for nearly a century and was stuck as fast as if encased in cement.

“Get us out of here,” Warley yelled to Austin.

Austin still had no idea the ram was wedged in Toone’s hull.

“I’m backing out,” he shouted. “We’ll come at her again.”

Manassaslurched in reverse. The inside of the ship quickly filled with smoke.

“I’ve got no draft for the fires” Hardy yelled topside, “and one of the condensers is blown. We’re now down to a single engine.”

Austin backed away to assess the damage.

As soon as Manassasengaged Richmond,the rest of the Confederate flotilla sprang into action. The tugs Watsonand Tuscaroraraced past. Attached to their sterns were a total of five burning fire rafts, and the two ships were looking for a target. Just then, the guns of Richmondopened up. The Union gunners were firing blind – shells began raining out from every direction.

Manassasbacked away a short distance in the fog, and Warley assumed control. Almost at once, he noticed that the ship was responding sluggishly.

“Something is wrong,” he shouted to Austin.

Just then Hardy popped his head through the hatch from the engine room. Hardy’s face was covered with soot, and his eyes were as red as a Washington apple. In one hand, he held an ax.

“I can see up through the deck,” he shouted. “The stack is attached and dragging.”

With Austin supporting him on the slick deck, the two men hacked off the smokestack. It floated a short distance, then sank from sight. Climbing back down into the pilothouse, Hardy addressed Warley.

“Sir, we’re damaged,” Hardy said. “The ram is gone, and we’re down to one engine. Other than our single gun, we’re completely defenseless.”

Warley nodded and turned his crippled vessel upstream.

“There will be time to fight another day,” he said slowly.

When it was all said and done, the battle at the Head of the Passes decided little. The Union navy suffered damage that they repaired, and the blockade was not broken. Even so, the actions of the Confederate fleet gave the citizens of New Orleans a much-needed shot of confidence. The crew of Manassaswas hailed as heroes, and the vessel was towed to the shipyard for repairs. The vessel, which had entered its first battle as a privateer, officially entered into the roles of the Confederate navy. Engineer Hardy was promoted, and Charles Austin was made her official master.

The repairs necessary on Manassasstretched on for months. Her appearance was now changed. Instead of two thin stacks, she now sported a single thick one.

* * *

For Union planners, the Mississippi River was a linchpin to winning the war. The river was the artery for shipping and commerce, and it tied together the western Confederate frontier. In 1861, Abraham Lincoln summed it up succinctly: “The Mississippi is the backbone of the Rebellion. It is the key to the whole situation.”

The most important city was New Orleans – a hotbed of rebellion and unrest as well as a growing center of shipbuilding and weapons manufacture. By 1861, a total of five shipyards and twelve docks were operating, and the city was second only to Norfolk, Virginia, as a Confederate shipbuilding center. New Orleans had inventors and risk-takers. The first Confederate submarines were tested in Lake Pontchartrain, and newly developed torpedoes (sea mines) were designed there. Equally important, a large number of the cotton traders funding the rebellion lived in the city, and the blockade runners shipping the cotton to London loaded their cargo at the wharves.

Primary defense for the city was provided by Fort St. Philip on the east side of the river and Fort Jackson on the west. The pair of forts were located some seventy-five miles downstream, near the Head of the Passes. Fort St. Philip was considered to be the stronger of the two. Built of brick and rock and covered with sod, it had originally been constructed by the Spanish. St. Philip had a total of fifty-two guns pointed at the river. To the west, across the expanse of muddy water, Fort Jackson had been built by the Union before the war and bristled with seventy-five guns.

In addition to the pair of forts, a second barrier to the Union navy had been laid in place. Stretched across the river between the two forts was a heavy chain that was supported by the sunken hulks of six sacrificed schooners designed to snag any Union vessels venturing upstream.

At first glance, the Confederacy fielded what appeared to be a formidable defense.

* * *

“Ship Island,” David Farragut said quietly.

Folding his brass spyglass, Farragut slid it into the pocket of his uniform jacket. Farragut was one of the Union navy’s few flag officers, and his uniform proudly displayed this fact. His epaulets featured the stars denoting his rank. Unlike most of his officers and men, Farragut’s uniform had been carefully tailored and fit him perfectly. Farragut was not a tall man, but his erect posture and squared shoulders made him appear larger. A sense of his own importance infused his being and radiated outward to envelop those around him. Farragut was a man comfortable with leading, comfortable with decisions, and comfortable with fate. The fleet he commanded had left Hampton Roads, Virginia, on February 2. Nine days later, they stopped in Key West, and nine more found him here in the Gulf of Mexico off the Mississippi River.

“Anchor and assemble the flotilla,” Farragut said to his second in command.

It was no secret that Farragut’s fleet was preparing to attempt a run up the Mississippi River. On April 1, rebel spies reported that all but two of the vessels had crossed the bar and were now in the river. In New Orleans, work proceeded around the clock to finish the Confederate ironclads Louisianaand Mississippi.

Louisianawas a large vessel, 264 feet in length with a 62-foot beam. Her armament was to consist of a pair of 7-inch rifled guns, a trio of 9-inch shell guns, a quadrant of 8-inch shell guns, and seven 32-pounders. Mississippiwas no less a vessel. Some 260 feet in length with a beam of 53 feet 8 inches, she was due to carry a battery of twenty guns of various sizes.

The problem was that the two ships were far from final commissioning.

Atop the ramparts of Fort Jackson, Delbert Antoine stared west at the red sunset. The sight was unsettling to the native Louisianian, and he shared his feelings with his partner, Preston Kimble. The date was the eighteenth of April.

“The red of the sky,” Antoine said, “looks like blood.”

Kimble leaned over to spit off the brick walkway atop the parapet into the moat below. “If our guns don’t sink the Yankees,” Kimble said, “that gator in the moat will eat them.”

Both Kimble and Antoine were early conscripts to the cause. They were dressed in early Confederate gray wool uniforms, now showing wear. Antoine’s eyes scanned the fort. It was pentagon-shaped and stood twenty-five feet above the water. The walls were constructed of red brick and were twenty feet thick.

In the area of the sixteen heavy guns that pointed toward the water, the brick had been reinforced with thick granite slabs. Inside the center of the fort was a diagonal-shaped defensive barracks where five hundred men could take shelter during bombardments. The sight of the substantial construction gave Antoine little comfort.

“They’re coming for us,” Antoine said. “I can feel it.”

“We’ll blow them out of the water,” Kimble said, “like shooting ducks in a pond.”

Antoine nodded. But he knew his friend’s words were just bluster. If Kimble wasn’t afraid, he was just plain stupid – or crazy.

* * *

A few miles down the river from Fort Jackson, around a bend and tied to the shore, Franklin Dodd checked the lines holding his barge to the trees. It was dark, and a stiff wind was blowing. Even so, thousands of frogs were croaking, and the sound was making Dodd angry.

“Damn frogs,” he said to powder monkey Mark Hallet.

“They’ll hush up when we start firing,” Hallet noted.

An assignment to one of the numerous mortar boats was not a job relished by a Union sailor. Their job was to soften up the forts before Farragut and his ships made their run upriver. The crews’ job was simple. They would load their gun, then stand with mouth agape to avoid having their eardrums blown out. The gun would fire, then they would reload and fire again. Hundreds upon hundreds of times, the exercise would be repeated. By the end of the war, most of the crews would find themselves deaf.

Early on the morning of April 19, the mortar boats opened fire.

The first round slammed into the base of Fort Jackson. For five days the barrage would keep up around the clock. By noon of the first, half the Confederates were trembling.

* * *

Hallet poured a powder charge into the mortar. For the last few days, he had felt a pressure in his head he could not shake. He would yawn and that would relieve the pressure some, but still it always returned. He felt a hand on his arm and stared at Dodd. His friend’s mouth was moving, but Hallet could not make out the words. Wiping some powder from his blackened face with a rag, he put his ear next to Dodd’s mouth. He could smell Dodd’s breath, and it was not pleasant.

“The word is Farragut’s making his run tonight,” Dodd shouted.

Hallet smiled at the words, but he was worried. He had been unable to stop his body from shaking for the last two days. The only thing that brought him relief was rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. So he rocked until the gun fired. Then he ran over and set another powder charge.

* * *

On Manassas,Lieutenant Warley knew the Union was coming. He reasoned that the first order of business for the Federals would be to send a couple of boats upriver to try to breach the chain obstruction stretching across the river. The problem was that Manassaswas still upriver.

The last few months had reinforced Warley’s opinion of Manassas.The vessel was underpowered, lightly armored, and poor-handling. Even so, if Warley sighted an enemy ship, he was ready to ram her. For the coming battle, Warley could count on little help. Louisianaand Mississippi were still not fully operational. Both had been towed down from New Orleans and were now anchored by the forts to be used as floating gun batteries.

The Union gunboats Pinolaand Itascahad been tasked with blowing the Confederate chain obstruction. Sneaking upriver, a crew from Itascarowed a small boat to the obstruction and attached an explosive charge. The charge failed to explode. Luckily, one of the gunboats fouled itself in the chain and, attempting to free itself, pulled the chain apart, creating an opening large enough for the Union fleet to breach.

The Mississippi was open, but the Union navy faced a gauntlet of murderous fire.

* * *

On April 23, Manassasand her tender, Phoenix,arrived off the forts. Shells were still raining down from the mortar boats as Warley maneuvered into place. So far, Fort Jackson had been the hardest hit. Through the smoke, Warley could see that parts of her outer wall were pocked from the rain of shells. Continuing to scan the fort with his spyglass, he could see the Confederate flag still flying atop the pole.

Just then, one of the Fort Jackson guns returned fire.

* * *

April 23 melded into April 24. Admiral Farragut rolled his charts and stared at the men around the table in his stateroom aboard his flagship Hartford“Are there any more questions?” Farragut asked.

The men shook their heads in the negative.

“Then we go at my signal,” he said quietly.

The men filtered off to return to their commands and a strange quiet.

Just past 2 A.M., two red lanterns were hoisted atop the mizzen peak of Hartford.

From this point forward, there was no turning back.

* * *

Manassaswas tied to the bank just off Fort St. Philip; because of earlier problems, she now sported but a single smokestack, but that had failed to solve all her problems. Earlier, the ship’s engineer had reported a balky condenser. Warley ordered it changed before the battle. The pilot was testing the steam power as Warley paced the decks.

“Is the gun crew ready?” he shouted to Lieutenant Reed.

“Yes, sir,” Reed said. “I checked with them a half hour ago, as you instructed.”

“Fireman and black gang?”

“All in place. The condenser is repaired – they’re making steam,” Reed noted.

“Are the steam and water ports operational?” Warley asked.

“If we need to repel boarders,” Reed said, “they’ll be in for a shock.”

Just then, the pilot interrupted.

“Sir, we have steam in the boiler and power to the propeller,” he said.

“Then cast us off,” Warley said.

* * *

The barrage from the mortar boats increased. Delbert Antoine peered through the gloom for signs of the Union navy. The air was thick with the smell of spent powder and brick dust. The temperature was cool, like the inside of a tomb.

“I think I see something,” Preston Kimble shouted.

Kimble was fifty feet from Antoine and closer to the water.

Like an evil mourner shrouded in black, the dim outline of Hartford slowly materialized on the river. Kimble reached for the pistol lying on the wall of the rampart and fired a minié ball at the approaching wraith. The effect was like trying to use a flyswatter to kill a bird, but Kimble didn’t care.