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

again and pounced upon her. She first sailed around the Yankee from stem to stern, and stern to stem again. The way that fine, saucy, rakish craft was handledwas worth riding a hundred miles to see. She went around the bark like a toy, making a complete circle, and leaving an even margin of water between herself and her prize. 14
    There was more than a little glee mixed in with the excitement. The sentiment in this colony of the British Empire, on which the sun never set, reflected the mother country’s political prejudices as closely as they parroted the latest fashions—contempt for the Yankees and admiration for the Confederates. Cape Town’s elite was already in competition to invite the
Alabama’s
captain, the famous Capt. Raphael Semmes, into their homes. To the rage of the U.S. consul, the city prepared to fete the captain and his officers even before the
Alabama
had made its kill.
    The Confederate commerce raider finished toying with its prey and sent over a boat to fetch its captain and his sailing papers. The defeated captain climbed aboard stone-faced, his life in ruins. He owned his ship; it was his home as well as his livelihood. Semmes greeted him cordially before reviewing his papers. The
Sea Bride’s
captain observed him as he read. Semmes was a thin, wiry man, all sinew and determination. His already famous waxed mustache protruded at right angles for three inches from either side of his face.
    Semmes looked up. “I declare the
Sea Bride
a prize of war, Captain. I will send a prize crew to take her. You and your crew I will land in Cape Town.” The man held no hope of escape; his manifest clearly declared his cargo of machinery to be the property of American merchants. What sickened him though was the thought that Semmes might burn her, his home of so many years, as the captain of the
Alabama
had done to so many whalers. Their oil-soaked timbers had created vertical infernos floating on the sea, visible for great distances, and had become a specter haunting every American ship’s captain. The
Alabama
had hunted for less than a year, and already she had spread terror through the American shipping world, driving insurance rates skyward and giving owners no alternative but to reflag, sell their ships to foreign owners, or face ruin at sea. Bit by bit, Semmes was breaking Yankee commerce on the high seas.
    The world was already putting the praise of the
Alabama
to song in a dozen languages. As Semmes sailed into Cape Town Harbor, the locals were already singing in Afrikaans, “Daar kom die
Alabama
, die
Alabama
kom oor die see.” It would become a local legend that would endure for more than one hundred years. 15

2 .
Russell and the Rams
     
WASHINGTON NAVY YARD, WASHINGTON, D.C.,10:20 AM , AUGUST 6, 1863
    Gus Fox was not the sort of man to wait on events much less on other men. The assistant secretary of the Navy was a burly, powerful man, with a bushy mustache-goatee that bristled with power. He bent events to his will as the foundries did that shaped the great flat slabs of armor plate into the rounded turrets of his beloved Monitors. On this day he was waiting for one man as he paced the Navy Yard’s Anacostia River dock, and a naval lieutenant at that.
    Whenever Fox appeared at the Yard, a primal energy was unleashed. Adm. John Dahlgren, during his time as superintendent of the Yard, had had the self-confidence and connections with Lincoln to withstand and guide Fox’s enthusiasm. But his successor, Capt. Andrew Harwood, was not as well connected and knew it. He would pay Fox the courtesies his dignity allowed and then get back to his own work and leave the Assistant Secretary to whatever had brought him to the Yard. Fox understood the game and played it well. Being the brother-in-law of the Postmaster General and the son-in-law of a major figure in the Republican Party had been the trick that landed him the job. That he was uniquely qualified for it was not something that American patronage