Glory In The Name

The former Cape Fears were five days in transition. They walked a total of forty-three miles between different rail lines, past torn-up track, washed-out track. They slept on train seats that shook as if the earth was opening up beneath them, and on the floors of train stations. They ate greasy food bought from vendors on platforms which Samuel Bowater paid for from his own pocket.

They arrived at last on the crowded docks of Memphis. It was February 24. From there they were two days on a stern-wheeler, running south, a considerably more comfortable means of travel.

They docked at Vicksburg in the shadow of the high hills, the Gibraltar of the West. They boarded a smaller steamer, made their way northeast, up the Yazoo River. They steamed into Yazoo City. They looked for an ironclad. They did not see one.

The steamer nosed into the dock, the brow was lowered, the men disembarked. Samuel Bowater looked around. Yazoo City was a moderatesized town, neat roads, brick buildings that suggested that money flowed through the place.

The wind was out of the north and cold, colder than he would have expected for central Mississippi. He wondered if that was typical. He had no idea what he would do next.

He saw the captain of the steamer, busy in the wheelhouse. “Y’all wait here,” he said to the men, climbed back up to the wheelhouse. “Captain?” he said through the open door.

The steamer captain looked up. “Yes, Lieutenant?” Bowater was wearing his best uniform frock coat, in anticipation of coming aboard his next command.

“My men and I have taken passage here to report aboard the ironclad Yazoo River. Do you know where she is tied up?”

“Ironclad?” The captain looked confused. And then he chuckled. “Oh, sure. The Yazoo River. That’s the boat old Robley Paine bought. You seen her when we was steaming by the docks, downriver. Side-wheeler, painted black. That’s her.”

“You’re…sure?”

“Sure.”

“Ahh…but she is not an ironclad.”

“No,” the steamer captain agreed, “she surely ain’t.”

Bowater nodded. You will make contact with one Captain Robley Paine, a civilian, who has undertaken to build the ironclad Yazoo River at his own expense. You will engage Captain Paine as pilot of the Yazoo River. Orders, direct from Stephen Mallory, Secretary of the Navy.

“This Paine, he is a riverboat captain? A pilot?”

“He’s a planter, like all the gentlemen lives along the river here. He ain’t no pilot, don’t know a damned thing about boats, as far as I know.”

Bowater nodded. He felt sick.

Down from the wheelhouse, back over the brow to the hard-packed dirt landing where his men stood huddled, braced against the wind. “All right, men. Follow me,” Bowater said, led them south along the dirt road the captain had pointed out, the one that would lead to the work docks, the side-wheeler Yazoo River.

With each step Bowater’s heart sank deeper. The dilapidated machine shops, the boatyards whose buildings were in need of basic carpentry themselves, the tall grass shooting up around discarded engine parts, coils of rotten rope, rusted anchors, all made him depressed and angry.

They marched on, came at last to the dock to which the side-wheeler was tied, and now that he looked at it he saw that indeed she had a name board on her bow and the name board said Yazoo River. He had hoped, right up until that moment, that the captain had been mistaken, that the real, gleaming, powerful ironclad was somewhere upriver of them.

Bowater drew the men up at the bottom of the brow and no one said a thing. They hunched their shoulders against the wind and looked. They saw the peeling black paint. They saw the twisted rails and shot-up superstructure, battle damage unrepaired. They saw the bales of cotton piled up on the deck, forming a sort of barricade around the bow and stern where the vessel’s three antique guns were mounted.

After a minute of that, Bowater saw a face peer out of the wheelhouse window. The face disappeared, and then a tall, gaunt man in a long coat stepped out onto the hurricane deck, sized them up, disappeared again.

A moment later he stepped out of the deckhouse, having apparently come down an inside ladder. He stood at the top of the brow. He held a shotgun in his hands, a heavy revolver on his belt.

“Ain’t this fella heard of Southern hospitality?” Taylor wondered out loud.

“Who are you?” the gaunt man demanded.

“I am Lieutenant Samuel Bowater, Confederate States Navy. I have come to assume command of the ship Yazoo River.”

The man was silent for a moment, scrutinizing the cluster of sailors. He set the shotgun aside, stepped down the brow, stopped five feet away.

“I’m Robley Paine. Do you know who I am?”

“Yes, I do.”

Paine was a frightening sight, not at all what Bowater had envisioned. Bowater had been thinking of a plump, jolly, well-dressed individual who was looking to play at sailors, a Southern version of a Henry Fielding squire. Paine was not that.

Thin in an unhealthy way, eyes sunk deep, peering out from dark circles, darting side to side. There was a nervous, agitated quality to him, and a deadness to his eyes that was unsettling. He had not shaved in some time.

Bowater had an instant dislike for the man, which made his anger at Paine’s deception that much greater.

“This is it?” Paine said at last. “This is all the men to crew the boat?”

“This is the boat?” Bowater asked, taking a step forward. “You represented to Secretary Mallory that she was an ironclad. What the hell is this?” It had been a long trip, and Bowater was tired. He was beginning to lose his reserve.

“She will be an ironclad. She is not yet. She is a cotton-clad.”

Taylor stepped up, which further irritated Bowater. “She is a what, sir?”

“Cotton-clad. She is not the only one on the river.”

“‘Cotton-clad’?” Taylor chuckled. “You mean to say that she is armored with the lightest, softest, most flammable material known to man? I’m not sure that would be my first choice. Iron, I would think…”

“The cotton is effective against small-arms fire.” Paine turned on Taylor like a snake striking. “We do not wait for everything to be perfection. We fight the Yankee with what we have. Men do. Cowards and weaklings hang back and complain.”

An ugly silence. Everyone waited for Taylor to respond, but Taylor just gave out a low whistle, made his eyes go wide, smiled, and wandered off, assessing the Yazoo River.

“Be that as it may,” Bowater said, “we were led to believe that we were manning an ironclad, and that you were a qualified pilot, and I am not pleased, sir, by what I see.” This was not going well at all.

“Nor am I, sir. I have sunk no small part of my fortune into this ship, I have driven her into combat already, and I intend to do so again. I gave her over to the navy because I wished to man her with men who would fight. I will not be happy to find officers and men of the Confederate States Navy who are backward in their willingness to do battle with the enemy.”

Bowater stiffened. Paine’s insinuations were coming very close to intolerable insult, and it was only the wild intensity with which Paine spoke-as if Paine was not responsible because he had no control over what came out of his mouth-that made Bowater hold his tongue.

Taylor came ambling back, and before Bowater could reply he said, “This here’s the Star of the Delta, ain’t she?”

“Pardon?” Paine said, the word shot out like a bullet.

“This here riverboat, she’s the old Star of the Delta, ain’t she? Used to run N’Orleans to Natchez, regular.”

“I believe that is her former name,” Paine said.

Taylor shook his head, grinned, stuck an unlit cigar in his mouth. “This jest gets better an better.”

Bowater rounded on Paine, ready to give him the full broadside; Paine rounded on Bowater, ready for the same.