Glory In The Name

flag flying on the flagpole, it was the Stars and Stripes.

Too late for you…

He swung the field glasses south again, looked past the beleaguered Fort Hatteras, over the low sandy island on which it stood, to the broad Atlantic, stretching away beyond.

The Union fleet was at anchor, the massive men-of-war nearly swallowed up in their own gun smoke, bright flashes stabbing through the gray cloud, as they poured their lethal shot on the poor mud walls of Fort Hatteras.

Bowater watched, mesmerized. All those ships. It was a terrible, terrible thing. He could recall the pride he once felt, looking upon those very ships, some of the most powerful in the world, enjoying the awe that their potential power could inspire. What could he do against them with his own tiny man-of-war, though she was nearly as fine as any that the Confederate States Navy could boast?

“Mr. Harwell, you may cast off the Parrott gun and try a ranging shot at the Yankee fleet,” he said. Harwell acknowledged the order, ran forward, nearly collided with Hieronymus Taylor coming up the ladder from the deck below.

“Good afternoon, Captain,” he said and paused to bite the end off a new cigar, spit the torn bit over the side, and light the noxious thing. He looked up, and for a long moment he just stared out at the Union fleet and the hail of iron they were hurling at the Confederate fort.

“Oh, Lordy…” he said at last.

“Behold, Chief Taylor,” Bowater said. “This, I believe, is why the Yankees do not lie awake nights for fear of the Confederate States Navy.”

24

Every effort that nautical skill, invention and courage can put forth must be made to oppose the enemy’s descent of the river, and at every hazard.

– Stephen R. Mallory

It was not difficult, Robley Paine discovered, for a man of means to get what he wanted, the increasing constrictions of war notwithstanding. Because the one thing people wanted more than anything was hard currency, gold, and that Robley Paine had.

Robley Paine had never been one for bank accounts, drafts, scrips, ephemeral bits of paper. He had all those things, of course. The world was too complicated for one to do business without them. But Paine’s primary concern, his raison d’etre, had been his boys’ legacy, and he would not trust that to preprinted forms and bankers’ promises. He would see, before all else, that his boys were set, that the Paine plantation and the Paine fortune would be there for them.

He was not alone in that, of course. It was the dream of every planter in the South. But the wealth of most other men was measured in land and slaves. What cash they had was paper currency issued by banks, or now by the Confederate States, which was already showing signs of devaluation, though the government had been issuing the notes for less than a year.

Robley Paine, however, kept a good deal of his wealth in gold, solid gold, bullion and coin.

Gold was a real thing, something one could hold in one’s hand, currency traded the world over and not subject to the machinations of government and finance, inflation, devaluation, the crash of the stock market. The worth of gold would not fluctuate with the fortunes of armies in the field.

Robley had been building his gold reserve for years, had resisted increasing his land-and slaveholdings to make certain the money was there for his boys. Nothing on earth would have induced him to spend it. Let the fiscal world crumble around him, let King Cotton lose his throne, Robley Paine’s boys would be sitting on a small pile of gold, that precious metal that had always been and would always be considered wealth.

But now his boys were gone, his reason for keeping that wealth blown away by Yankee invaders, and there was no reason in the world for him to hang on to it. Quite the opposite. Now he had real purpose in the spending of it.

He took passage to Vicksburg, the town draped like a blanket over high hills looking down on the twisting Mississippi below, walked along the river, stepping fast, his cane clicking on the stone quays and the wooden docks. His ancient wound ached until he was limping as if freshly shot, but it did not slow him in his search for a vessel.

He did not find one in Vicksburg, had not really thought he would. From there he took passage south, down to the great port city of New Orleans, a place he knew well, a place where he was known and where he knew people who could help him, a place where he knew he would find what he needed, every article. It was all to be had at New Orleans.

Robley was welcomed into the offices of Mr. Daniel Lessard, his shipping agent, with a greeting befitting an old friend, one who had been a steady source of income for many years. Lessard met him with hand extended and a smile that faded a bit as he looked on Paine’s face. “Robley, this is a surprise…” Lessard led Paine into his office, seated him in front of the big desk. “Are you well, sir? If you will forgive an impertinent question?”

“I have had a loss,” Paine said, in a tone that brought the discussion to a close. He fidgeted, adjusted the pistol he wore under his frock coat, a.44-caliber Starr Model 1858 Army revolver he had purchased a few years back. Most of the gold he had with him was in the hotel safe, but he carried a significant amount on his person, and he would protect himself. “I am interested in purchasing a riverboat. Do you know of any that might be suitable?”

“I know of many that are for sale,” Lessard said. Daniel Lessard was a wealthy man, and he had become such by knowing and establishing a relationship with everyone on the waterfront, from the meanest grifters to the most powerful merchants. “It would depend on what it must be suitable for.”

“River defense,” Paine said, and Lessard smiled, chuckled, then stopped as he realized that Robley Paine was not joking.

“‘River defense’?” Are you thinking of going into privateering?”

“No, I am thinking of stopping the goddamned Yankees from overrunning our home, that is what I am thinking of,” Paine said, feeling the words slip out, himself unable to contain them. He was not able to keep the menace from his voice. Lessard was visibly taken aback.

Oh, damn, oh, damn, Robley, get ahold of yourself… He could not always distinguish between the dialogue in his head and the words coming out of his mouth. “Forgive me, we are all under a great strain now, with the war…”

“Never think on it, sir!” Lessard waved his hand. “I know of several vessels might answer. There is Star of the Delta. About three hundred tons, hundred and fifty feet long, around thirty on the beam. Side-wheeler. She does not draw above seven feet. Two high-pressure, noncondensing engines, two boilers, all her machinery just recently gone over, in excellent condition.”

“She is for me, if she is what you say, sir,” Robley said. He scratched at his face, at the coarse growth of beard, wondered when he had last shaved. No bother. “When might we see her?”

“Now, I should think,” Lessard said brightly. He had some interest in this vessel, Robley could tell. The old Robley Paine would have been more cagey, would have discovered Lessard’s interest, driven a hard bargain. But now he was too pressed to argue or haggle.

“Show her to me.”

The Star of the Delta was tied up bow first not two blocks from Lessard’s office. She had the look of a vessel which had not moved in some time, but for all that she was in tolerably good order. Paine climbed up to her hurricane deck, stuck his head in the wheelhouse, ran his fingers over the wheel. He climbed down into the engine room with Lessard carrying a lantern to light the way. It cast wild shadows over the masses of piping and hulking bits of iron machinery. Paine looked at it, nodded, realized that he knew nothing whatsoever about ships and engines and such.

At last they returned to the deck above, stood on the fantail, looking out over the wide brown river. “She looks the thing, as far as I can tell,” Paine said. He looked Lessard in the eyes, and for the first time since he had resolved to defend the rivers of his home, he felt vulnerable, like a child, out of his depth. “I confess, sir, I am ignorant of