The Sea Hunters Part 13

Chesley studied the heavy damage to the boat by Fort Donelson's guns.

It was a bleeding wonder, he thought, she still floated. To his mind, they might as well start over.

A junior carpenter started across the boarding ramp to the forward deck of the boat, and Chesley yelled across to him. "Give me a hand with my tools, will you, mate?"

The man returned and lifted one end of the heavy case. He nodded toward the jagged holes in the armor. "This should keep us busy until next Christmas, don't you think?" "Maybe even Easter," Chesley grunted, lifting his end of the case.

Ten days later, Carondelet rejoined the fleet.

Henry Walke reached into his Pocket and withdrew a worn old pipe.

He filled it from a sealskin pouch containing his favorite Ohio Valley tobacco. Then he began an inspection tour of the engine room.

Finding everything in first-rate order, he turned to his chief engineer.

"Are the repairs to the steam heaters to Your satisfaction?"

"They seem fine, sir. As the other boilers are fired, I'll open the vents and the boat should begin to warm up." The bell in the engine room rang loudly. "That's the pilot," said Walke- "We've cast off from the dock."

The engineer nodded. "A quarter back," he ordered one of the crew, who immediately gripped a bra.s.s lever and notched it downward.

"Inform me if you meet with any problems," said Walke.

"I shall, captain," the engineering Officer said smiling. "You'll be the first I'll complain to."

Walke nodded silently as he lit his pipe.

"May I ask where we're headed?" asked the engineer.

"Island Number Ten," Walke said over his shoulder. "Where we'll stare the devil in the eye."

The Confederate stronghold at Island Ten was the key to the upper Mississippi- The borders between Kentucky and Tennessee were constantly changing, the line on the maps held hostage by the whims of a river that did not recognize state-designated lines. At the time of the battle for river supremacy, Island Ten was inside Tennessee, but just barely.

The island fortress sat almost smack dab in the middle of the Mississippi, barring the Union Navy from unimpeded access around it.

At the Outbreak of the war, the Confederates had wisely constructed a vast complex of forts on the island, eleven in total.

Multiple batteries mounted nearly sixty guns.

In addition, a sixteen-gun man-made floating battery, with pumps to raise and lower its platform, floated above the fortifications.

These powerful batteries, along with a complement of some seven thousand soldiers on the eastern bank, allowed the Confederates to hold deadly control over the upper river.

To win the river war, the taking of Island Ten by Union forces was an absolute necessity.

Below the fortifications, a long line of Union mortar boats had been towed up the river and placed along the bank, hidden by trees along the water's edge. A mortar boat was little more than a floating raft with sloping sides and a huge mortar in the center of the deck.

Piled on all sides were shot and drums of powder. A small hoist lifted the'immense projectile into the stubby barrel.

The men a.s.signed to them would load the ma.s.sive sh.e.l.ls, touch the fuse with fire, and then run out a door and crouch behind a wall on deck. With mouths agape to prevent their eardrums from blowing out and hands cupped over their ears, they would await the blast. Even with such precautions, most of the mortar raft crews went deaf.

At sunrise, the entire Union force opened fire on the island batteries.

Days pa.s.sed as the a.s.sault continued from land and river. The Confederates, who the Union believed would surrender when the gunboats arrived, were comfortably holding out, returning fire whenever they spotted a target.

Union Major General John Pope, in command of an army of twelve thousand men, was encamped on the west side of the river below the island. He thought that if he could transport his troops across river and attack the island from the south, the Confederates would be cut off and have no choice but to fold, placing control of the river in Union hands.

It was a sound plan, but he needed a gunboat to run past the great ma.s.s of guns on the island and silence any field artillery that might stop his crossing.

Rear Admiral Foote, in command of the Union gunboat flotilla, was adamantly opposed to the idea. He believed the Confederate guns would tear to pieces any of his boats that made the attempt to run around the island forts.

Only one gunboat captain disagreed with Foote's prediction of doom.

Under a canvas army tent beside the river, the discussion was heated.

"We have to find another way," Admiral Foote argued.

"The mortar barrage is having little or no effect, admiral", General Pope stated truthfully. He sat on a camp stool and rubbed the soles of his black leather boots against each other, flaking off the dark mud, while he stroked his thick beard and sipped from a tin cup containing his favorite tea. "We need suppOrt from the navy. Only then can my troops take the island."

"If I lose any of my boats by their failure to run past sixty guns, then what help have you received?" Foote's fractured ankle from the battle at Fort Donelson was giving him great pain, and his overall health was fading fast from the pressures of command.

Several of his gunboat captains listened carefully without commenting.

Walke also sat listening, staring at the ground, deep in thought.

Then suddenly he looked up and spoke slowly with purpose. "I'm certain I can get Carondelet around Island Ten, admiral. My crew is the most experienced in the fleet. They're no strangers to enemy fire.

If we pa.s.s in the dead of night, we stand a good chance of success."

"At least someone in the navy has some spirit," Pope said acidly.

Rear Admiral Foote ignored the remark and stared at Walke. Foote was a kindly-looking man with soft brown eyes. He had worked his way up the ladder to flag officer through experience and wise decisions.

He was well respected by his fellow Officers and superiors. His hair remained dark and natural, but his bristling beard had turned gray.

He was weary from the war that was scarcely a year old.

He leaned forward and clasped his hands. "Your fellow officers do not believe it can be done. Why should I risk the chance of losing you and your crew?"

"Carondelet is a lucky boat, admiral. She's fought in every river battle from here to Belmont and survived. If any boat can do it she can.

I Predict that when this war is won she'll still be afloat. I swear to you that if you allow me to make the pa.s.sage I will get through.

Foote stared at Walke long and hard, then said quietly, "If I've learned anything during my many years in the navy, it's not to secondguess my commanders. If you feel your boat can make it when every other officer here believes it is madness, then it is a madness I share.

But I have faith in your fervor, Henry, and your dedication. You get Your boat safely past that d.a.m.ned island. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir. You can rely on me."

"Good," Foote grunted. "Give them h.e.l.l."

" General Pope sighed. "Amen."

"Amen, By the fourth of April, preparations were complete In addition to the reinforced casemate, a huge protective s.h.i.+eld lashed along the Port side as and cotton bales was let, already homely by design, now from the island's guns. Caronde owherelooked like a floating derelict barhe on a journey to n Walke "Issue the men pistols, rifles, and cutla.s.ses to repel boarders, ordered his first officer, Charles Murphy.

"And check to see if the hoses from the boilers are in place."

Walke had ordered the s.h.i.+pwrights to rig lines directly from the steam boilers to the upper decks. If the s.h.i.+p became disabled and the Confederates tried to board and take the boat by hand-to-hand fighting, they would be sprayed with streams of boiling water. Satisfied that he could do no more, Walke gave the order to cast off the mooring lines attached to trees along the riverbank- and the river was At ten o'clock that night, the moon had already set ma.s.sive spring pitch black, the stars blanketed by thick clouds. A er shower, with drops as large as a baby's fist, splattered onto the thund she pulled from sh.o.r.e.

decks of the boat as an nse lightning storm tore the sky. Bolts As if it were an Omen, 'nte jagged shafts, first blue, then yellow, flew from the black heavens in ers on sh.o.r.es Carondelet appeared and then white. To the Union observers arition without substance or body.

disappeared like some ghostly appar th ai e On the open top deck, the crew ga ered ound their capt n as h stood with Bible in hand, leading them in prayer. He too took on the look of a wraith as he was briefly illuminated by the lightning.

"There she goes," Foote shouted excitedly through his speaking trumpet to the boats moored beside his flags.h.i.+p- oose a curtain through the fleet, the mortar rafts let I As word pa.s.sed e sound of Carondelet's steam engines. The only of sh.e.l.ls to cover the 2athered speed on the dark river was a light inside the gunboat as she _ Th the boat was as single lantern deep inside the engine room. e rest Of she steamed toward what many thought was certain black as a crypt as destruction.

6 6 close," Walke said to First Master Pilot Hoel, who We're getting using every bit of his experience to keep the boat in stood at the wheels ay from shoals. It was a nearly impossible job in the deep water and aw aden with coal dead of night, and the pilot was thankful for the occasional flashes of lightning that showed him the riverbanks.

"We'll be coming alongside the north end of the island about now,"

said Hoel.

The steam vent that kept the dust in the stacks moist had been diverted into the paddle-wheel housings to silence the loud hiss. As Carondelet pa.s.sed the Confederates' floating battery, the dry stacks suddenly flared with flame and sparks.

"Man the pumps and extinguish the fire!" Walke shouted down from the pilothouse.

With fire blazing from her twin smokestacks like an erupting volcano gone mad and lit by the flashes of lightning, the boat steamed within range of the mighty Confederate gun batteries. And yet there was no sign that Carondelet had been discovered. No flash of cannon fire cut the night.

Hoel suddenly yelled, "Hard aport!" and furiously twisted the wheel.

With only three feet to spare he had saved the boat from running aground on an obstruction the rebels had secretly constructed in the river channel. But in doing so, he had brought Carondelet directly abreast of the island just as she was fully revealed by a nearby lightning strike. Seeing the Union gunboat suddenly materialize from the darkness, the Confederates rushed to their guns.

A sporadic storm of shot and sh.e.l.l was unleashed across the water, aimed at the protective coal barge the Confederates thought was the side of the Union vessel. The barrage produced no effect. Not one piece of iron struck the gunboat's casemate.

With sparks still shooting from her stacks, paddle wheels whipping the water in a frenzy, and a jubilant Walke yanking the chain on her steam whistle in a defiant gesture, Carondelet steamed around a bend into the clear and vanished in the night.

A few miles below Island Ten, the lucky gunboat eased along the sh.o.r.e to the cheers of Union troops, elated that her big guns would soon support their a.s.sault on the Confederate works.

TWo nights later, encouraged by the success of Walke and Carondelet, a second gunboat, Pittsburgh, made the hazardous pa.s.sage.

Soon, General Pope's troops were ferried across the river to attack the Rebels' back door. On April 7, surrounded by overwhelming ground and river forces, Island Ten surrendered.

Three months later, Commander Walke was summoned on board Admiral Farragut's flags.h.i.+p, Hartford, recently arrived after running his fleet upriver from New Orleans past the Confederate works at Port Hudson.

After offering him a gla.s.s of port, Farragut said, " Walke, our spies report that the ram the Confederates have been building up the yazoo River is nearly completed. I'm told she is armored with railroad iron.

i would like you to take your boat up the Yazoo and investigate."

"Am I to engage her?" asked Walke.

"Destroy her if you can."

"Hard to believe the rebels found enough materials to build a wars.h.i.+p."

"Queen of the West and Tyler will accompany you," Farragut continued.

A permanent little grin seemed fixed on his congenial features.

David Farragut was every naval officer's ideal. He also looked like everyone's grandfather.

"What do the Rebels call the ram?"

"They say it goes by the name Arkansas.

"Any information, on who her commander might be?" inquired Walke.

Farragut nodded. "A former United States naval officer, Lieutenant Isaac Brown. I understand he's an old friend of yours."

"Isaac Brown is no stranger to me. We were very close before the war.

"if you cannot sink Arkansas, give me ample warning to prepare the fleet to meet her should she make an attempt to reach Vicksburg."

"You can count on Carondelet, admiral."

Farragut shook Walke's hand. "Good luck to you, commander."

As Walke was rowed back to his gunboat, he could not imagine just how formidable the Confederate would be.

"Bow guns fire," Walke ordered his chief gunnery officer from the pilothouse. He stared through the viewing slits in the armor at the sudden appearance of Arkansas. The rebel ironclad had rounded the far bend and was steaming directly toward Carondelet.

"She looks like the work of desperate men, Walke muttered at the unholy sight of his former friend's gunboat. "Leave it to old Isaac Brown to paint his boat brown.

"Brown or gray, she means business," said Pilot Hoel at the helm.

"Is there enough room in the river to pa.s.s and catch her in a crossfire between us and Tyler?" Walke asked.

"The width of the river is not the problem, sir," his pilot answered.

"If we try, she'll ram us for sure."

Walke turned and saw that Queen of the West had already turned and was heading down the Yazoo River for the Mississippi. "It seems we have no choice but to show the Rebel our stern and fight a running battle.

After his intentions were shouted across to Captain Gwin of Tyler, and the two Union gunboats made reverse turns, Walke instructed his stern guns to commence firing. Within seconds, the two thirty-twopounders at the aft end of the casemate opened up on the rapidly approaching Confederate ironclad.

"That should give old Isaac a jolt," Walke said excitedly as a shot from Carondelet slammed into Arkansas's Pilothouse.

"Our guns are right on the mark," said Hoel as a second Union sh.e.l.l slammed into the Rebel boat's pilothouse.

On the stern gun deck of Carondelet, the gunners were firing their cannon as fast as they could reload and torch the fuse. Arkansas had drawn so close they couldn't miss, but the ironclad relentlessly came on, taking hits but showing little damage.