Wolseley had made the very clear point that Grenfell’s proposals could not possibly be contemplated by Her Majesty’s armed forces, but he was interested in a general, exploratory discussion of a completely unofficial kind. In the meantime, the news of Moelfre Bay and the Union disaster at Chickamauga had shifted the ground from under every party. It was a new game, with a new urgency redolent with opportunity.
WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON, D.C., 9:05 AM, SEPTEMBER 24, 1863
Nothing but bad news was coming from Chattanooga and the trapped Army of the Cumberland. Stanton had sent Charles Dana there to be his eyes and ears, and Dana was sending back a stream of encrypted messages emphasizing the increasingly hopeless nature of the situation and the failure of its commander.
It was obvious to Stanton that Rosecrans needed reinforcements immediately. The XI Corps, especially, and the XII Corps of the Army of the Potomac could use a train ride now, he thought. The former was in especially bad odor among Meade’s men. That relief force needed a man who could command an independent small army. It also needed a man who was burning with the desire to retrieve a failed reputation. The name of Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker slipped into his mind. Hooker was on inactive status in New York. He was a superlative organizer and leader. No man was more suited by experience and ability to grasp this nettle. After Chancellorsville, he had much to prove.
Stanton consulted Lincoln, who assented, commenting, “I expect Joe now knows the difference between where his headquarters and his hindquarters go.” The order went out that day. “Major General Hooker, U.S. Volunteers, will assume command of XI and XII Corps.”
NEW YORK HARBOR, 10:14 AM, SEPTEMBER 24, 1863
Cannon fire echoed across the Verrazano Narrows between Staten Island and Brooklyn and up over the docks and streets of Manhatten Island. Word flew from mouth to mouth that the Confederate rams and the British were attacking New York. Work stopped as everyone in the great American metropolis rushed into the streets for news or climbed to the roofs to look into the harbor at the unfolding battle.
Admiral Lisovsky had assumed too much on the prudence of the British admiral in pursuit of the Kearsarge when he offered to escort her to New York. The Admiralty’s orders were direct and ruthless-sink or capture the Kearsarge. “Pursue her to the ends of the earth and into any harbor in which she seeks refuge.” With the zeal and intrepidity of a young Nelson, that officer had caught up with Winslow and Lisovsky only hours from the Hudson’s mouth and immediately engaged when it became clear the Russians were trying to protect the American sloop. Lisovsky was surprised when the first British ranging shot plunged off the Nevsky’s larboard quarter, but he already has his crew at battle stations. Lisovsky wanted to avoid a decisive engagement and hold his ships in being as commerce raiders in case of war between Russia and Britain. Flee as he might, the British hung on his ships and Kearsarge, pursuing them with a hail of blows into the Hudson’s broad mouth and up the river. The British captains had never seen their crews handle their guns with such speed and precision, and this was in a navy second to none in the smooth and deadly efficiency of its gun drills. It was only a matter of time before the Royal Navy inflicted another humiliation on the Czar’s ships in desperation to take the Kearsarge.
Time was not on the Royal Navy’s side this morning. The guns on Forts Tompkins and Richmond on Staten Island began to join the fight with scores of heavy guns. Every warship or gunboat of the U.S. Navy in the harbor rushed to get up steam. Adding to the din of gunfire was the ringing of the church bells in alarm throughout Staten Island, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and the Jersey shore.
The British ships absorbed terrible punishment from the close-range fire of the forts without flinching in their pursuit. Passing through the Verrazano Narrows into the Upper Bay, the ships broke up into separate duels. The two British sloops drew the Russian frigates to give the HMS Dauntless and Topaze the opening to concentrate on the Kearsarge.
Winslow was desperate. He faced two heavier ships with skilled and determined captains who were trying to position themselves on his starboard and larboard and crush him with the weight of their broadsides. Two of his 32-pounders were already out of action, and the shells and splinters had thinned out the rest of his crew. Lamson’s men had rushed to replace every casualty, and their young captain had stepped in to replace the fallen executive officer. Smoke that the light breeze could barely move hung over the ships and was lit only by the tongues of flames that spit from the gun ports and main gun decks.
Lamson stalked the quarterdeck, encouraging the gun crews, his face sprayed and his coat drenched with blood from a man whose head was carried off next to him. His hat had flown off with a splinter. Yet he moved with the easy grace of a leopard, sure and calm, a cigar trailing from the corner of his mouth, his eye never missing an opportunity or a danger. “Handsomely done, boys! Lay it on! Lay it on!” A shot dissolved the gunner, and Lamson snatched the firing cord as it whipped through the air. He gave it a yank to fire the percussion cap to spark the charge in the barrel. The XI-inch roared and bucked, sending its shell to explode on Dauntless’s gun deck.
Kearsarge’s crew was being savaged. How long could flesh and blood stand the pounding? Lamson glanced about and noticed a wounded man fight off an offer of help. “No, mate, stand to your post. Fight the ship!” He then crawled to a hatch to slide down the ladder. Two of the men at the XI-inch forward pivot had been sick with fever that morning, but they were manning the gun as if they had been the halest. More of Gettysburg’s crew, just below decks, was waiting to replace the fallen. He ran to the hatch and peered down into upturned expectant faces. “Mr. Henderson, take a gun crew to replace the Marines on the forecastle rifle. Tell the sergeant to report to me.” Bullets slammed into the deck around him from the Royal Marines in Dauntless’s rigging.
Quarter Gunner Dempsey nudged another man in the direction of Lamson in the brief seconds of inaction between heaving their gun back along its lines before the gunner pulled the lanyard. “Did ya see? Did ya see? He don’t flinch or notice at all.”
Topaze’s captain concentrated the fire of his first division guns on Kearsarge’s quarterdeck, sweeping it clean of men and smashing the wheel. Another division directed its fire at the hull below the smokestack until a shot stabbed into the boilers. They exploded in a surge of superheated steam that spread scalding death into the black gang and engineers. Kearsarge’s screws spun to a halt. The ship was now barely drifting on the Hudson’s current. It was enough. Topaze and Dauntless closed on either side. Captain Spencer was determined to walk on Kearsarge’s wrecked deck in triumph as soon as its captain struck. He wanted to do it with all of New York as witness.