Britannia's Fist: From Civil War to World War: An Alternate History by Peter G. Tsouras Read Free Book Online

to close until 3:50 PM when a shot from her bow gun shattered the vessel’s figurehead. The vessel came about to signal her surrender.
    She was the
Margaret and Jesse
, seven hundred tons, registered in Charleston and bound for Wilmington from Nassau. Lamson sent two officers aboard to hoist the American flag. With a prize crew in control of the captured vessel, Lamson cut a course for the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron off Wilmington, and when everything was secure and under way, he returned to his cabin and picked up his pen to finish his letter to the fair Kate.
    The next morning in the early light the ships swung in among the squadron. Lamson, at his breakfast, was interrupted by a knock on the cabin door. “Enter,” he said.
    A tiny cabin boy, all of eleven years old, stood owl-eyed for few seconds until he blurted out, “Mr. Porter’s compliments, sir. Flagship signaling.”
    Lamson put his breakfast aside and went topside, nodding at Mr. Porter as he scanned the squadron bobbing in the sea. Most were converted merchantships like the
Nansemond
, meant to run down blockade-runners. There was also a handful of the purpose-built, prewar, steam-driven warships. As powerful as the squadron was, Lamson knew its strength paled compared to that assembled under Adm. John Dahlgren’s South Atlantic Blockading Squadron off Charleston. Admiral Dahlgren had command of the Navy’s new iron fist, all eight of the new iron monitors. Riding low in the water with their great double-gunned turrets, the
Passaic
class monitors were a marvel rushed to production after last year’s great duel on in Hampton Roads between the USS
Monitor
and the CSS
Virginia
, but not a one of these wonders bobbed here off Wilmington.
    “What is the signal, Mr. Henderson?” Lamson asked the acting ensign. He had been lagging in his signal recognition skills, and Lamson had had him at practice in every spare moment.
    Henderson blinked, read the signal flags, and then said quickly, “‘Captain
Nansemond
report squadron commander immediately,’ sir.”
    “Very good, Mr. Henderson.”
INDIANAPOLIS RAIL YARDS, INDIANA, 3:22 AM , AUGUST 3, 1863
    “Traitor!” The speaker spat out the word, a letter clutched in his hand. But it was his eyes that glowed with hate. Big Jim Smoke was a hater by nature, but now he had a cause.
    The Copperhead rebellion could not succeed by merely hamstringing the war effort—it must succeed by an act as overt as the rebels firing on Fort Sumter, and for that they needed arms. Tens of thousands of small arms and tons of ammunition were siphoned off the open market to fill secret arsenals, but even that was not enough. Raids on federal arms warehouses followed.
    Such as the one on this warm summer’s night.
    Their target was the arms warehouse, one of many that fed the rail yards of Indianapolis, which poured arms and supplies south to the armies that had finally starved out proud and obdurate Vicksburg. Thirty menslid through the shadows. Wagons waited deeper in the gloom. Two o’clock in the morning is a dangerous time for sentries and in particular for these men who were members of the Invalid Corps, the light duty men released from the charnel house hospitals as unfit for field duty but able to do some valuable service. In these early hours a man could be seduced into the sleepy arms of Orpheus. It was burden enough to nurse a limping leg from a minié ball at Chancellorsville or Champion Hill without struggling also against leaden sleep.
    The man with the letter had tucked it and his anger away. He had work to do but had to wait while others did their own work. He stepped around a corner to be out of sight and lit a match to his cigar. The guards did not stir from their sleep as shadowy forms scurried through the lamplight. A few practiced motions, and the guards slumped to the ground, cut throats gushing black blood in the pale light. The wide double doors swung open with a creak, and the gang rushed in. A lamp