Harwell appeared for orders. “Luff, I imagine they will employ their former tactics, steam in circles around the fort, pound it to rubble. I hope those militiamen will stand up to it.”
“I hope so, sir. They may be militia, but they are Southern militia, and I would warrant them for standing as tall as any abolitionist regular.”
“Let us hope you are right. Now please assemble the gun crews and have them stand ready. We’ll wait for what presents itself.”
“Aye, sir,” Harwell said, saluted, hurried off.
Such enthusiasm, such patriotism… Bowater thought. Is Harwell a naive romantic, or am I a cynical, unsentimental cad? Or is it both?
Samuel Bowater watched the young luff get the men to quarters. He was giving them some words of encouragement, he could tell.
Morituri te salutamus, Bowater thought.
Lieutenant Thadeous Harwell stood behind the breech of the big Parrott gun, hands clasped behind his back, looking down river.
Gladly do I lay down this life for my beloved Southern home, and only regret that I shall not live to fight on…
No…
Happy am I to lay down my life for my…for this, my beloved Southern…beloved Confederacy…
There, that has more of a classical sound…
Happy am I to lay down my life for this, my beloved Confederacy, and only regret that I shall not live to fight on…
Good.
He ran it over, again and again, in his head. Said it out loud, but softly, like a prayer, so no one would hear. The trick with dying words, he imagined, was to commit them to memory so well that one could not forget them when the time came. He could not imagine what must go through a man’s mind at the time. Probably a lot. If he wanted to go out with some noble words on his lips, he had best be ready.
“Happy am I…”
By eight-thirty the Union fleet was in sight. The ships came steaming around the bend, trailing their black plumes of smoke. Through field glasses Bowater could see the churning white water around their bows. They were coming on fast, fourteen Yankee gunboats stretched across the river, a waterborne cavalry charge. The Confederates were as ready as they were going to get.
Waiting, waiting… Once again. Bowater could feel his stomach twisting like a fish on a hook. He regretted the second helping of omelette.
Wait for it, wait for it… Bowater found himself thinking, over and over. Just a handful of minutes and the Union fleet would be under the fort’s guns, and it would be a three-way exchange of fire—Union fleet, mosquito fleet, Fort Cobb. Roanoke once more.
Line ahead now, they came up with Fort Cobb and the fort opened up on them, the thirty-two-pounders blasting away with their flat, echoing report, kicking up spouts in the river. The Union ships returned fire, rifled shells and spherical case shot. One by one they blasted the fort as they passed.
Bowater waited, waited for the lead Yankee to turn, to start the big circling maneuver that would take the ships by the fort again and again until they had reduced it to nothing. Just as they had done at Hatteras. Just as they had done at Roanoke Island. So fixed was this idea in his mind that nearly the entire enemy fleet was past the fort, and was coming on, before he realized they were not going to do it again.
They were bypassing the fort, giving it one good shot and then ignoring it, giving it the attention it deserved, which was very little. It was the mosquito fleet they wanted, and they were coming straight on, full-speed, right for their quarry. It would be ship to ship this time. It would be Trafalgar in miniature, not Roanoke Island. It would be the Yankees’ advantage, three to one.
35
The desertion of Elizabeth City situated near the head of the Dismal Swamp Canal, would have been unseemly and discouraging, more particularly as I had urged the inhabitants to defend it to the last extremity.
— Flag Officer William F. Lynch to Stephen R. Mallory
“That stern-wheeler, there…” Bowater stood in the wheelhouse, pointed to the onrushing Yankee, three hundred yards downriver. “Right for him. We’ll go in shooting.”
“Aye, sir.” Tanner at the wheel looked grim. Bowater grabbed the engine-room bell, gave three bells, full ahead.
Sons of bitches…It made Bowater mad, in a way he had not been mad before. The arrogance of the damned Yankees, bypass the fort, sweep forward as if they were brushing aside an annoyance. It was the entire Yankee way of thinking; brush aside anything that was in their way, any tradition, any sacred right, anything that prevented their building more factories, more railroads, unleashing more mechanical horror on the world.
Suddenly this fight seemed personal. uddenly Captain Samuel Bowater, detached and professional navy man, a man who followed orders, felt himself a wild-eyed patriot.
He stepped out of the wheelhouse, ent forward. “Mr. Harwell, we are going for that stern-wheeler that seems to be coming for us. Let’s shoot him in the nose as we approach!”
Harwell waved, turned back to his gun. Bowater could feel the deck vibrate as Taylor poured on the steam. Bowater heard the water boiling under the counter, felt the tug build speed and momentum as the riverbanks slipped past. She was not a quarter horse, she was a knight’s charger—heavy, slow, strong as could be.
They closed fast, bow to bow. The Yankee fired; Bowater felt the wind of the shell as it passed. Harwell fired, took the Yankee’s fore topmast clean off. He spun the elevation screw, lowered the aim. He was not used to firing so close.
The Yankees were charging down on the mosquito fleet, coming on line abreast now, picking their targets. Two of the enemy were falling on Ellis, and she was turning, firing, backing, trying to keep from their grasp. Bowater could see Yankee troops on the ships’ decks—they must have augmented their navy crews, while the Confederates were desperate for anyone who could stand.
One hundred yards separated the Yankee from the Cape Fear. Harwell fired again, blew the upper third off the Yankee’s stack. Smoke poured out in an ugly, disorganized cloud.
But now the Yankee turned, presented her broadside, three big guns, the bulk of her armament. Bowater grabbed the rail hard, clenched his teeth, waited for what would come.
Boom, boom, boom, the big guns opened up right in their face. Bowater felt the deck shudder, saw a plume of splinters burst right in front of him, as a shell hit the deckhouse and kept on going. Another whipped the head off the rammer at the bow gun, neat as an executioner’s ax, tossed his body back onto the foredeck as the shell continued down the side deck. Bowater heard it hit the port howitzer, a terrible clanging, a shattering of wooden carriage, a pause, and then the screaming of the men who were in the way.
“Captain! Captain!” Tanner shouted from the wheelhouse. His course was right for the Yankee, steaming to hit her amidships.
“Steady as she goes!” Would the Cape Fear take the impact? Who knew? This was her last fight in any instance, that much was clear.
Fifty yards, forty yards. “Mr. Harwell, get your men away from the bow!”
Harwell shouted, waved, led his men aft, back toward the deckhouse.
Thirty yards. Bowater could see Yankees scrambling now. The broadside guns were running out again. Too late. Smoke pumping from the broken stack, the side wheels gathered speed, as the Yankee gunboat tried to get out of the path of the suicide Rebel.