Sahara (3 page)

Calmly, Tombs called to Lieutenant Craven. “Mr. Craven, we’ll hide no more under an enemy flag. Please hoist the Confederate colors and close the gun-ports.”

A young midshipman eagerly sprang to the mast and untied the halyards, pulling down the stars and stripes and sending up the diagonal stars and bars on a field of white and red.

Craven joined Tombs atop the casemate. “Now the word is out,” he said, “it’ll be no picnic between here and the sea. We can deal with army shore batteries. None of their field artillery is powerful enough to make more than a dent on our armor.”

Tombs paused to stare apprehensively across the bow at the black river unwinding ahead. “The guns of the Federal fleet waiting for us at the mouth of the river are our greatest danger.”

A barrage burst out from shore almost before he finished speaking.

“And so it begins,” Craven waxed philosophically, as he hurriedly retreated to his station on the gun deck below. Tombs remained exposed behind the pilot-house to direct the movement of his ship against any Federal vessels blocking the river.

Shells from unseen batteries and musket fire from sharpshooters began to splatter the
Texas
like a hail storm. While his men cursed and chafed at the bit, Tombs kept the gun-ports closed. He saw no reason to endanger his crew and waste valuable powder and shot at an unseen enemy.

For two more hours the
Texas
endured the onslaught. Her engines ran smoothly and pushed her at speeds a knot or two faster than she had been designed. Wooden gunboats appeared, fired off their broadsides, and then attempted to take up the chase as the
Texas
ignored them like gnats and dashed past as if they were stopped in the water.

Suddenly the familiar outline of the
Atlanta
materialized, anchored broadside-on across the river. Her starboard guns poured forth as their lookouts recognized the unyielding rebel monster bearing down on them.

“She knew we was coming,” Tombs muttered.

“Should I pass around her, Captain?” asked Chief Pilot Hunt, displaying a remarkable coolness at the helm.

“No, Mr. Hunt,” answered Tombs. “Ram her slightly forward of her stern.”

“Smash her to the side out of our way,” Hunt replied in understanding. “Very well, sir.”

Hunt gave the wheel a quarter turn and aimed the
Texas’
bow straight toward the stern of the
Atlanta.
Two bolts from the ex-Confederate’s 8-inch guns drove into the rapidly approaching casemate, cracking the shield and pushing the wooden backing in almost a foot and wounding three men by the concussion and splinters.

The gap quickly closed and the
Texas
buried 10 feet of her heavy iron prow into the
Atlanta’s
hull and then drove up and through her deck, snapping her stern anchor chain and thrusting her around in a 90-degree arc as well as forcing her deck under the river’s surface. Water gushed into the Union ironclad’s gunports and she quickly began to slip out of sight as the
Texas
literally rode over her.

The
Atlanta
’s keel sank into the river mud and she rolled onto her side as the wildly churning screws of the
Texas
spun within inches of her upturned hull before thrashing into the clear. Most of the
Atlanta
’s crew rushed from the gun-ports and hatches before she went under, but at least twenty men went down with her.

Tombs and his ship hurtled on in their desperate effort to reach freedom. The running battle continued as the
Texas
shrugged off the constant fire and the pursuing Union gunboats. Telegraph lines strung along the river by Federal forces hummed with news of the ironclad’s approach as a mounting wave of chaos and desperation increased among army shore batteries and navy ships determined to intercept and sink her.

Shot and shell continuously plunged against the
Texas’
armor with thumps that made her shudder from bow to stern. A 100-pound bolt from a Dahlgren mounted high above an embankment at Fort Hudson bashed into the pilothouse, stunning Chief Pilot Hunt from the concussion and leaving him bloodied from fragments that flew through the viewing slits. He gamely stayed at the wheel, keeping the ship on a straight course in the middle of the channel.

The sky was beginning to lighten in the east, when the
Texas
thundered out of the James River past Newport News and into the wide estuary and deeper water of Hampton Roads, scene of the battle between the
Monitor
and the
Merrimack
three years before.

It seemed the entire Union fleet was lined up and waiting for them. All Tombs could see from his position above the casemate was a forest of masts and smokestacks. Heavily armed frigates and sloop-of-wars on the left, monitors and gunboats on the right. And beyond, the narrow channel between the massive firepower of Fortress Monroe and Fort Wool that was blocked by the
New Ironsides,
a formidable vessel with an ironclad conventional hull mounting eighteen heavy guns.

At last Tombs ordered the ports opened and the guns run out. The
Texas
was finished making no show at resistance. Now the Federal navy would feel the full fury of her fangs. With a great cheer, the men of the
Texas
cast loose and trained their guns, primers in the vents, the locks thrown back, and the gun captains poised with the lanyards.

Craven calmly walked throughout the ship, smiling and joking with the men, offering words of encouragement and advice. Tombs came down and gave a brief speech, sharp with barbs at the enemy and optimistic about the thrashing that tried and true southern boys were about to dish out to cowardly Yankees. Then with his telescoping glass tucked under his arm, he returned to his post behind the pilothouse.

Union gunners had plenty of time to prepare. Code signals to fire when the
Texas
came in range were run up. To Tombs, as he stared through his glass, it seemed his enemies filled the entire horizon. There was a terrible quiet that hung over the water like a spell as the wolves waited for their quarry to sail into what looked to be an inescapable trap.

Rear Admiral David Porter, thickset and bearded, his flat seaman’s cap set firm, stood on an arms chest where he could oversee the gun deck of his flagship, the wooden frigate
Brooklyn,
while studying the smoke from the approaching rebel ironclad in the early light of the coming dawn.

“Here she comes,” said Captain James Alden, commander of Porter’s flagship. “And she’s coming like the devil straight for us.”

“A gallant and noble vessel going to her grave,” murmured Porter as the
Texas
filled the lens of his glass, “it’s a sight we’ll never see again.”

“She’s almost within range,” announced Alden.

“No need to waste good shot, Mr. Alden. Instruct your gun crews to wait and make every shot count.”

Aboard the
Texas,
Tombs instructed his Chief Pilot, who stood gamely at the helm ignoring the blood that dripped from his left temple. “Hunt, skin the line of wood frigates as close as you dare, so that the ironclads will hesitate to fire for fear of striking their own ships.”

The first ship in the two lines was the
Brooklyn.
Tombs waited until he was within easy range before he gave the order to fire. The
Texas’
100-pound Blakely in the bow opened the engagement as it threw a fused shell that screamed across the water and struck the Union warship, shattering the forward rail and bursting against a huge Parrott rifled gun, killing every man within a radius of 10 feet.

The single-turreted monitor
Saugus
opened up with her twin 15-inch Dahlgrens while the
Texas
was bearing down. Both solid shot struck short and skipped across the water like stones, sending aloft huge cascades of spray. Then the other monitors, the
Chickasaw,
recently returned from Mobil Bay where she helped pound the mighty Confederate ironclad
Tennessee
into submission, the
Manhattan,
the
Saugus,
and the
Nahant
all swung their turrets, dropped their port shutters, and opened up with a tremendous wave of fire that found and battered the
Texas
‘casemate. The rest of the fleet joined in and boiled the water around the speeding warship into a seething caldron.

Tombs shouted through the roof hatch to Craven. “We can’t hurt the monitors! Answer their fire with the starboard broadside gun only. Rotate the bow and stern pivot guns to fire against the frigates!”

Craven carried out his commander’s orders and within seconds the
Texas
replied, sending shells exploding through the oak hull of the
Brooklyn.
One shell burst in the engine room, killing eight men and wounding a dozen others. Another swept away a crew feverishly depressing the barrel of a 32-pounder smoothbore. And yet a third burst on the crowded deck, creating more blood and havoc.

Every gun of the
Texas
was busily engaged in destruction. The rebel gunners loaded and fired with deadly precision. They hardly had to waste precious seconds aiming. They couldn’t miss. Yankee ships seemed to fill up all vision beyond the gun-ports.

The air of Hampton Roads was filled with the thunder of discharged round shot, exploding shells, conical solid bolts, grape and canister, and even musket balls potshotted by Federal marines perched aloft in the yards. Dense smoke quickly shrouded the
Texas,
making it difficult for the Union gunners to get a good sight. They fired at the muzzle flashes and heard the ring as their shot struck Confederate armor and ricocheted out of the smoke.

It struck Tombs that he had sailed into an erupting volcano.

The
Texas
had now passed the
Brooklyn
and gave it a parting shot from the stern pivot that passed so close to Admiral Porter that its air suction caused him to temporarily lose his breath. He was fighting mad at the rebel ironclad’s ease of deflecting the broadside the
Brooklyn
threw at her.

“Signal the fleet to encircle and ram her!” he ordered Captain Alden.

Alden complied, but he knew it was a long shot. Every officer was stunned by the ironclad’s incredible speed. “She’s going awfully fast for one of our ships to hit her squarely,” he said bleakly.

“I want that damned rebel sunk!” snarled Porter.

“If by a miracle she gets past us, she’ll never escape the forts and the
New Ironsides,”
Alden soothed his superior.

As if to punctuate his statement, the monitors opened up as the
Texas
passed free of the
Brooklyn
and broke into the open ahead of the next frigate in line, the
Colorado.

The
Texas
was being swept by a screaming bedlam of death. The Union gunners were becoming more accurate. A pair of heavy solid shot struck just aft of the starboard gun with a tremendous blow. Smoke burst inside the casemate as 38 inches of iron, wood, and cotton were crushed 4 feet inward. Another shot pounded a massive crater below the smokestack, followed by a shell that struck in exactly the same place, breaching the already damaged armor and exploding inside the gun deck with terrible effect, killing six and wounding eleven men and setting the shredded cotton and shredded wood on fire.

“Hells bells!” Craven roared, finding himself standing alone amid a pile of bodies, his hair singed, clothes torn, and his left arm broken. “Grab that hose from the engine room and put out this damned fire.”

Chief Engineer O’Hare stuck his head up through the engine room hatch. His face was black from coal dust and streaked with sweat. “How bad is it?” he asked in a surprisingly calm voice.

“You don’t want to know,” Craven yelled at him. “Just keep the engines turning.”

“Not easy. My men are dropping from the heat. It’s hotter than hell down here.”

“Consider it good practice for when we all get there,” Craven snapped back.

Then another great fist of a shell smacked the casemate with a huge, deafening explosion that shook the
Texas
to her keel. It was not one explosion but two, so simultaneous as to be indistinguishable. The forward port corner of the casemate was chopped open as if by a giant meat cleaver. Massive chunks of iron and wood were twisted and splintered in a blast that cut down the crew of the forward Blakely gun.

Another shell sheared its way through the armor and exploded in the ship’s hospital, killing the surgeon and half the wounded waiting to be tended. The gun deck now looked like a slaughterhouse. The once immaculate deck was blackened from powder and crimson with blood.

The
Texas
was hurting. As she raced across the killing ground she was being pounded into scrap. Her boats had been carried away along with both masts and her smokestack riddled. The entire casemate, fore and aft, was a grotesque shamble of twisted and jagged iron. Three of her steam pipes had been cut through, and her speed had dropped by a third.

But she was far from disabled. The engines were still throbbing away and three guns yet hammered havoc among the Union fleet. Her next broadside whipped through the wooden sides of the old side-wheel steam frigate
Powhatan
and exploded one of her boilers, devastating the engine room and causing the greatest loss of life on any Union ship this day.

Tombs had also suffered grievous wounds. A piece of shrapnel had lodged in one thigh and a bullet had gouged a crease in his left shoulder. Still, he insanely crouched exposed behind the pilothouse, shouting directions to Chief Pilot Hunt. They were almost through the holocaust now.

He gazed ahead at the
New Ironsides,
lying across the channel, her formidable broadside loaded and trained on the rapidly approaching
Texas.
He studied the guns of Fortress Monroe and Fort Wool, run out and sighted, and he knew with sinking heart that they could never make it through. The
Texas
could not take any more. Another punishing nightmare and his ship would be reduced to a helpless, stricken hulk unable to prevent its total destruction by the pursuing Yankee monitors.