Glory In The Name

“I signed on here to pilot a boat, I did not sign on to get my damn ass blown off. Didn’t say nothing about no goddamned battle with no Yankee fleet.”

“You signed aboard a river defense ship, I made no secret about it,” Paine said, never taking his eyes from the action downriver. It was the most cathartic thing he had experienced since the death of his boys. He could not wait to fling himself into the fight, to fly at the head of the serpent, guns blazing.

They called the serpent “Scott’s Anaconda.” The overarching plan of Union General-in-Chief Winfield Scott-wrap a blockade of ships around the coastline of the Confederate States, drive down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, from the United States to the Gulf, until the coils of the thing completely encircled the new Southern nation, and then squeeze.

They laughed at this “Anaconda Plan,” North and South. But Robley Paine was not so sure, and he was not laughing.

“River defense ain’t the same as attacking no damned men-of-war,” Kinney pointed out, though what he thought river defense was Robley could not guess.

Paine turned at last from the window, regarded the pilot in the dim light of the binnacle. Kinney’s jaw was working furiously at a plug of tobacco. The light glinted on a line of spittle on his beard. He met Paine’s eyes with defiance.

“Are you a coward, sir?” Paine asked. “Or merely a Union sympathizer?”

“I ain’t none of them, you son of a bitch, and don’t say it again. But I’m a civilian, hear? I ain’t no navy man, and neither are you.”

“I can’t disagree. You certainly are not ‘no navy man.’ But tonight you had best play the part. You have been well paid to do so.”

Paine turned back to watch the fight on the river, but Kinney troubled him. They all did, all the white trash he had collected aboard the Yazoo River. His initial concern was right, he was sure of it now. Any able-bodied Southern man worth a damn was already in the army or navy, or working at some job vital to the war effort. And everyone else was a shirker, a coward, a craven dog.

The serpent haunted him. It haunted his days, kept him thrashing in a cold sweat at night. He thought of little else. The money he doled out every day for food and coal and wages and maintenance made no impression on him. The letter from his attorney in Yazoo City, telling him in the gentlest terms of the death of his wife, Katherine, failed to move him beyond a certain sadness, and even a bit of envy, at the way her agony was over, while his continued on.

It would be his turn soon. The promise of eternity with his Katherine and his boys was the only point of hope left to him. He would die battling the serpent.

A rocket shot up into the sky, a long streak of red coming right up from the midst of the Union ships.

“There’s Manassas’s signal!” Robley said, with an excitement unmatched in the Yazoo River’s wheelhouse. Thirty yards away, right ahead of the Yazoo River’s bow, the nearest fire raft sputtered and flickered as the combustible material heaped on board was lit off. The flames took hold at last, creeping along the edge of the oil-soaked logs and bales of cotton, then climbed up the heap, engulfed the raft-a fifty-foot-long derelict river barge-throwing brilliant light out one hundred feet in every direction. Robley could see the light of the flames dancing on the Yazoo River’s bow and the bales of cotton stacked around her deck as armor.

There were three rafts, strung out across the river and attached to one another by a long chain. Controlling the string of rafts at one end was the towboat Tuscarora and at the other end the Watson.

“Them tugs ain’t never gonna keep them rafts under control,” Kinney said with a subtle, gloating tone. Paine did not reply.

“Slow ahead, Mr. Kinney. We’ll keep just behind the string of rafts.”

Kinney hesitated, just long enough to show he followed orders under duress, then reached up and rang the bell. A moment later the big paddle wheels stopped, then slowly started up again, forward this time, barely pushing the Yazoo River ahead, while Kinney let the current do the rest.

Paine could see the few lights onshore slipping by, could see the out-of-control Yankee ships lit up in the light of the fire raft, and he felt satisfied. It had all gone exactly to plan, and his only disappointment-and it was a small one-was that the Richmond was not now heeling over and sinking fast from the injury doled out by the ram.

“Rafts are out of control,” Kinney observed, then stuffed a wad of tobacco in his mouth, ripped off a chunk. The towboats had apparently cast the fire rafts off, and now the current had them, swirling them around, pushing them toward the bank.

Damn… Paine thought, but Kinney was right. The unwieldy things were too much for the towboats to control, and the river current could not be relied upon to sweep them down on the fleet.

“Keep her going ahead, Mr. Kinney,” Paine said, watching the chaotic flight of the Union ships down South West Pass. They were still blazing away with their great guns, the shells whistling around, the fire rafts and the broadsides lighting the river and the dark night in a macabre, bellicose show.

“You want to steam into that?” Kinney asked.

“Keep her going ahead, Mr. Kinney,” Robley said again. He rested his hand on the butt of the.44 Starr. He would drive the Yazoo River into battle even if he had to fight his own people to do it.

28

I immediately commenced an investigation for the purpose of learning all the circumstances of the affair Pope’s retreat, and am sorry to be obliged to say that the more I hear and learn of the facts the more disgraceful does it appear.

– Flag Officer William W. McKean, Commanding Gulf Blockading Squadron, to Hon. Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy

The current was sweeping the USS Richmond sideways down the South West Pass, and there was nothing Captain John Pope could do.

They were in a world of warm, humid blackness. The only lights visible beyond the confines of the sloop were the taffrail lights of Vincennes and Preble, downriver from Richmond, and the three great fire rafts above, massive trunks of flame, sweeping down on her, no more than two hundred yards away. There was nothing Captain Pope could do but hope the Richmond drifted faster than the rafts.

He tapped his fingers on the cap rail for as long as he could stand it, then turned to the master, said, “Port your helm and come full ahead.”

“Port your helm!” the master shouted.

“Port your helm!” the helmsman replied and spun the wheel over. “Helm’s aport!”

The master rang the engine-room bell, and Pope could picture the engineer down among his pipes and boilers and shafts, cursing at the captain, who once again rang for steam he did not have. But there was only the jingle of the bell in reply, the low vibration underfoot as the throttle was opened and the propeller began to churn water.

They stood fixed in place on the quarterdeck, waiting to see what the big ship would do. The screw made a gurgling sound as it roiled the water under the counter, but it did no good. They did not have the steam to turn the ship’s bow upriver. The Father of Waters swept them along through the night.

Pope began to compose his report. The Vincennes and the Preble proceeded downriver, while I maintained a position broadside to the enemy in order to cover their retreat…

No, no, no…who in hell would believe that? They’ll ask the pilot for a report, he’ll say we could not get our head around…