“At least one, sir. An ironclad. I saw her standing out to sea when I was in the railroad station. Just the one, though.”
“One is enough. My congratulations to the general.” The envelope was unsealed, so it was obviously meant for Sanborn to read. But that could wait until he was back aboard his ship; he had been away long enough now. And General Sherman would be waiting for this report. He knew its importance. The fate of the entire campaign depended on what was in this envelope.
Waiting was the hardest part.
General Sherman sat in his office in Cork, staring unseeingly out of the window. The now-familiar river Lee did not attract his attention. Instead he was looking past it toward England, trying to visualize the evolving situation in that country, fleshing out the bare reports that were spread out on the desk before him. The landings at Liverpool had been a brilliant success. The concentration camp there, and the other one near Birmingham, had been seized. The latest communication from each of them said that counterattacks had been reported. But they had been sporadic and disorganized; the well-armed defenders had successfully held their positions. This could easily change. Once the mighty British war machine began to roll, it would be unstoppable on its own soil. Heavy guns would batter the Irish and American troops; when their ammunition ran out they would be overwhelmed. That had been the risk from the very beginning of the operation. They were expendable and they knew it. But they would die fighting.
But that need not be. The British commanders surely would be rattled by the seizure of their naval base at Plymouth. It had been over twenty-four hours since that attack, and the authorities in London would have heard about it long since. Troops would be on the way there — might easily have arrived by now.
But it had been almost four days since the camps had been attacked and taken. The fighting would be desperate. Would his gamble succeed? Would the attack on Plymouth cause the British forces to be diverted from the two Midland cities? Would the British generals realize that they were wasting time and troops on tactically unimportant targets? Or was the British military mind too thick to reach that conclusion? If it was, why then, only the troops occupying the concentration camps would suffer. This would have no effect on the invasion, which would still go ahead as planned.
The worst part was that Generals Lee and Meagher knew about the dangers — as did their men who had captured the camps. They had still insisted on going. They would all be volunteers for what might be considered a suicide mission if Sherman had any doubts. He had had none. They were very brave men.
That was why it was so hard to wait while his soldiers were fighting and dying. Yet this was the plan they had all agreed upon, the right course to take, and he had to see it through. His adjutant knocked, then opened the door.
“Admiral Farragut and Captain Dodge are here, General.”
“Any more reports from the front?”
“None, sir.”
“All right, show them in.”
Dodge was commander of USS Thunderer, the lead mortar ship. Farragut, as naval commander in chief, had chosen her as his flagship for the beginning of the operation. As usual, this veteran commander would be first into battle. Then, as Sherman started to speak, there was a rapid knocking on the door and the adjutant pushed in, his arms filled with newspapers.
“Captain Schofield in Avenger put a raiding party ashore in Fishguard — and they seized these newspapers that had just arrived there by train from London.”
Sherman took the Times from him and stared at the blaring headline.
INVASION IN THE SOUTH: PLYMOUTH TAKEN
There were other headlines like this. He quickly flipped the pages for word of any troop movements. Yes, plenty, volunteers rushing to the colors, trains diverted for military use, martial law declared. There was silence in the room, broken only by the rustle of newspapers as they all read the first reliable reports of enemy activity. In the end it was Sherman who was the last to drop his newspaper onto his desk.
“We have stirred up a right hornet’s nest,” he said.
“You certainly have,” Farragut said. “It appears that everything is going according to plan.”
?
??Everything,” Sherman agreed. “I just wish that there was more word about events in Liverpool and Birmingham.”
“Being attacked, vicious fighting, according to this paper,” Dodge said.
“Yes, but nothing about diversion of troops.” Sherman shook his head. “I suppose that is a lot to ask from any public statements made by their government. There is no reason for the military to confide all of the details of their operations to the newspapers. Quite the opposite is probably true. Well then, to matters at hand. In your last report, Admiral, you said that the fleet was ready to put to sea.”
“As indeed it is. The coal bunkers are full, rations and water stored aboard. The troops finished their boarding about two hours ago.”
“Then we sail as planned?”
“We do indeed.”
“You realize that this final attack will take place almost exactly two days after the landings at Penzance?”
The two naval officers nodded, knowing what Sherman was thinking and, like him, not wanting to speak any doubts aloud. The two-day delay had been deliberate. Two days more for the British to understand what was happening in the west — two days for them to take positive action against the invasion in the south. Two days to rally their forces and dispatch them to the invasion sites.
But this was also two days more for General Grant’s men to hold them back.
And four days in all for Generals Lee and Meagher, and their troops, to defend the concentration camps that they had seized. It was all going according to plan. But it was also a plan that might very well send a good number of soldiers to their doom.