seemed that the end was coming, and while it hadn’t exactly been a surprise, it was still a shock to find that the inconceivable had come to pass. They were retreating. Richmond would fall.
They brought the provisions out of the hold and began to hand them out in packages, one to each member of the crew. These were rations to last who knew how long as they journeyed to who knew where. Suddenly Gabe had more food than he’d seen in weeks, but he wasn’t hungry anymore. His stomach felt like a bucket of James River water. The men gathered up their few personal possessions, unlashing hammocks and scrounging for canteens and blankets, muttering all the while among themselves about what this might mean.
“We’re for it now,” declared one grizzled veteran of the seas. “You know what this means, don’t you?”
Some of the younger crewmen, impressed for duty from army regiments, looked bug-eyed with fright, just like Gabe felt. “What’s it mean?” asked one.
“Why-defeat!” roared the old salt. “I reckon we’ll all be civilians come morning. And then we better get ’way from here quick as we can, lest we all be shot! By the Federals! Oh, they’re a-coming all right. You just watch the sky, boys, and you’ll see.”
Sure enough, not five minutes after he’d made this prediction, as they were up on deck stowing their gear away as best they could, somebody shouted, “Lookee yonder!” They turned the way he was pointing to see the whole sky on the north side of the James aglow with the fires of Richmond.
“It’s the Yankees, come from Petersburg!” someone called out.
But an officer nearby overheard, and he said, “Not yet it isn’t, boys. That’s our soldiers burning what they can’t take with them before they head south. That’ll be material and barracks going up in smoke.”
“What’s going to happen to us, sir?”
The officer scowled as if he didn’t want to answer, but finally he replied. “You’ll be boarding one of the wooden gunships for now. That’s all you need to be told.”
Tom Bridgeford leaned over and whispered to Gabe. “You think there’s any chance of making a run for it?”
Gabe looked up at the orange sky over Richmond. He shook his head. “It wouldn’t be fittin’ to run away,” he said. “Besides, doesn’t look like there’s too awful many places to go.”
It was well past midnight when the crew of the ironclads were finally provisioned and allowed to board one of the fleet’s five wooden gunboats. Gabe and Tom Bridgeford found themselves wedged together on the deck of the
“He could have just scuttled them,” said Gabe, watching the flames dance across the deck of the
“Maybe he thought that time was getting short,” said Bridgeford. “Besides, what’s one more fire in the midst of this conflagration?” He pointed toward the sky over Richmond, still bright with the evidence of the night’s destruction.
“What do you think is going to happen now?” asked Gabe.
“Depends on how Lee has fared in Petersburg,” said Bridgeford. “If he still has fight in him, we might move the government south and keep fighting. Charleston would make a nice capital. Or Wilmington.”
“But we’re going upriver,” Gabe said.
Bridgeford stared off at the dancing fire shapes, pretending he hadn’t heard. Gabe wondered what he ought to do now. Pa could sure use him at home for the farm work this time of year, and it didn’t look like the Confederacy had much longer to live, but still he didn’t feel right about leaving just because things were going bad. If you gave your word on something, you stuck it out.
The
The ships endured an hour’s wait at one of the drawbridges between Richmond and Drewry’s Bluff, while the troops who had set the evening’s bonfires were allowed passage across the bridge. The route they had taken was punctuated with patches of leaping flames as the Confederates-literally-burned their bridges behind them. While the sailors were waiting for the span to be raised, the sky began to go from black to gray, and finally first light gave them a glimpse of the devastation.
Whole city blocks were now ablaze, and the Tredegar Iron Works flamed like hell itself, rending the morning air with the shudders of the exploding shells within it. A dense cloud of smoke hung over the city, like a blanket laid over a corpse. There wouldn’t be much left for the Yankees to take now, and the people of Richmond knew it. A great throng of them were gathered on the Manchester side of the river, trying to escape the conflagration.
The gunboat docked, and the men of the James River fleet tumbled ashore, weighted down with all their belongings, too stunned from the rush of disasters to think what to do next.
“I hope they don’t expect us to march any considerable distance,” said Bridgeford. “Most of us couldn’t do more than a couple of miles at the best of times, not being used to it.”
“I reckon I can walk,” said Gabe Hawks. “I followed Stonewall from one end of Virginia to t’other. But I ain’t no damn pack mule.”
“Ah, Hawks, but at the moment you look like one.” Bridgeford laughed and pointed to the jumble of necessities they carried: a mess-kettle, bags of bread, chunks of salted pork, pots and pans, tea, sugar, and tobacco. Which of these precious items could they leave behind in their flight? And what would become of them if they did not?
“Hey, you old salts! How do you like navigating on land?” A line of cavalry was passing by on the road-boys scarcely older than Gabe, looking thin and tired in their tattered gray. But when they saw the grounded sailors, staggering about on dry land with pans around their necks, like a gaggle of stranded geese, they cheered up considerably, and drifted out of sight still laughing and making catcalls at their less fortunate comrades in arms.
Admiral Semmes, without a ship under him, looked just as lost as anyone. He gave orders for the gunboats to be burned and set adrift. Then he called on his captains to muster the troops. Only now the captains were to be called colonels.
“My orders are to join General Lee in the field with all my forces!” the admiral called out. “And we shall proceed accordingly.”
Bridgeford nudged Gabe and said softly, “But where the devil is Lee, and how do we get there?”
Just then one of the officers shouted, “To the railroad depot! Forward, march!”
And they lurched off into a cloud of smoke and road dust.
Gabriel Hawks had just rejoined the army.