The last thing Chamberlain wanted was militia in a fight with redcoats. In an open field fight, they were a liability, just as they had been in the Revolution and the War of 1812. They were good for something, though. “Dig! I want them to dig a fighting trench from the inlet on Back Cove across the peninsula to the Canal Basin by the Fore River, behind the creek that empties into the cove. Get every spade and shovel in the town but have them start now with their hands if they have to.” Before riding off, he turned to a staff officer and said, “Captain, show them how it’s done.”
Windham was not a man to waste time on a stalemate. He could see that the Americans had reinforced their cavalry with some infantry and strong battery, and together they had thrown up too strong a front to waste lives smashing through it when maneuver would drive them back. Again he peeled off companies of the 51st Hemmingford Rangers to circle around the American right flank. He was surprised that the obvious maneuver had not forced the Americans to pull back even as his flankers were about to slip around them.
Then he understood as a volley from a new battery burst over his main fighting line. To the east a wave of American infantry had crested a small rise and was heading for his own rear while a larger group hit his flanking companies. He was about to be trapped. He sent an aide galloping to the rear to hurry the rest of his command forward. It soon became clear that the advancing Americans numbered not more than five hundred men while the force blocking his rear was even smaller. He concluded that his opponent had played a bold hand, but it was a bad hand. It was time to call the bluff. In the back of his mind he was already regretting leaving his guns behind in his haste to reach his objective.
He sent off more aides with orders. The Hemmingford Rangers were to turn about and clear the Americans off the road in the rear, the 62nd Foot to wheel about to the left and strike the Americans coming on the flanks, and the remaining two Canadian battalions were to hold the front against the cavalry. Had they all been line British battalions it would have gone off without a hitch, but Windham expected too much of his green Canadians. So far they had done very well, but the body-shredding shell and case shot and the sight of their flankers being overrun had shaken them. Windham’s coolness in the face of an enemy in his rear had the opposite reaction in his Canadian militia. They approached the line of troops in faded blue-the 17th Maine-with accelerating panic. With a single fluid motion the Americans took aim and fired, and the front Canadian ranks pitched forward or flew back. The Canadians received the command to aim just as shells burst overhead, whirling jagged metal through the ranks. They could manage only a ragged, ill-aimed volley. Again they heard the command, “Fire!” from their front. It was too brutal a baptism. They simply broke.
As the Canadians fled, the 62nd Foot and Chamberlain’s two remaining regiments locked horns. The British battalion outnumbered the 19th and 20th Maine whose original strength had been wasted by hard fighting over the last year. The remaining core was veteran and hard. The little regiments were also seething at the sight of redcoats on Maine soil, especially having that morning had to help clear the dead and wounded civilians from the streets of Portland around the station. Chamberlain threw the guns of his two batteries into the scale by directing them to concentrate on the British with canister. The guns wheeled into line. The British made for a splendid target, moving in elegant precision across the field. The Maine men took time to admire their high style before twelve guns poured tin cans filled with lead balls into them. The two regiments fired next. The 62nd Foot staggered from the blow. Windham’s aide flew from the saddle, and he himself felt a hammer strike him in the chest and throw him from his horse. He was dead when he struck the ground. The Splashers, with the amazing resilience of a British battalion, pulled themselves together and sent a volley into the Maine men, dropping dozens.
Chamberlain rode over to his old 20th Maine and found Major Ellis Spear, its new commander. “Ellis, give them the bayonet. The boys have got that one down, I think.” He winked at Ellis, who grinned and then shouted the command, “Fix bayonets!” There was a rustle of clicks as the slim, blued blades were locked into place. “Follow me, boys!” The 19th Maine joined the charge. As the Maine men howled their charge, the 62nd got off another well-aimed volley.
Then they showed why British infantry had maintained such a reputation over the centuries. They charged. The crimson and blue lines collided in that great rarity in military history. Bayonet charges rarely resulted in melees. Either the attacker flinched at the sight of an unbroken enemy, or the defenders panicked and took to their heels. But now it was bayonet and rifle butt and pistol in a stabbing, clubbing mob. British bayonet battle drill was deadly as the men operated in wedges of threes. The best bayonet man was at the apex in the center while his companions supported him from the sides. The Maine men knew a thing or two about the bayonet as well, but this time they were not crossing blades with the exhausted and thirsty 15th Alabama.
The commander of the cavalry screen saw his main chance when Chamberlain’s men charged. He ordered his three hundred men to mount and charge the two remaining Canadian battalions on his front. They unraveled in the face of the oncoming mass of cavalry and fled to the rear. The 1st Maine Cavalry harried the terrified militiamen until the roadblock of the 17th Maine stopped the survivors. They surrendered.
By then, the Splashers and Maine men had pulled away from each other, dragging their wounded after them, and glared in silence as sweat-soaked chests heaved. The irresistible force had met the unmovable object. Chamberlain was clear sighted enough to realize that it was time to go. If the enemy’s reinforcements he could see approaching were as tough as the shrunken redcoat band in front of him, his force would bleed to death on this field. Under the fire of his batteries, he ordered a careful retreat back to the Portland militia line. At least he could put the creek between him and the enemy. Chamberlain was the last man off the field. He paused long enough to throw a salute with his saber to the shrunken ranks of the Splashers before galloping off.
He was surprised to see how much they had accomplished in the few hours he had bought. Fear and the need to do something physical had carved a serviceable trench over half a mile. The city had poured out its tools, and fear had supplied the will. His Maine veterans quickly jumped into the trenches and added their experience to the militia’s energy. They had bought the time for the men of Portland to build the defenses to save their own city. These men now cheered as hundreds of enemy prisoners were prodded along past to be taken into Portland.
By the time the British and Canadian skirmishers gingerly approached, the trench system with its parapet would have earned passing marks from the Army of the Potomac’s perfection-minded chief engineer himself. Chamberlain had mixed the militia with his own men to thicken the line and leave none of it without experienced men. He figured that his veterans would steady the militia and teach them what they could not have learned on their own. The day was too far gone for the British to assault the line, even if they’d had the energy left for such a hazard. Night fell. The First Battle of Portland was over.27
ALBANY, NEW YORK, 4:14 AM, OCTOBER 1, 1863
The Guards Brigade swept away the New York militia, which had gathered in the night, and marched into Albany eight hours after it crossed the border. Copperhead employees of the rail companies had kept the railroad open straight to Albany. The government men of the Empire State had fled in their nightshirts, a rendition of events Lord Paulet was planning to dine out on for years to come. He had the honor to wipe away the stain of the 1777 failure and defeat of Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne at Saratoga on the very road to Albany. That city was in panic, but he was in no mood to keep order. He wasn’t planning to stay long. Copperhead guides were taking parties of his men throughout the city to every site that supported the war effort: factories, foundries, warehouses, boats on the Hudson, and above all the Watervliet Arsenal. All were soon in flames. The fire and smoke fanned the panic of a fleeing populace. Paulet was glad to wave the fan himself if it would send out even more residents far and wide to spread tales of terror. He needed every advantage to multiply the power of his small force. Three more brigades were arriving as the city burned, giving Paulet more than ten thousand men. Canadian Volunteer Militia companies had been left as security at every station along the railroad back to Canada.