TFSmith121
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BURNISHED ROWS OF STEEL Chapter 2, Part 1 – On Canada's fair domain…
BURNISHED ROWS OF STEEL: A History of the Great War
By T.F. Smith
Copyright (c) 2013-2014 by the author. All rights reserved.
Chapter 2, Part 1 – On Canada's fair domain…
i. ‘tis to Glory we Steer…
Come, cheer up, my lads, 'tis to glory we steer,
To add something more to this wonderful year;
To honour we call you, as freemen not slaves,
For who are so free as the sons of the waves?
Heart of Oak are our ships,
Jolly Tars are our men,
We always are ready: Steady, boys, Steady!
We'll fight and we'll conquer again and again.
- taken from “Harlequin's Invasion," music by William Boyce, lyrics by David Garrick, originally performed 1760
Hired Military Transport Melbourne
January, 1862
The North Atlantic
The Melbourne, a small steamer even in comparison to her consort, the 2,400 ton screw corvette HMS Orpheus, was barely making way, bucking the long black rollers of the Atlantic as the rain sleeted down from the west. As the waves struck, the little steamer shuddered, and spray spouted over her.
The transport had sailed from Woolwich on 7 December and taken a week to pick up her convoy, the transports Australasia, Persia, and Parana. The convoy, carrying some 3,000 of the 11,000 men in the first contingent, was escorted by Orpheus, flying the pennant of Commodore W. F. Burnett, CB. The ships had assembled at Plymouth and then steamed to Queenstown harbor in Cork for additional coal, stores, and a few late-arriving soldiers.
The argument against using Melbourne, well known as a ‘lame duck” that had been condemned during the Crimean War and had broken down repeatedly during the China War, on the North Atlantic in winter was well understood in the Cabinet, but the Government was concerned with the political, not the military aspects of the departure. Because of the “sobering effect” it would have in Washington, the argument went, Palmerston wanted the troops’ departure announced as quickly as possible - in Parliament and elsewhere - to show that Britain meant what the prime minister’s government had said.
So, despite Cornewall-Lewis’ protests, the ships had been loaded and left Cork on 14 December; they almost immediately ran into bad weather, with Melbourne and Orpheus both falling behind the convoy. Burnett had signaled the larger ships to proceed, while the corvette stayed with Melbourne – in large part, because of who was aboard.
The rapid organization of the expedition had put most of the two Guards battalions, some artillery, and supplies of various types aboard the three larger transports. Some of the Grenadier Guards, however, including Capt. Jonny Stanley, were jammed aboard Melbourne, along with a telegraphy section and many of the quartermaster’s staff for the contingent. These included, among others, Col. K.D. Mackenzie, CB, the designated deputy quarter master general for the force. Mackenzie had served in the same post for Sir James Hope Grant’s 11,000-man expedition to China from India in 1860; his CB came from his service in China. Also aboard her was Capt. W.F.E. Seymour, of the Coldstreams, who had boarded in Cork to serve as an aide-de-camp in North America.
It was quite a glittering array, Jonny Stanley thought – made somewhat less glittering that half the men had spent most of the past week puking their guts out, in the heads or over the taffrail, even as the merchant navy sailors went about their business. The stink of vomit penetrated even into the saloon, where the officers spent their days frustrated over the lack of progress. Below decks must be something out of Hogarth, he thought. Christ, at this rate, we’ll need a week to get everyone back on their feet at Cape Breton before we can go anywhere…
“What’s that, Captain? The thin red line is getting thinner, eh?” the speaker was Lt. Col. Garnet Wolseley, of the 90th Foot, who had served as Mackenzie’s deputy in China and been assigned to the same duty for this force.
“We’ve been cabin’d, cribb’d, and confined long enough to drive them all to the heads…or the stern. Worse than when I went out to Burmah in ’52, or the Crimea in ’54. At least on those trips, you could look outside and see something other than grey water and grey sky.”
Wolseley had carried the China assignment off well, and had been rewarded with his brevet lieutenant-colonelcy. Not bad for the son of a retired infantry major; equally not surprisingly, Mackenzie had asked for him for the contingent headed for Canada. Wolseley, at 27 only three years older than Stanley, was one the most glittering of the array aboard Melbourne, more so even than Mackenzie. The lieutenant colonel was widely regarded as one of the most driven young officers in the service – if not a little too driving at times, Stanley thought.
“My apologies, colonel, you were saying?” Stanley asked, covering his being startled with a question.
The lieutenant colonel examined Stanley coolly. Stanley looked back; being the son of a lord and a member of the Cabinet did wonders for one’s self-confidence, even two ranks down, he thought idly. Wolseley was slender, ramrod-straight, but only 5 foot 7 inches tall; substantially shorter than the Guards officer. He had penetrating blue eyes, although Wolseley had come back from the Crimea with only one still functional, Stanley knew. But you can’t tell…something of a weak chin, however, Stanley thought.
“What I was saying, Captain, is that at this rate, your battalion will need a reinforcement draft to be back up to scale by the time we get to Halifax,” Wolseley said, grinning; apparently the seas did not affect him, although Colonel Mackenzie had retired to his cabin and Seymour, far from the effortlessly cool aide-de-camp he had been in Ireland, was looking decidedly green at the gills. “And we certainly won’t be making passage of the St. Lawrence in this sad excuse for a ship; too much for the engines, I’d wager.”
“Un…doubt…edly, colonel,” Seymour choked out, as Melbourne took another long shuddering drop down a roller. “I expect…the Nova Scotia Command staff…under Gen. Hastings Doyle will arrange…passage from Halifax to Montreal by rail.”
“Ah, but that’s the thing, captain – there is no railway from Halifax to Quebec; the only railroad to Montreal from the Atlantic starts in Portland, Maine, in the States – no, we’ll have to do that bit from Halifax to Quebec by sleigh – which, of course, our friends at Horse Guards have provided, which is part of why we’re so jammed aboard this tub,” Wolseley said. “Imagine? Sending sleighs from England to New Brunswick. That makes perfect sense…”
“I’m surprised you allowed it, colonel,” Stanley offered. “I’d have expected-“
Wolseley cut in:
“Too late to do anything about it by the time I got to Woolwich; they’d already been loaded aboard, along with who knows what else - 75 tons of stores and etc. on the hurricane deck, 90 days of provisions below – but nothing secured and no room to move…no wonder the tars all have such long faces,” the colonel responded coolly. “Damn thing will probably begin taking on water before we get much further. Oh well, we’ll sort it out ashore, just like in Russia. God knows this can’t be any worse than that; other than whose army we’ll be facing at the other end, of course.”
Stanley perked up that, and began:
“What do you mean, colonel? I was at Sebastopol; the Russians certainly knew how to fight-“
“That they did, captain; but they also waited for us to come ashore – the Yankees, damn them, are unlikely to sit and wait for us,” Wolseley said evenly. “Scott is not a fool; they didn’t roll over Mexico in ’48 by being fools. I won’t be surprised if they make us all prisoners of war by February.”
“Colonel!” Seymour protested, his nausea overcome for the moment. “Really!”
“What I mean is, captain, if that if the Yankees are worth their salt, they’ll at once make peace with the south – or at least stand on the defensive down there where they can – and pour 100,000 men into Canada, where they can compensate themselves with whatever they lose in the South, and England be perfectly unable to prevent it,” the colonel said, a little hot himself at this point.
“Unless our government has made up its mind to fitting out an expedition which can start - as soon as war is declared – to seize Portland and open up railway communication to Quebec, I cannot see how we are to maintain our position in Canada this winter … and the troops in garrison there already – all 5,000 of them - can’t do it; they have an appointment with the Yankees on Lake Champlain, whenever the starting gun fires …”
Melbourne began to rise as she took another roller beneath the bow; the ship shuddered, and Seymour stumbled to his feet and headed toward the rail.
“And another one down,” Wolseley said. “Ah, well, a bloody war and a sickly season, correct, Stanley? The best possible way to get ahead in the Army is to try and get killed every time one has the chance…daring and indifference to danger, Jonny, my boy; daring and indifference to danger.”
At that point, Jonny Stanley began to think seriously that his father was more right than he knew.
===================================================================================================
ii. Car ton bras sait porter l'épée, il sait porter la croix!
University College
Toronto, Canada West
Province of Canada
January, 1862
The college’s four-story main building was only three years old, but the glowering pile of gray stone, referred to as “Norman Romanesque,” looked five centuries older. Toronto – founded as York in 1793, burned in 1813, re-built, and renamed in 1834 – stretched from the campus toward the lake. The town was a mix of low two and three-story buildings of wood, brick, and stone, with the skyline broken by a few tall trees, church spires, and the occasional taller structure – a mercantile block or factory – looming above the smaller buildings. Snow, turning to slush in the dull brightness of an atypically clear day, covered most rooftops and ran off the eaves, while wood smoke from chimneys across the town slanted skyward; despite the season, the air was still. A low winter sun hung toward the west, and the room was warm from the fireplace.
“Lord, where is he? I can’t be waiting on him all day, Dr. McCaul,” said the younger of the two men seated in the university’s president’s office. A bullet-headed 41-year-old, the speaker threw himself up from a plush chair and began pacing, from one side of the office to the other. “I know he is coming a long way, but so did I – and Ottawa is as close to Toronto for him as it is for me.”
“Patience, John, patience … we have much to discuss with our friend,” said John McCaul, 51, right reverend of the Church of Ireland, MA, LLb and LLd, Trinity College, Dublin, with the calm that was as much of his nature as an academic as the clergyman. “There are great events in motion, and every man of affairs we know has to be thinking ahead. I know where you stood in ’49 on the secularization bill-“
“Despite being a McGill man?” the younger man broke in, abruptly.
John Joseph Caldwell Abbott, member of the province’s Legislative Assembly for Argenteuil, graduate of and professor of law at McGill University in Montreal, and arguably the wealthiest lawyer in the Province of Canada, east or west, was not known for his patience.
“ `It is, sir, as I have said, a small college. And yet there are those who love it!’ " Abbott quoted.
“Ah, um…Webster?” ventured McCaul. “How appropriate, considering the state of the border-“
“Yes, Webster, in Dartmouth College v. Woodward, arguing successfully that corporations did not have to justify their privileges by acting in the public interest, and are independent of the states – rather ironic given what is happening in the States at the moment,” Abbott answered, before plunging ahead:
“And yes, even more so, given the border that he and Ashburton negotiated – especially after the Aroostook Valley crisis. The Americans got Rouse’s Point, and we got a winter sledge road from Halifax to Quebec that barely exists even today, two decades later. I think they got the better part of the deal, don’t you?” Abbott said grimly. “God knows Williams and Monck and Tache and John Alexander are all sweating over it…especially since the Grand Trunk only runs to the sea at Portland, of all places. Not exactly thinking ahead at the time…Good God, McCaul, why did you send for me?”
The academic considered his guest’s comments for a moment, and spoke:
“Not so much because of where you stood in ’49 ahn secularization; more so where you stood the same year ahn annexation,” the clergyman said, his brogue becoming – ever so slightly - more pronounced. “And I hear that General Williams ‘tis already talking about closing the harbour here with blockships, and destroying the Suspension Bridge – and after how many millions have been spent on both of them?”
Abbott looked at him and breathed in:
“In ‘49, I felt differently. Today, when someone asks me about the Annexation Manifesto, I say signing it was a sin of youth, and that `I am, of course, honored to be recruiting the Argenteuil battalion,’ ” Abbott said, almost by rote. “I am, of course, concerned for my country’s safety in light of the events in the States, and trust my service with the militia to be to be evidence that my youthful error has been forgiven…to say anything more would be…inappropriate. And, by God, pretty damn indiscreet, given everything going on at the moment. What idiots they were, to let that St. Alban’s business happen, and then the stupidity of that thing on the Coaticook…”
McCaul stood, and walked to the window, closed tight against the cold. He cranked a single vented pane open, and looked down toward what – in the spring – would be a green lawn. From forty feet below, a thin voice carried in the still air:
“Riflemen, fo’ward, march!”
A file of young men, most of them dressed in civilian overcoats against the cold, stepped across the bare dirt in front of the college, keeping – mostly - in step, and avoiding – mostly – the patches of slushy ice that lay here and there. The middle-aged lieutenant drilling them – at 38, he was twice the age as most of his charges, and just as much of an amateur – drew in his breath and yelled, as leather-lunged officers have yelled throughout history:
“Riflemen, by the left, march!”
The University Rifle Company of Volunteers, Pattern 1842 Muskets on their shoulders, turned smartly to their respective lefts – except for one student-soldier, who turned right, slipped on a patch of ice, and sprawled into two of his squad-mates. One kept his feet; the other collapsed into a heap, barely avoiding pulling yet another man, one of a handful in uniform, down with him. The volunteer militiamen – for that’s what they were – stopped dead; other than a couple of corporals assigned to the company from the 2nd Volunteer Rifle Battalion (one of three such in the entire province) they were all tyros. The lieutenant was running, crossing the field in little bounds to avoid the slush, and still yelling:
“Companee, halt! Gibson! Mulock! What are you playing at? Are you daft?” the officer shouted, voice rising. “Corporal Muir, can’t you control these men? Gracious, what would Captain Croft say? Heavens, what would Colonel Denison say? Stand up, you two.”
“Cherry…I mean, Professor…I mean, lieutenant…” one of the recruits began in a plaintive voice, cut off as McCaul cranked the vent shut. He turned to Abbott, who interrupted:
“Cherry?” the lawyer asked quizzically.
“ “Cherry’ ‘tis the leftenant, Lt. John Bradford Cherriman, also our chair of mathematics and natural philosophy; his father was a quartermaster in the Light Dragoons, so naturally Cherry thinks he is a natural-born soldier. He was actually a wrangler in the mathematical tripos at Cambridge before coming here,” the older man said with a sad smile, before continuing:
“Croft is the captain; ‘tis chair of chemistry and experimental philosophy. His father was a paymaster of Ordnance…Denison, of course you know, one of our local landlords, turfman, and colonel of militia cavalry; also quite the self-appointed defender of the crown. He had ta’ resign from the town council a while back when he got caught up in the Northern Railway scheme, and has since devoted himself ta’ – uh, other pursuits,” McCaul said, delicately. “He’s quite unabashed about it, however; he’ll be the first to tell you the railway scandal was a put-up job by the Grits, and by the way, that he was at Gallows Hill in 1837…he talks about it as if shooing away Mackenzie’s odds and ends was the equivalent of the Light Brigade at Balaclava. Likes to tell the boys about how they’ll `shit on the stars and wipe their arses on the stripes’ if the `Yahnks’ try anything…”
“Yes, I remember him; he’s one of the ones who has been after John A. to move a militia bill, as if 5,000 volunteers aren’t enough, at God knows what cost – plus they want to drag out the Sedentary Militia, in the middle of winter, to drill them, as well; not surprisingly, the Canada East delegation has told him if he does, it will fail, and John A. will be out and John S. and the Grits will be in,” Abbott said. “Christ above, John A. may as well ask the Frenchies for `rep by pop’… it would go over with them about as well.”
There was silence after that: the political compromises enacted after the 1837-38 risings had held off more conflict, even though the French Canadians bridled at the unification of Upper Canada and Lower Canada into a single Province; their support for that had been bought with a commitment to a 50-50 split in political power, but as the population of Canada West had grown, that had led to agitation for representation by population, or “rep by pop” from the Anglophones; every thinking man knew what such a change would cost the Francophones, and wondered how they would react.
Abbot broke the stillness:
“And so who are those schoolboys of yours, playing soldier?” he asked McCaul.
“The boys are some of the best; Gibson is 19, son of a stonemason; he wrote the matriculation examination in ‘59 and was awarded a scholarship. Up for a silver medal in classics and modern languages, and a prize in Oriental languages,” McCaul said. “Now he is drilling in the mud and ice…”
Abbott looked at him and sighed.
“He’s not alone; they have all the volunteers from the 7th District in Montreal marching around the parade ground at l'Île Sainte-Hélène,” the lawyer said. “And Eardley Wilmot is talking about blowing the Great Victoria Bridge, which is all of two years old…they’re all mad.
The Americans are better equipped than we, and they outnumber us seven to one in population and fifty to one in soldiers at the moment, with more where they came from. All we've got is `the Empah’ and `the Queen’ and ten thousand regulars and volunteers, to hold everything from Saint John to London. Oh, and arrogance, we have plenty of that...and at the Turf Club, of course, there’s plenty of port, and cigars, and dreams of victory…and slavery; we’re ready to climb into bed with the slavers, of course. Gawd’s own grace…”
McCaul looked at him steadily, and then the clergyman came out.
“And so where in all this will you choose to stand, my son?” McCaul asked quietly.
There was dead silence in the room; before Abbott could answer, there was a knock, and the housemaid’s voice, muffled by the heavy chestnut door. “Sir, your second guest has arrived.”
“Have him in, my dear.”
The door opened, and an ancient man in a dark suit, with a shock of wild white hair, stepped in. The maid closed the door as the latest visitor shrugged out of his overcoat, and began to speak in an unmistakable accent:
“Messers, I am here – Quebec is here! Let us say – the dawn is overcast, the morning lowers, and heavily in clouds brings on the day, the great, the important day, big with the fate of Cato and of Rome, as Addison would put it…let us talk, my friends…we have much to discuss…”
Louis-Joseph Papineau, at 75 still seigneur de la Petite-Nation, legislator from 1808 to 1837 and again from 1848 to 1854, veteran of both the 1812-1815 war against the Americans and la guerre des patriotes against the Crown in 1837-38, radical, patriot, exile, returnee, signer of the Annexation Manifesto of 1849, author of the provincial law that granted full political rights to Jews 27 years before anywhere else in the British Empire, and the living, breathing representative of three centuries of le historie du la Belle Nouvelle-France in the flesh, had arrived.
And Upper and Lower Canada would not be the same again.
=====================================================================
iii. Ton histoire est une epopee…
Post of Edsall's Hill
Defenses of Washington
District of Columbia
January, 1862
In peacetime, Edsall’s would have been nothing special; it was a typical of the tree-dotted, grassy hills that dotted the District and the bottomlands across Maryland and Virginia, used for grazing or a place to hunt pigeons, partridges, and bobwhite in the summer and fall.
But this winter was different; the hill was cut and crossed with trenches and barricades of timber, with the brown earth rammed between the logs to provide bombproofs. Rifle pits were in place around the foot of the hill, and a regimental camp, made up of neat lines of winter cabins and tents, lay to the northeast.
As far south as the Potomac, January was cold and crisp, but not yet freezing; without rain or snow, the ground was cold but yielding; with it, it turned into mud and muck. But it had been a relatively mild winter so far, and the companies of the 4th Rhode Island Volunteers, not assigned to picket or guard duty, were drilling.
The men had been drilling since recruiting had begun in the summer, as Rhode Island fulfilled its quote of the 500,000 three-year volunteers that had been called for in 1861; the regiment’s first commander, Colonel J.I. McCarty, an old regular, had seen to that. The regiment had drilled constantly as they organized at Providence in the autumn under McCarty; they had drilled constantly after they arrived in Washington in October, when they were sent to Camp Casey for a month in the Army of the Potomac’s “camp of instruction” under Brig. Silas Casey, another old regular who was literally writing the Army’s book, Infantry Tactics for Volunteers, to replace Hardee’s Tactics.
When the Rhode Islanders met with Casey’s approval, the regiment had been mustered in to federal service October 30, turning in their state-issued Model 1842 muskets for new M.1859 Minie rifles purchased by the regular Army’s Ordnance Department, and then drilled some more. This time it was at Camp California until December, under a new colonel, Isaac P. Rodman, who had seen action as a captain with the 2nd Rhode Island in the Bull Run campaign. The regiment had then been assigned to Howard's Brigade, Sumner's Division (on paper, some 10,000 strong), and was sent out to Edsall’s Hill to garrison the post – and, of course, drill some more.
In late December, there had been a rumor they were going to be attached to the expeditionary division being gathered at Annapolis under Rhode Island’s own Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside; instead, they remained with Sumner’s newly-formed division, while Burnside’s had moved down the Chesapeake to Hampton Roads, in the Department of Virginia, gone ashore, stormed Norfolk, and then destroyed the navy yard.
More rumors were flying, that the entire division was going to move north to Boston, as Heintzelman’s Division was already, heading north to Albany, because of the deepening crisis with the British. But no orders had come down yet – and so the men drilled.
Beginning at their enlistment, the recruits had received basic individual training in the “school of the soldier”: position of the soldier without arms; eyes left, right, and front; facings; the direct step in common and quick time; and the direct step in double-quick and on the run. Then they progressed to the manual of arms; shouldered arms; load in four times and at will; firing, direct, oblique, by file, and by rank; firing and loading while kneeling and lying; and bayonet exercise. Then they learned - in groups of eight or twelve - the principles of alignment, direct march, oblique march, by-the-flank march, wheeling and changing direction, and double-quick; the squad-level evolutions were followed by exercise and maneuver at the company level, as a skirmish line, and the battalion level; brigade, divisional, and corps level exercises would commence after that - circumstances permitting.
But in the meantime, the men – even the bandsmen, orderlies, and various odds and ends normally excused from close order drill and field exercises, instead formed into an ad hoc company - now were being drilled until they dropped.
“Fall into two ranks!”
“Right, dress.”
“Attention!”
“You, Allen, carry your head back and chest out!”
“Now, right – dress!”
A short, slender officer, wearing the oak leaf of a major, rode up on a beautiful chestnut, dismounted, and walked up to Captain Levi Kent, the company commander. There was an exchange of salutes, a brief huddle, and then Kent yelled out:
“Lavalley! Front and center!”
Private Calixa Lavallée, at 19 the premier cornetist in the regimental band, jogged over and presented arms.
“Zir, Privat Lavallée reportin’ as order’…zir,” he said to Kent, before acknowledging the second officer. “Commandant – uh, mazor.”
“Lavalley, this is Major Duffy. He wants to talk to you,” Kent said, dismissively. “Major, he is all yours.”
The major, whippet-thin and a head shorter than Lavallée, was immaculately uniformed in the dark blue jacket and light blue trousers of the cavalry, sharply tailored, and complete with saber and holstered revolver at his waist. He turned toward the infantry officer, wrinkled an aquiline nose above a flamboyant waxed mustache and van dyke, and spoke:
“Capitaine, is it not customary in zis regiment to ask a senior officer if he has any additional requests?” the major said, with a hint of an accent only slightly akin to that of Lavallée.
“Certainly, major … is there anything else, major?” Kent asked.
“No, you are dismizzed. Merci,” the major said, turning and then mounting the chestnut. He rode away from the parade ground, as Kent stood fuming before turning back to his awkward squad. The cavalry officer turned in the saddle to speak with the musician.
“Lavallée, come with me. I am Major Duffié, of the 2nd New York Cavalry, currently on special service with the 55th New York. Tell me, Lavallée, do you love America? And do you love Quebec?”
“Oui, mon commandant,” the Canadien replied, immediately. “Les etats-unis, est le ennemi de la tyrannie…et Quebec est ma propre terre -”
“And what do you think of Monsieur Papineau? Back in ’37?” the Frenchman asked abruptly. “And of the British?”
“Papineau? Il est un grand patriote,” the private said. “Et les Anglais? Un race étrangère...”
“Interesante…étrangère, indeed. Lavallée, would you be interested in doing something more exciting in this war than playing the trumpet?” the major asked. “Are you ready to do something more than play the trumpet?”
“Oui, mon commandant,” the Canadien said. “Oui.”
Lavallée would not be alone.
(more to come)
BURNISHED ROWS OF STEEL: A History of the Great War
By T.F. Smith
Copyright (c) 2013-2014 by the author. All rights reserved.
Chapter 2, Part 1 – On Canada's fair domain…
i. ‘tis to Glory we Steer…
Come, cheer up, my lads, 'tis to glory we steer,
To add something more to this wonderful year;
To honour we call you, as freemen not slaves,
For who are so free as the sons of the waves?
Heart of Oak are our ships,
Jolly Tars are our men,
We always are ready: Steady, boys, Steady!
We'll fight and we'll conquer again and again.
- taken from “Harlequin's Invasion," music by William Boyce, lyrics by David Garrick, originally performed 1760
Hired Military Transport Melbourne
January, 1862
The North Atlantic
The Melbourne, a small steamer even in comparison to her consort, the 2,400 ton screw corvette HMS Orpheus, was barely making way, bucking the long black rollers of the Atlantic as the rain sleeted down from the west. As the waves struck, the little steamer shuddered, and spray spouted over her.
The transport had sailed from Woolwich on 7 December and taken a week to pick up her convoy, the transports Australasia, Persia, and Parana. The convoy, carrying some 3,000 of the 11,000 men in the first contingent, was escorted by Orpheus, flying the pennant of Commodore W. F. Burnett, CB. The ships had assembled at Plymouth and then steamed to Queenstown harbor in Cork for additional coal, stores, and a few late-arriving soldiers.
The argument against using Melbourne, well known as a ‘lame duck” that had been condemned during the Crimean War and had broken down repeatedly during the China War, on the North Atlantic in winter was well understood in the Cabinet, but the Government was concerned with the political, not the military aspects of the departure. Because of the “sobering effect” it would have in Washington, the argument went, Palmerston wanted the troops’ departure announced as quickly as possible - in Parliament and elsewhere - to show that Britain meant what the prime minister’s government had said.
So, despite Cornewall-Lewis’ protests, the ships had been loaded and left Cork on 14 December; they almost immediately ran into bad weather, with Melbourne and Orpheus both falling behind the convoy. Burnett had signaled the larger ships to proceed, while the corvette stayed with Melbourne – in large part, because of who was aboard.
The rapid organization of the expedition had put most of the two Guards battalions, some artillery, and supplies of various types aboard the three larger transports. Some of the Grenadier Guards, however, including Capt. Jonny Stanley, were jammed aboard Melbourne, along with a telegraphy section and many of the quartermaster’s staff for the contingent. These included, among others, Col. K.D. Mackenzie, CB, the designated deputy quarter master general for the force. Mackenzie had served in the same post for Sir James Hope Grant’s 11,000-man expedition to China from India in 1860; his CB came from his service in China. Also aboard her was Capt. W.F.E. Seymour, of the Coldstreams, who had boarded in Cork to serve as an aide-de-camp in North America.
It was quite a glittering array, Jonny Stanley thought – made somewhat less glittering that half the men had spent most of the past week puking their guts out, in the heads or over the taffrail, even as the merchant navy sailors went about their business. The stink of vomit penetrated even into the saloon, where the officers spent their days frustrated over the lack of progress. Below decks must be something out of Hogarth, he thought. Christ, at this rate, we’ll need a week to get everyone back on their feet at Cape Breton before we can go anywhere…
“What’s that, Captain? The thin red line is getting thinner, eh?” the speaker was Lt. Col. Garnet Wolseley, of the 90th Foot, who had served as Mackenzie’s deputy in China and been assigned to the same duty for this force.
“We’ve been cabin’d, cribb’d, and confined long enough to drive them all to the heads…or the stern. Worse than when I went out to Burmah in ’52, or the Crimea in ’54. At least on those trips, you could look outside and see something other than grey water and grey sky.”
Wolseley had carried the China assignment off well, and had been rewarded with his brevet lieutenant-colonelcy. Not bad for the son of a retired infantry major; equally not surprisingly, Mackenzie had asked for him for the contingent headed for Canada. Wolseley, at 27 only three years older than Stanley, was one the most glittering of the array aboard Melbourne, more so even than Mackenzie. The lieutenant colonel was widely regarded as one of the most driven young officers in the service – if not a little too driving at times, Stanley thought.
“My apologies, colonel, you were saying?” Stanley asked, covering his being startled with a question.
The lieutenant colonel examined Stanley coolly. Stanley looked back; being the son of a lord and a member of the Cabinet did wonders for one’s self-confidence, even two ranks down, he thought idly. Wolseley was slender, ramrod-straight, but only 5 foot 7 inches tall; substantially shorter than the Guards officer. He had penetrating blue eyes, although Wolseley had come back from the Crimea with only one still functional, Stanley knew. But you can’t tell…something of a weak chin, however, Stanley thought.
“What I was saying, Captain, is that at this rate, your battalion will need a reinforcement draft to be back up to scale by the time we get to Halifax,” Wolseley said, grinning; apparently the seas did not affect him, although Colonel Mackenzie had retired to his cabin and Seymour, far from the effortlessly cool aide-de-camp he had been in Ireland, was looking decidedly green at the gills. “And we certainly won’t be making passage of the St. Lawrence in this sad excuse for a ship; too much for the engines, I’d wager.”
“Un…doubt…edly, colonel,” Seymour choked out, as Melbourne took another long shuddering drop down a roller. “I expect…the Nova Scotia Command staff…under Gen. Hastings Doyle will arrange…passage from Halifax to Montreal by rail.”
“Ah, but that’s the thing, captain – there is no railway from Halifax to Quebec; the only railroad to Montreal from the Atlantic starts in Portland, Maine, in the States – no, we’ll have to do that bit from Halifax to Quebec by sleigh – which, of course, our friends at Horse Guards have provided, which is part of why we’re so jammed aboard this tub,” Wolseley said. “Imagine? Sending sleighs from England to New Brunswick. That makes perfect sense…”
“I’m surprised you allowed it, colonel,” Stanley offered. “I’d have expected-“
Wolseley cut in:
“Too late to do anything about it by the time I got to Woolwich; they’d already been loaded aboard, along with who knows what else - 75 tons of stores and etc. on the hurricane deck, 90 days of provisions below – but nothing secured and no room to move…no wonder the tars all have such long faces,” the colonel responded coolly. “Damn thing will probably begin taking on water before we get much further. Oh well, we’ll sort it out ashore, just like in Russia. God knows this can’t be any worse than that; other than whose army we’ll be facing at the other end, of course.”
Stanley perked up that, and began:
“What do you mean, colonel? I was at Sebastopol; the Russians certainly knew how to fight-“
“That they did, captain; but they also waited for us to come ashore – the Yankees, damn them, are unlikely to sit and wait for us,” Wolseley said evenly. “Scott is not a fool; they didn’t roll over Mexico in ’48 by being fools. I won’t be surprised if they make us all prisoners of war by February.”
“Colonel!” Seymour protested, his nausea overcome for the moment. “Really!”
“What I mean is, captain, if that if the Yankees are worth their salt, they’ll at once make peace with the south – or at least stand on the defensive down there where they can – and pour 100,000 men into Canada, where they can compensate themselves with whatever they lose in the South, and England be perfectly unable to prevent it,” the colonel said, a little hot himself at this point.
“Unless our government has made up its mind to fitting out an expedition which can start - as soon as war is declared – to seize Portland and open up railway communication to Quebec, I cannot see how we are to maintain our position in Canada this winter … and the troops in garrison there already – all 5,000 of them - can’t do it; they have an appointment with the Yankees on Lake Champlain, whenever the starting gun fires …”
Melbourne began to rise as she took another roller beneath the bow; the ship shuddered, and Seymour stumbled to his feet and headed toward the rail.
“And another one down,” Wolseley said. “Ah, well, a bloody war and a sickly season, correct, Stanley? The best possible way to get ahead in the Army is to try and get killed every time one has the chance…daring and indifference to danger, Jonny, my boy; daring and indifference to danger.”
At that point, Jonny Stanley began to think seriously that his father was more right than he knew.
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ii. Car ton bras sait porter l'épée, il sait porter la croix!
University College
Toronto, Canada West
Province of Canada
January, 1862
The college’s four-story main building was only three years old, but the glowering pile of gray stone, referred to as “Norman Romanesque,” looked five centuries older. Toronto – founded as York in 1793, burned in 1813, re-built, and renamed in 1834 – stretched from the campus toward the lake. The town was a mix of low two and three-story buildings of wood, brick, and stone, with the skyline broken by a few tall trees, church spires, and the occasional taller structure – a mercantile block or factory – looming above the smaller buildings. Snow, turning to slush in the dull brightness of an atypically clear day, covered most rooftops and ran off the eaves, while wood smoke from chimneys across the town slanted skyward; despite the season, the air was still. A low winter sun hung toward the west, and the room was warm from the fireplace.
“Lord, where is he? I can’t be waiting on him all day, Dr. McCaul,” said the younger of the two men seated in the university’s president’s office. A bullet-headed 41-year-old, the speaker threw himself up from a plush chair and began pacing, from one side of the office to the other. “I know he is coming a long way, but so did I – and Ottawa is as close to Toronto for him as it is for me.”
“Patience, John, patience … we have much to discuss with our friend,” said John McCaul, 51, right reverend of the Church of Ireland, MA, LLb and LLd, Trinity College, Dublin, with the calm that was as much of his nature as an academic as the clergyman. “There are great events in motion, and every man of affairs we know has to be thinking ahead. I know where you stood in ’49 on the secularization bill-“
“Despite being a McGill man?” the younger man broke in, abruptly.
John Joseph Caldwell Abbott, member of the province’s Legislative Assembly for Argenteuil, graduate of and professor of law at McGill University in Montreal, and arguably the wealthiest lawyer in the Province of Canada, east or west, was not known for his patience.
“ `It is, sir, as I have said, a small college. And yet there are those who love it!’ " Abbott quoted.
“Ah, um…Webster?” ventured McCaul. “How appropriate, considering the state of the border-“
“Yes, Webster, in Dartmouth College v. Woodward, arguing successfully that corporations did not have to justify their privileges by acting in the public interest, and are independent of the states – rather ironic given what is happening in the States at the moment,” Abbott answered, before plunging ahead:
“And yes, even more so, given the border that he and Ashburton negotiated – especially after the Aroostook Valley crisis. The Americans got Rouse’s Point, and we got a winter sledge road from Halifax to Quebec that barely exists even today, two decades later. I think they got the better part of the deal, don’t you?” Abbott said grimly. “God knows Williams and Monck and Tache and John Alexander are all sweating over it…especially since the Grand Trunk only runs to the sea at Portland, of all places. Not exactly thinking ahead at the time…Good God, McCaul, why did you send for me?”
The academic considered his guest’s comments for a moment, and spoke:
“Not so much because of where you stood in ’49 ahn secularization; more so where you stood the same year ahn annexation,” the clergyman said, his brogue becoming – ever so slightly - more pronounced. “And I hear that General Williams ‘tis already talking about closing the harbour here with blockships, and destroying the Suspension Bridge – and after how many millions have been spent on both of them?”
Abbott looked at him and breathed in:
“In ‘49, I felt differently. Today, when someone asks me about the Annexation Manifesto, I say signing it was a sin of youth, and that `I am, of course, honored to be recruiting the Argenteuil battalion,’ ” Abbott said, almost by rote. “I am, of course, concerned for my country’s safety in light of the events in the States, and trust my service with the militia to be to be evidence that my youthful error has been forgiven…to say anything more would be…inappropriate. And, by God, pretty damn indiscreet, given everything going on at the moment. What idiots they were, to let that St. Alban’s business happen, and then the stupidity of that thing on the Coaticook…”
McCaul stood, and walked to the window, closed tight against the cold. He cranked a single vented pane open, and looked down toward what – in the spring – would be a green lawn. From forty feet below, a thin voice carried in the still air:
“Riflemen, fo’ward, march!”
A file of young men, most of them dressed in civilian overcoats against the cold, stepped across the bare dirt in front of the college, keeping – mostly - in step, and avoiding – mostly – the patches of slushy ice that lay here and there. The middle-aged lieutenant drilling them – at 38, he was twice the age as most of his charges, and just as much of an amateur – drew in his breath and yelled, as leather-lunged officers have yelled throughout history:
“Riflemen, by the left, march!”
The University Rifle Company of Volunteers, Pattern 1842 Muskets on their shoulders, turned smartly to their respective lefts – except for one student-soldier, who turned right, slipped on a patch of ice, and sprawled into two of his squad-mates. One kept his feet; the other collapsed into a heap, barely avoiding pulling yet another man, one of a handful in uniform, down with him. The volunteer militiamen – for that’s what they were – stopped dead; other than a couple of corporals assigned to the company from the 2nd Volunteer Rifle Battalion (one of three such in the entire province) they were all tyros. The lieutenant was running, crossing the field in little bounds to avoid the slush, and still yelling:
“Companee, halt! Gibson! Mulock! What are you playing at? Are you daft?” the officer shouted, voice rising. “Corporal Muir, can’t you control these men? Gracious, what would Captain Croft say? Heavens, what would Colonel Denison say? Stand up, you two.”
“Cherry…I mean, Professor…I mean, lieutenant…” one of the recruits began in a plaintive voice, cut off as McCaul cranked the vent shut. He turned to Abbott, who interrupted:
“Cherry?” the lawyer asked quizzically.
“ “Cherry’ ‘tis the leftenant, Lt. John Bradford Cherriman, also our chair of mathematics and natural philosophy; his father was a quartermaster in the Light Dragoons, so naturally Cherry thinks he is a natural-born soldier. He was actually a wrangler in the mathematical tripos at Cambridge before coming here,” the older man said with a sad smile, before continuing:
“Croft is the captain; ‘tis chair of chemistry and experimental philosophy. His father was a paymaster of Ordnance…Denison, of course you know, one of our local landlords, turfman, and colonel of militia cavalry; also quite the self-appointed defender of the crown. He had ta’ resign from the town council a while back when he got caught up in the Northern Railway scheme, and has since devoted himself ta’ – uh, other pursuits,” McCaul said, delicately. “He’s quite unabashed about it, however; he’ll be the first to tell you the railway scandal was a put-up job by the Grits, and by the way, that he was at Gallows Hill in 1837…he talks about it as if shooing away Mackenzie’s odds and ends was the equivalent of the Light Brigade at Balaclava. Likes to tell the boys about how they’ll `shit on the stars and wipe their arses on the stripes’ if the `Yahnks’ try anything…”
“Yes, I remember him; he’s one of the ones who has been after John A. to move a militia bill, as if 5,000 volunteers aren’t enough, at God knows what cost – plus they want to drag out the Sedentary Militia, in the middle of winter, to drill them, as well; not surprisingly, the Canada East delegation has told him if he does, it will fail, and John A. will be out and John S. and the Grits will be in,” Abbott said. “Christ above, John A. may as well ask the Frenchies for `rep by pop’… it would go over with them about as well.”
There was silence after that: the political compromises enacted after the 1837-38 risings had held off more conflict, even though the French Canadians bridled at the unification of Upper Canada and Lower Canada into a single Province; their support for that had been bought with a commitment to a 50-50 split in political power, but as the population of Canada West had grown, that had led to agitation for representation by population, or “rep by pop” from the Anglophones; every thinking man knew what such a change would cost the Francophones, and wondered how they would react.
Abbot broke the stillness:
“And so who are those schoolboys of yours, playing soldier?” he asked McCaul.
“The boys are some of the best; Gibson is 19, son of a stonemason; he wrote the matriculation examination in ‘59 and was awarded a scholarship. Up for a silver medal in classics and modern languages, and a prize in Oriental languages,” McCaul said. “Now he is drilling in the mud and ice…”
Abbott looked at him and sighed.
“He’s not alone; they have all the volunteers from the 7th District in Montreal marching around the parade ground at l'Île Sainte-Hélène,” the lawyer said. “And Eardley Wilmot is talking about blowing the Great Victoria Bridge, which is all of two years old…they’re all mad.
The Americans are better equipped than we, and they outnumber us seven to one in population and fifty to one in soldiers at the moment, with more where they came from. All we've got is `the Empah’ and `the Queen’ and ten thousand regulars and volunteers, to hold everything from Saint John to London. Oh, and arrogance, we have plenty of that...and at the Turf Club, of course, there’s plenty of port, and cigars, and dreams of victory…and slavery; we’re ready to climb into bed with the slavers, of course. Gawd’s own grace…”
McCaul looked at him steadily, and then the clergyman came out.
“And so where in all this will you choose to stand, my son?” McCaul asked quietly.
There was dead silence in the room; before Abbott could answer, there was a knock, and the housemaid’s voice, muffled by the heavy chestnut door. “Sir, your second guest has arrived.”
“Have him in, my dear.”
The door opened, and an ancient man in a dark suit, with a shock of wild white hair, stepped in. The maid closed the door as the latest visitor shrugged out of his overcoat, and began to speak in an unmistakable accent:
“Messers, I am here – Quebec is here! Let us say – the dawn is overcast, the morning lowers, and heavily in clouds brings on the day, the great, the important day, big with the fate of Cato and of Rome, as Addison would put it…let us talk, my friends…we have much to discuss…”
Louis-Joseph Papineau, at 75 still seigneur de la Petite-Nation, legislator from 1808 to 1837 and again from 1848 to 1854, veteran of both the 1812-1815 war against the Americans and la guerre des patriotes against the Crown in 1837-38, radical, patriot, exile, returnee, signer of the Annexation Manifesto of 1849, author of the provincial law that granted full political rights to Jews 27 years before anywhere else in the British Empire, and the living, breathing representative of three centuries of le historie du la Belle Nouvelle-France in the flesh, had arrived.
And Upper and Lower Canada would not be the same again.
=====================================================================
iii. Ton histoire est une epopee…
Post of Edsall's Hill
Defenses of Washington
District of Columbia
January, 1862
In peacetime, Edsall’s would have been nothing special; it was a typical of the tree-dotted, grassy hills that dotted the District and the bottomlands across Maryland and Virginia, used for grazing or a place to hunt pigeons, partridges, and bobwhite in the summer and fall.
But this winter was different; the hill was cut and crossed with trenches and barricades of timber, with the brown earth rammed between the logs to provide bombproofs. Rifle pits were in place around the foot of the hill, and a regimental camp, made up of neat lines of winter cabins and tents, lay to the northeast.
As far south as the Potomac, January was cold and crisp, but not yet freezing; without rain or snow, the ground was cold but yielding; with it, it turned into mud and muck. But it had been a relatively mild winter so far, and the companies of the 4th Rhode Island Volunteers, not assigned to picket or guard duty, were drilling.
The men had been drilling since recruiting had begun in the summer, as Rhode Island fulfilled its quote of the 500,000 three-year volunteers that had been called for in 1861; the regiment’s first commander, Colonel J.I. McCarty, an old regular, had seen to that. The regiment had drilled constantly as they organized at Providence in the autumn under McCarty; they had drilled constantly after they arrived in Washington in October, when they were sent to Camp Casey for a month in the Army of the Potomac’s “camp of instruction” under Brig. Silas Casey, another old regular who was literally writing the Army’s book, Infantry Tactics for Volunteers, to replace Hardee’s Tactics.
When the Rhode Islanders met with Casey’s approval, the regiment had been mustered in to federal service October 30, turning in their state-issued Model 1842 muskets for new M.1859 Minie rifles purchased by the regular Army’s Ordnance Department, and then drilled some more. This time it was at Camp California until December, under a new colonel, Isaac P. Rodman, who had seen action as a captain with the 2nd Rhode Island in the Bull Run campaign. The regiment had then been assigned to Howard's Brigade, Sumner's Division (on paper, some 10,000 strong), and was sent out to Edsall’s Hill to garrison the post – and, of course, drill some more.
In late December, there had been a rumor they were going to be attached to the expeditionary division being gathered at Annapolis under Rhode Island’s own Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside; instead, they remained with Sumner’s newly-formed division, while Burnside’s had moved down the Chesapeake to Hampton Roads, in the Department of Virginia, gone ashore, stormed Norfolk, and then destroyed the navy yard.
More rumors were flying, that the entire division was going to move north to Boston, as Heintzelman’s Division was already, heading north to Albany, because of the deepening crisis with the British. But no orders had come down yet – and so the men drilled.
Beginning at their enlistment, the recruits had received basic individual training in the “school of the soldier”: position of the soldier without arms; eyes left, right, and front; facings; the direct step in common and quick time; and the direct step in double-quick and on the run. Then they progressed to the manual of arms; shouldered arms; load in four times and at will; firing, direct, oblique, by file, and by rank; firing and loading while kneeling and lying; and bayonet exercise. Then they learned - in groups of eight or twelve - the principles of alignment, direct march, oblique march, by-the-flank march, wheeling and changing direction, and double-quick; the squad-level evolutions were followed by exercise and maneuver at the company level, as a skirmish line, and the battalion level; brigade, divisional, and corps level exercises would commence after that - circumstances permitting.
But in the meantime, the men – even the bandsmen, orderlies, and various odds and ends normally excused from close order drill and field exercises, instead formed into an ad hoc company - now were being drilled until they dropped.
“Fall into two ranks!”
“Right, dress.”
“Attention!”
“You, Allen, carry your head back and chest out!”
“Now, right – dress!”
A short, slender officer, wearing the oak leaf of a major, rode up on a beautiful chestnut, dismounted, and walked up to Captain Levi Kent, the company commander. There was an exchange of salutes, a brief huddle, and then Kent yelled out:
“Lavalley! Front and center!”
Private Calixa Lavallée, at 19 the premier cornetist in the regimental band, jogged over and presented arms.
“Zir, Privat Lavallée reportin’ as order’…zir,” he said to Kent, before acknowledging the second officer. “Commandant – uh, mazor.”
“Lavalley, this is Major Duffy. He wants to talk to you,” Kent said, dismissively. “Major, he is all yours.”
The major, whippet-thin and a head shorter than Lavallée, was immaculately uniformed in the dark blue jacket and light blue trousers of the cavalry, sharply tailored, and complete with saber and holstered revolver at his waist. He turned toward the infantry officer, wrinkled an aquiline nose above a flamboyant waxed mustache and van dyke, and spoke:
“Capitaine, is it not customary in zis regiment to ask a senior officer if he has any additional requests?” the major said, with a hint of an accent only slightly akin to that of Lavallée.
“Certainly, major … is there anything else, major?” Kent asked.
“No, you are dismizzed. Merci,” the major said, turning and then mounting the chestnut. He rode away from the parade ground, as Kent stood fuming before turning back to his awkward squad. The cavalry officer turned in the saddle to speak with the musician.
“Lavallée, come with me. I am Major Duffié, of the 2nd New York Cavalry, currently on special service with the 55th New York. Tell me, Lavallée, do you love America? And do you love Quebec?”
“Oui, mon commandant,” the Canadien replied, immediately. “Les etats-unis, est le ennemi de la tyrannie…et Quebec est ma propre terre -”
“And what do you think of Monsieur Papineau? Back in ’37?” the Frenchman asked abruptly. “And of the British?”
“Papineau? Il est un grand patriote,” the private said. “Et les Anglais? Un race étrangère...”
“Interesante…étrangère, indeed. Lavallée, would you be interested in doing something more exciting in this war than playing the trumpet?” the major asked. “Are you ready to do something more than play the trumpet?”
“Oui, mon commandant,” the Canadien said. “Oui.”
Lavallée would not be alone.
(more to come)
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...Anyhoo Bravo Good Sir, Can we have some more...