Glory In The Name

the engine room. “It’s very nice,” she said, her voice uncertain.

“Oh, that it is!” Taylor said with enthusiasm. “Let me show you around.” He was warming to his subject. “The engine is a horizontal-mounted compound…”

“Chief,” Burgess interrupted, the word like a grunt. “Service gauge.”

“Forgive me for a moment, Seaman Atkins,” Taylor said with a little bow. “We gots to go to war.”

19

SIR: I have the honor to report that at 11:45 a.m. this day a small steamer under the Confederate flag…approached this ship and commenced firing upon us with a rifled gun from her bow, our ship being at anchor.

– Captain J. B. Hull, USS Savannah, to Hon. Gideon Welles

Able-bodied seaman Seth Williams rang four bells in the afternoon watch.

The Cape Fear was vibrating with the thrust of her propeller as Bowater backed down on her spring line and swung the bow off the seawall. He grabbed the cord that communicated with the bell in the engine room and jerked twice, two bells, slow ahead. He felt the vessel shudder as somewhere below Taylor shifted the reversing lever, changing the rotation of the screw instantly from turns for slow astern to turns for slow ahead.

The tug stopped dead, and Bowater could hear the water churning up under her counter, a wonderful sound, the sound of a powerful vessel digging in, and then she gathered way.

“Cast off!” he heard Babcock shout. Bowater stepped out of the wheelhouse, looked down as the seawall slipped away and the lines that held them to the dock were brought dripping aboard. It was two o’clock in the afternoon, a bright, hot July afternoon, and they were going to war.

“Come left, leave Harmony to starboard!” Bowater called into the wheelhouse, and Littlefield replied, “Harmony to starboard, aye!” and eased the wheel over. Bowater stepped back into the wheelhouse, rang up more speed. Moments later he felt the turns increase, felt the stern dig deeper, as the deep-draft tug gathered more way.

“I’ll give the chief this much,” he said to Harwell, who was just stepping up onto the deckhouse roof. “He knows when he can ignore commands from the wheelhouse, and when he cannot.”

“Mr. Taylor, sir, if I may be so bold, thinks a little too highly of himself and his engineering division. He would have us believe he was doing us a favor, getting steam to service gauge and turns on the propeller.”

There was more bitterness in the lieutenant’s tone than perhaps he had intended. Harwell’s was not a personality that could easily suffer the likes of Hieronymus Taylor. Bowater did not have an easy time of it himself. But Bowater could ignore attitude-to a degree-if a man did his job, and Taylor was scrupulous about the maintenance of the engine and all the Cape Fear ’s systems. Also, Bowater was captain. Taylor might get the last word, but that last word would always be “Yes, sir.”

“Had we sails, like a proper ship,” Bowater said, “Mr. Taylor would not be in so commanding a position.”

“Yes, sir. Sir, may I drill the men at the guns?”

“Yes, please. You have…” Bowater looked up at the sun. “…about three hours to get them ready to fight.”

Harwell hurried off, and Bowater stepped forward, leaned on the rail that ran along the forward edge of the deckhouse, and watched the city of Norfolk to the east and Portsmouth to the west slip past. Below him, up at the bow, Harwell was arranging the gun crew like a little girl setting her dolls around a toy table for make-believe tea.

They had taken on coal at the Gosport Naval Shipyard, and as many shells for the guns as they could lay hands on, around a dozen for each gun. They had requested twenty volunteers to augment their crew, enough to work the ship and all three guns at the same time. Thirty-seven men had stepped eagerly forward, and Bowater had had to choose among them. He was not the only one chafing at the inactivity of the dockyard.

Craney Island was in sight when Hieronymus Taylor climbed up to the deckhouse roof, squinting in the brilliant sun. His shirtsleeves were rolled up over powerful forearms and he wore only his gray vest, cap, and trousers. His formerly bright white shirt was wilted and smudged now. He stopped, took a long look around, puffing his cigar like a locomotive getting up speed.

“Beg pardon, Cap’n,” he said at last. “I was wonderin, and I ask purely to increase the efficiency of the engineering division, but what’re you plannin for this day’s activities?”

“Well, Chief…” Bowater equivocated. “I wish I could tell you exactly what we will be doing, but I cannot. The circumstance of the Union fleet will dictate our actions.”

“No, really, Cap’n,” Taylor said. “What’re you meaning to do, now?”

“I mean to steam up to the Union fleet, Mr. Taylor, and blast away and see what mischief we can do.”

“Ain’t much of a plan, if you’ll pardon my saying so,” Taylor said. His cigar was clenched in his teeth, but his mouth seemed to be smiling around the obstruction, and his tone suggested more approval than concern over Bowater’s boldness.

“I am willing to take suggestions, Chief.”

“No, no. I don’t presume to know better, Cap’n. For a man of your breedin, you seem to have an aptitude for this sort of craziness.”

“I would thank you for the compliment, Mr. Taylor, were I certain it was one. Now please see to your engine.” He wondered if perhaps he was winning the respect of First Assistant Engineer Hieronymus Taylor. And if so, he wondered if that was cause for concern.

For an hour they steamed north, up the Elizabeth River, then rounded Craney Island and stood out toward the middle of Hampton Roads, that wide patch of water where the James, Nasemond, and Elizabeth rivers joined forces to pour into the Chesapeake Bay.

A good portion of the seaborne power of the United States was arrayed out in front of him, stretching in a loose line of anchored ships from Newport News Point across Hampton Roads to Fortress Monroe.

He could pick out the sailing ship Savannah, and the Cumberland, towed to safety the night that the dockyard burned. There was the Wabash, which had arrived since the last time Bowater had been up that way, the mighty USS Minnesota and the screw steamer Seminole, the St. Lawrence and the Congress. In the distance he could pick out the Harriet Lane, which he had last seen off the Charleston Harbor entrance, mere hours after the start of the Rebellion.

There were other ships as well, transports and tugs, schooners, store ships. It seemed as if more and more vessels arrived all the time, massing for something or other, ready to fall on some Southern shore.

They plowed northwest, through the blue-green water and the lovely late afternoon, looking for all the world as if they were heading up the James River, a little Union tug out on some job or other. The sun was moving fast toward the west, lighting the Union ships up with a soft, rosy tint. From a distance they looked tranquil and quiet.

Bowater put his telescope to his eye. Up close the ships still looked tranquil and quiet. Not a wisp of smoke from any stack, not one of them had steam up. The Cape Fear was two miles distant and he could detect no alarm on any of the decks, no frantic running as men raced to quarters, no bells, no rattles, no drums.

“Helmsman, start coming right. Slowly.”

“Slowly right, aye…” Littlefield turned the wheel right, one spoke, two spokes. The Cape Fear’s bow swung to starboard, bit by bit, and her course changed from northwest to northeast, and soon her bow was pointing not up the James River but rather at the anchored fleet.

Bowater swept the ships with his telescope. Still no alarm. He looked down onto his own foredeck. The wheelhouse cast a shadow all the way forward, to the breech of the ten-pound rifle. The sun was setting behind them. It would not hide them, but it would make it more difficult for the Union gunners to aim.

The gun crew were sitting and squatting on the deck, out of sight behind the bulwarks. Bowater could see the