Samuel Bowater watched the young luff get the men to quarters. He was giving them some words of encouragement, he could tell.
Lieutenant Thadeous Harwell stood behind the breech of the big Parrott gun, hands clasped behind his back, looking down river.
He ran it over, again and again, in his head. Said it out loud, but softly, like a prayer, so no one would hear. The trick with dying words, he imagined, was to commit them to memory so well that one could not forget them when the time came. He could not imagine what must go through a man’s mind at the time. Probably a lot. If he wanted to go out with some noble words on his lips, he had best be ready.
“Happy am I…”
By eight-thirty the Union fleet was in sight. The ships came steaming around the bend, trailing their black plumes of smoke. Through field glasses Bowater could see the churning white water around their bows. They were coming on fast, fourteen Yankee gunboats stretched across the river, a waterborne cavalry charge. The Confederates were as ready as they were going to get.
Line ahead now, they came up with Fort Cobb and the fort opened up on them, the thirty-two-pounders blasting away with their flat, echoing report, kicking up spouts in the river. The Union ships returned fire, rifled shells and spherical case shot. One by one they blasted the fort as they passed.
Bowater waited, waited for the lead Yankee to turn, to start the big circling maneuver that would take the ships by the fort again and again until they had reduced it to nothing. Just as they had done at Hatteras. Just as they had done at Roanoke Island. So fixed was this idea in his mind that nearly the entire enemy fleet was past the fort, and was coming on, before he realized they were not going to do it again.
They were bypassing the fort, giving it one good shot and then ignoring it, giving it the attention it deserved, which was very little. It was the mosquito fleet they wanted, and they were coming straight on, full-speed, right for their quarry. It would be ship to ship this time. It would be Trafalgar in miniature, not Roanoke Island. It would be the Yankees’ advantage, three to one.
35
– Flag Officer William F. Lynch to Stephen R. Mallory
“That stern-wheeler, there…” Bowater stood in the wheelhouse, pointed to the onrushing Yankee, three hundred yards downriver. “Right for him. We’ll go in shooting.”
“Aye, sir.” Tanner at the wheel looked grim. Bowater grabbed the engine-room bell, gave three bells, full ahead.
Sons of bitches…It made Bowater mad, in a way he had not been mad before. The arrogance of the damned Yankees, bypass the fort, sweep forward as if they were brushing aside an annoyance. It was the entire Yankee way of thinking; brush aside anything that was in their way, any tradition, any sacred right, anything that prevented their building more factories, more railroads, unleashing more mechanical horror on the world.
Suddenly this fight seemed personal. uddenly Captain Samuel Bowater, detached and professional navy man, a man who followed orders, felt himself a wild-eyed patriot.
He stepped out of the wheelhouse, ent forward. “Mr. Harwell, we are going for that stern-wheeler that seems to be coming for us. Let’s shoot him in the nose as we approach!”
Harwell waved, turned back to his gun. Bowater could feel the deck vibrate as Taylor poured on the steam. Bowater heard the water boiling under the counter, felt the tug build speed and momentum as the riverbanks slipped past. She was not a quarter horse, she was a knight’s charger-heavy, slow, strong as could be.
They closed fast, bow to bow. The Yankee fired; Bowater felt the wind of the shell as it passed. Harwell fired, took the Yankee’s fore topmast clean off. He spun the elevation screw, lowered the aim. He was not used to firing so close.
The Yankees were charging down on the mosquito fleet, coming on line abreast now, picking their targets. Two of the enemy were falling on
One hundred yards separated the Yankee from the
But now the Yankee turned, presented her broadside, three big guns, the bulk of her armament. Bowater grabbed the rail hard, clenched his teeth, waited for what would come.
Boom, boom, boom, the big guns opened up right in their face. Bowater felt the deck shudder, saw a plume of splinters burst right in front of him, as a shell hit the deckhouse and kept on going. Another whipped the head off the rammer at the bow gun, neat as an executioner’s ax, tossed his body back onto the foredeck as the shell continued down the side deck. Bowater heard it hit the port howitzer, a terrible clanging, a shattering of wooden carriage, a pause, and then the screaming of the men who were in the way.
“Captain! Captain!” Tanner shouted from the wheelhouse. His course was right for the Yankee, steaming to hit her amidships.
“Steady as she goes!” Would the
Fifty yards, forty yards. “Mr. Harwell, get your men away from the bow!”
Harwell shouted, waved, led his men aft, back toward the deckhouse.
Thirty yards. Bowater could see Yankees scrambling now. The broadside guns were running out again. Too late. Smoke pumping from the broken stack, the side wheels gathered speed, as the Yankee gunboat tried to get out of the path of the suicide Rebel.
Twenty yards. The Yankee’s side wheels churned, kicked water; the Yankee inched forward, tried to turn bow on. Bowater felt some bit of sanity return. It was not time to die, not yet.
“Tanner, take her side wheel out! Glancing blow!”
Tanner nodded, looked relieved. He spun the wheel to starboard, angled in, swung it to port. The
