By the morning of the ninth day, September 21, the two ships ahead of him were seen to be flying the St. Andrew’s cross, Russian naval colors. Kearsarge fired off a salute and hailed them. They were the Imperial Russian Navy screw frigates Aleksandr Nevksy and Peresvet. They were very impressive, large ships of a very American design, which was not surprising since Russia bought many ships from the United States and followed its shipbuilding advances. Large and well-armed, the 5,100-ton Nevsky carried fifty-one smoothbore guns, almost making her a ship of the line, and the Peresvet bore forty-four. All the guns in both ships were powerful 60-pounders, cast in Philadelphia, another sign of close Russo-American cooperation.
Adm. Stefan Lisovsky flew his pennant aboard the Nevsky, the flagship of the Russian Navy. The Czar had not sent such a ship lightly. Lisovsky greeted Winslow enthusiastically and invited him aboard. His eagerness to see the Americans was flavored by his curiosity to find out how they had acquired the visible battle damage. Perhaps they had encountered the infamous Alabama. In any case, it would be a good way to begin his goodwill visit to the United States.
His curiosity spiked when he saw the young civilian with his arm in a sling being lowered into Kearsarge’s boat along with the captain’s party. He gave orders to prepare a more comfortable hoist for the wounded man to save him the pain of climbing up the ship’s ladder thrown over the side. As a special courtesy he was on the quarterdeck to receive his guests when they came aboard. When Winslow stepped aboard the boatswains’ whistles piped and an honor guard of Russian naval infantry presented arms. Winslow saluted the flag and the admiral who returned the salute and extended his hand. Winslow introduced his party, and Lisovsky introduced his officers. The admiral was clearly interested in young Adams, not only as private secretary of the American ambassador to the Court of St. James, but as the grandson and great-grandson of presidents. He came as close to royalty as Lisovsky would find in America. Adams was still in pain from his injury but laid on the charm. Lamson was more reserved, but Lisovksy sized him up quickly as a formidable officer. Winslow was gratified that the entire conversation was held in English, but came quickly to the point. The British ships were closing with every minute.
There were gasps from the Russian officers as they listened to the account of Moelfre Bay and the sinking of two Royal Navy warships and the encounter with Undaunted. As shocking as the story was, the stock of the Americans had clearly soared. There was not a Russian naval officer who did not dream of avenging the Royal Navy’s humiliation of the Russian Imperial Navy in the Crimean War.
Lisovsky was no less impressed, but he had other matters to consider. Lisovsky was a man of the world, and his life in the Russian Navy had exposed him to some of the seamier sides of that world. The Czar has chosen him for his sense of things beyond his naval duties. The enormity of the tale that Winslow unfolded stunned him. My God, he thought, I’m sailing into a war. His instructions had been clear: he was to take no part in the American Civil War on the part of the U.S. government, and he was to make no overt statement as to a Russo-American alliance directed against Britain and France. Such discussion was the duty of the Baron Stoeckel, the Czar’s ambassador in Washington. While in the United States, Lisovsky was to be guided by Stoeckel’s political instructions. However, and this was an enormous “however,” Lisovsky bore sealed orders that he was to open should the United States be attacked by any foreign power or should such a power openly side with the Confederacy.
Winslow was clearly in trouble. He was asking Lisovsky’s help to avoid the British. The admiral knew that a misstep could drag Russia into the inevitable war Moelfre Bay would ignite. Yet he had speculated long and hard on his sealed orders and what they might be. He knew he was a pawn in the greatest game of all as Winslow said, “I beg your assistance, sir. They will overhaul me in less time than it will take for me to reach the safety of New York.”
Adams added, “My government would consider your assistance to be the ultimate proof of his Imperial Majesty’s regard for the United States. I am fully acquainted with the correspondence between our governments. I have been present at my father’s side when he and your ambassador in London have discussed the importance of a Russo-American common front in the face of British world hegemony. Your ambassador has stated in the clearest terms that those are the very objectives of his Imperial Majesty’s government as well. And now, sir, may I observe that the cause of our common interest will be upon us shortly.”
Winslow suggested that the Russians would help greatly by staying between Kearsarge and her pursuers. Lisovsky thought quickly and smiled, “I think we can do better than that, Captain. I propose that you sail with my ships. I will escort you into port, as, shall we say, an exercise of the first law of the sea-to aid those in distress.” He gave a sidelong glance to Kearsarge. “Your gallant ship is obviously in danger of floundering from its wounds. We cannot leave you alone. His Imperial Majesty would never forgive me. Besides, my officers and I cannot wait to hear every detail of how you bearded the British lion in his own den.”
CHATHAM ARCH, INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA, 8:37 PM, SEPTEMBER 22, 1863
Capt. John Hines thought about Col. George Grenfell’s description of the man to whom he had just been introduced, Lt. Col. Pitt Rivers, late assistant quartermaster of the British garrison of Ireland: “a man of fierce temper, not untinged with violence, of considerable energy and enthusiasm, unsociable with his peers, a domestic tyrant and yet approachable to his labourers, a dominant and aloof father in the grand… manner, though possessing a dry sense of humor.”
Rivers was a man of complete self-assurance, as befitted an Englishman among lesser beings. He was about thirty-six and in his prime. As master of ordnance at an early age, he had been instrumental in the trials that led to the adoption of the Enfield rifle for the British Army. In the grand Victorian style, he was also a world-class archaeologist. He was above all a fighting man, brevetted and mentioned in dispatches for distinguished service in the Crimea. He had come over to Canada with the wave of reinforcements during the crisis of the Trent Affair in late 1861. Six months later he had been ordered to Ireland, his chief duty to ferret out the Fenian conspiracies. Those conspiracies spanned the Atlantic now and had drawn him back to North America. Wolseley had had “additional duties” for him, the cause of his presence in this modest hotel in this modest provincial city.
The only other man in the room was Col. George Grenfell St. Ledger, late of Her Majesty’s Army and a soldier of fortune. Grenfell was the sort of antagonist a novelist would have portrayed-“At sixty-two years of age he was still an impressive figure of romance. Slightly under six feet, with light blue eyes and shoulder-length white hair setting off a face darkened by the sandstorms of the Sahara and the winds of the Mediterranean, he had the personal appearance of a Brian de Bois-Gilbert in Ivanhoe,” as the Confederate cavalry general Basil Duke would say. An aristocratic black sheep, he had run off at an early age to join the French Chasseurs d’Afrique, fight against and then with the Moors against the French, scour Riffian pirates from the approaches to Gibralter, and join Garibaldi in his struggle for Italian independence. The lure of the American Civil War broke his only attempt at retired country life. Jefferson Davis had been glad to commission him a colonel and make him Bragg’s inspector general.26 With the Morgan fiasco still fresh, he had asked Grenfell for less conventional assistance. Grenfell had slipped through the Union states and into Canada, where he had made contact with Wolseley and laid Davis’s proposals before him.