Glory In The Name

“Very well.” Bowater looked out the slot. The ship that had punished them so greatly was pulling ahead, steaming upriver, past them, and in her wake, another ship, of around the same size and class. USS Richmond, Bowater thought, wondered if they had changed her name.

One by one, leisurely, Richmond’s broadside opened up, with the precision of a salute, the shells screaming by, clanging on the armor. Smoke and steam from the fire down below rolled into the pilothouse, obscuring everything, setting Bowater and Risley and the helmsman to coughing, gagging. But still the Yazoo River fired back, one shot to the enemy’s three.

The smoke drifted away, Bowater had a clear view again. The night was on fire, the wild reflections of red and orange, the flames through the smoke, the noise. Noise such as he had never heard. He felt his head swim, felt an unreality come over him. If only it would stop, even for a minute, give him time to think, to organize. If only the noise would stop.

And then, from Richmond, amidships, another gun fired, bigger than the others, a deep roar, a giant waking up, angry.

Eighty-pound Dahlgren rifle… was all Bowater had a chance to think. Richmond carried one, on slides. Eighty-pound Dahlgren rifle.

The shell hit aft, made the Yazoo River slew around, exploded with a noise that stunned Bowater. He was thrown forward with the impact, slammed against the side of the pilothouse, bounced back, flailing for a handhold but finding nothing. He fell, down, down, saw the stairs coming up, reached out a hand to stop himself, and then he was tumbling to the deck below, and then, at last, it was quiet.

47

April 27, 1862- New Orleans gone-and with it the Confederacy. Are we not cut in two? The Mississippi ruins us if lost.

– Mary Boykin Chesnut

Bowater crawled out of the blackness, was dragged out of the blackness, a voice pulling him up by the weight of its authority. Bowater realized, as he kicked toward the surface, that the voice was Hieronymus Taylor’s.

His eyes fluttered open. Taylor was bending over him, the light of a fire flickering off his stained, soaked shirt, his unshaved face, his plastered hair.

“Come on, Cap’n, wake up now!” Taylor was saying. A command. Bowater kept his eyes open.

He sat up on an elbow. His head was pounding. He looked around. The fire in the casement was not the blaze it had been, but it was not extinguished either. “How long have I…”

“Not above five minutes.” It was Tanner who spoke now. Bowater saw him standing behind Taylor.

Why are they here? Bowater shook his head, to clear it, to indicate he did not understand.

“Last shell took out the starboard paddle wheel. We dead in the water, Cap’n,” Taylor said.

Bowater struggled to his feet and Taylor helped him and together they climbed up the few steps to the pilothouse. The port side of the pilothouse roof was bent up and back, like a tin can wrenched open. Risley was lying on the deck, wide-eyed and dead. The helmsman was gone, Bowater did not know where. They did not need a helmsman anymore.

He looked to starboard, where the roof had once obscured his view. The round hump of the iron-encased wheelbox was ruined. Where it had stood in its elegant arc there was now a gaping hole with shards of iron and wood jutting out at every angle, the wrecked bits of the paddle wheel, buckets and arms and shaft, tucked inside what was left of the box.

They were adrift, sweeping downriver on the current. Yankee gunboats were passing them by, but the Yazoo River was not firing at them, and they were not wasting powder on an obviously dead ship.

Bowater looked aft. The fight was upriver of them now. He could see the smoke, like a fog bank seen from a distance, the glow of fire rafts, gunfire, the blazing defiance of the forts, and the Union fleet steamed past, as if all the preparations the Confederacy had mounted to defend their greatest seaport were no more than an annoyance, a show with lights and smoke.

He watched for a moment, two, looked at the battle the way he would look at a grand canvas depicting some long-ago sea fight, the Battle of the Saints, or Trafalgar or some such. Because that was what the Battle of New Orleans was to him now. History. He was no longer a part of it, any more than he was a part of the fight against Napoleon’s tyranny.

He turned to Taylor. “No engines?”

Taylor shook his head. “Concussion shattered the main steam pipe, port side. No steam, no fire pump.”

Bowater nodded. They could not maneuver, they could not fight the fire in the casement. Half the crew were dead or wounded. It was over. The Yazoo River was a shooting star which had arced across the dark river in a blaze of violence, burned out on her way to earth.

So how do we get off of her? Bowater wondered. No power…

And yet he was hearing a steam engine, and not so very far off. He turned and tried to look down the port side, but his view was obscured by the twisted metal of the pilothouse roof. He put his hands on the top of the casement, hoisted himself up so he could look around the edge of the wreckage. To his surprise he saw a tug, very like the Abigail Wilson, tied alongside, all the way aft. A voice, sounding very like Theodore Wilson, called, “Ahoy, the Yazoo River! Do you need to abandon ship?”

On Bowater’s orders they searched the casement, located the wounded, made certain the dead men were truly dead. The Yazoo River would serve as a funeral pyre for them, they would go down to their graves with the Confederate flag flying proud on the ensign staff.

Back on the fantail, Bowater was the last to step out of the sweltering, smoke-filled, burning casement. The air was cool and sweet in contrast, the sounds sharper. Someone was holding a lantern, the light falling on the miserable remnants of his command.

On the starboard side, Robley Paine lay on the deck, held in a man’s arms. Bowater stepped over, knelt beside him.

“Robley? Robley?” Paine’s head lolled over. Blood was running out of his mouth, a thin, dark line down his chin. He smiled a weak smile.

“Captain Bowater…” he said.

“We’re going to get you off,” Bowater said, but Paine shook his head and the man holding him said, “He’s bleeding bad…” He choked the words out, was on the edge of sobbing, and the emotion surprised Bowater. He had not believed anyone cared so much for mad Robley Paine. And then he realized he did not know this man.

He looked up sharp, into the face of a young man, but not so young. The face of a veteran, young eyes grown quickly old. He saw a patched army shell jacket, a battered kepi. Bowater squinted.

“I’m Jonathan Paine. I’m his son.”

Behind Jonathan Paine, a young black man was squatting, looking down at the old man as well. The situation was so odd, requiring so many questions, Bowater did not bother. He turned back to Paine.

Robley lifted a long, blackened hand, the fingers like the thin branches of a winter tree, and Bowater took it, gentle. “I am the lucky one, Captain…” he said, his voice so low Bowater had to lean down to hear over the distant artillery fire. “I have got everything I wanted, and merciful God has brought one of my boys back. Despite all my sins, he has brought my boy back…” He coughed, but he was too weak to cough with authority. “I am the lucky one. I can rest now. But you, Captain, you must fight on and on…”

Bowater gave his hand a little squeeze. “Godspeed, Robley Paine,” he whispered. He eased the man’s hand to the deck, stood, gave him his last minutes alone with his son.

One by one the men clambered over the tug’s low bulwark and spread out along the deck, helping their shipmates over. They moved fast, every man aboard aware of the fire creeping toward the powder magazine. As far