Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded.
In the predawn darkness of Oct. 28, 1864, arguably the greatest feat of arms in American military history was performed on the Roanoke River at Plymouth, N.C. There, in a true David and Goliath contest, a 23-year-old Navy lieutenant named William Cushing virtually single-handedly sank the Albemarle, a Confederate ironclad that threatened to unravel all that Union forces in North Carolina had accomplished in three years of fighting.
The enterprising Confederate Navy built the Albemarle in a cornfield along the Roanoke far inland, then floated it downriver. The ship debuted in battle on April 19, when it was met by two federal vessels at Plymouth; the Albemarle sank one and damaged the other. The ship’s guns then supported an infantry assault on the federal garrison in Plymouth; the rebels recaptured the town the next day.
Two weeks later, the Albemarle was ordered to travel down the Roanoke River to Albemarle Sound, then head south to the New Bern River and on to the town of New Bern, where the ship would meet Confederate infantry. Together they would reprise the successful plan that had ousted the Yankees from Plymouth. Before the Albemarle could exit the Roanoke, however, it was attacked by seven federal ships, including four top-of-the-line gunboats. In the fierce fight that followed, more than 500 shells were fired at the Albemarle; one ship in the union flotilla even rammed the Albemarle at full speed, only to see the ironclad effectively shrug off the haymaker. The Albemarle eventually disengaged and returned to Plymouth, calling the battle a draw, but it was the Union that was discouraged. “We have no answer for her,’’ lamented one Yankee captain.
Not true; the answer came in the form of a plan from Lieutenant Cushing, who had earned his superiors’ attention with a series of audacious raids and bravely fought battles in Virginia and North Carolina. Cushing proposed two plans. One would be a classic cutting-out expedition: he would take 80 men up through the swamps, overpower the crew with pistols and grenades, cut the ship loose, and bring the beast back to the Union fleet. The other would be an attack, using a tug or an India rubber boat that had been fitted with a torpedo, a weapon known to us as a mine, which had to be floated underneath its target and detonated by hand. Although the Navy’s top officials assumed this was almost certainly a suicide mission that had little chance of success, they reluctantly ordered Cushing to New York to be outfitted with a suitable ship.
Cushing returned to North Carolina on Oct. 10 and spent just over a fortnight gathering intelligence, assembling volunteers and sharpening his plan. When he learned that the rebels had placed guards on the wreckage of the Southfield, a union ship the Albemarle demolished in April, Cushing added a second boat, whose men would neutralize the pickets on the Southfield.
A false start on Oct. 26 led to a final modification: the muffling of the engine on Cushing’s 30-foot cutter, called Picket Boat No. 1. The two boats reached the mouth of the Roanoke, Picket Boat No. 1 towing the other, about 11:30. It was a rainy night, about 65 degrees, and the 40-foot-tall gum and cypress trees that crowded the shore forced a feeling of closeness.
Riding in the prow of his vessel, Cushing was like a puppet master. In his right hand, he held three lines. One was attached to the ankle of the sailor who operated the engine; one pull meant speed up, two pulls meant stop the engines. A second line connected him to an ensign who operated the small howitzer aboard; a tug would mean start firing. The third line was attached to another ensign, who controlled a boom to which was attached the torpedo; a tug would signal him to lower the torpedo. In Cushing’s left hand were two other lines, one that would arm the bomb, another that would detonate it.
Cushing’s strong preference would be to cut the ship out — rush the deck, eliminate the sentries, cut the ropes and go. Detonating the torpedo was an iffy proposition; pull the lanyard too softly, and the mechanism wouldn’t move; pull it too hard, and the string would detach. If it worked, it would probably kill everyone on the assault team.
Two o’clock came; then 2:30. Up ahead, finally, was the shadow of the Southfield. Cushing expected a rebel challenge at any moment, the click of a musket, a shot, but . . . nothing. Rather than casting off the second boat, Cushing decided to keep it, and use the men to assault the Albemarle. Another five minutes went by; another curve in the river passed. The low lights of Plymouth could be seen now, the dwindling campfires, the lamps in the windows of the sleepless.
And then, there it was suddenly there. Bulky, angular, squarely silhouetted against the wharf, somewhat squattier than any legendary beast ought to be, sleeping the calm, undisturbed sleep of the indestructible. We’ll cut this thing out, Cushing thought. We’ll steal it dead away.
But no sooner did Cushing move his launch toward the wharf than a sentry called. `“Who’s there? Who’s there? Who goes there?’’ Then the shooting started.
With the element of surprise lost, Cushing knew that the idea of cutting the ship out was finished. He cast off the second ship, sending its men back to secure the Southfield. He pulled hard on the engineer’s lanyard, realized that the need for silence was over, and shouted, “Ahead fast!” The engines roared, the launch fell away, the cutter shot forward toward the iron monster. Around them, the pop of muskets picked up, and bullets began to splash and zing.
Suddenly from the shore there was a whoomp, and a tall pile of wood splashed with tar and turpentine was ignited. A warning bonfire, built for this very contingency, leapt to life, turning the riverfront into a flickering orange, shadow-dancing stage. As Cushing sped toward the ship, he could see by this illumination that the rebels had installed a line of defense that he had not expected — a ring of logs, chained together, encircling the ram in a protective pen about 30 feet from its side, placed there for the very purpose of foiling a torpedo attack.
Cushing ran the cutter up to the ring, oblivious to the increasing gunfire from the shore, and then ran alongside it, examining the chain for a weakness. Turning the wheel hard, he traveled in a wide circle, taking the cutter away from the ship to the darkness of the river’s far side, and then spun it again and aimed for the Albemarle. “Full speed!” he shouted, and the light picket boat shot ahead. In the flickering of the flames he could see the rebels on the shore, running in confusion, and in front of that the dark logs, silhouetted against the firelight, their wet, mossy surfaces shining as he came.
Wham! Flying at full speed, the cutter smacked the logs, Cushing hoping that slime atop the timbers would act as a lubricant, and that his momentum would carry him over. It only halfway happened; after impact there was a grinding, tearing sound, and then the launch hung there, stuck halfway over. For a moment, the tableau was frozen, as raiders and rebels alike held their breath and wondered what would happen next. Then Captain Alexander Warley, aboard the Albemarle, shouted, “What boat is that?’’
“We’ll soon let you know!” Cushing replied and yanked on the lanyard of the howitzer, sending a load of canister against the ironclad, clearing her deck.
And then, tumult. As gunfire erupted from all over the shore, Cushing ordered his men to lower the torpedo into the water. In a moment, a desperate race was on, pitting Cushing, standing patiently in his open boat for his torpedo to float below the knee of the ironclad’s armor, where he could then try to get it to explode, against Captain Warley and a gun crew, scrambling to load a cannon and blow Cushing to pieces.
Neither could make their objects move how they wanted. Borne on the current, the torpedo floated and bobbed, as Cushing stood upright in the prow of his cutter, the epitome of cool. A bullet had already taken away the heel of his shoe, another had creased his sleeve. Now a load of buckshot carried away the back of his coat, and still he did not flinch. The torpedo was at the ironclad’s hull now, just inches from dipping under the metal sheets that protected it. At the same moment, the gaping mouth of Warley’s gun was not 10 feet from Cushing’s head. But the Confederates could not lower the gun far enough to put the mouth of the gun on target; Picket Boat No. 1 was too close; they could depress the angle of the barrel no more. Cushing could hear Warley yelling, `“Lower! Lower! Lower!’’
And then the torpedo dipped below the water and vanished under the ship.
Just as Cushing pulled the last lanyard in his left hand, he heard Warley scream “Fire!’’ and then all was lost in sensation: a tremendous earsplitting roar, a screaming hot wind above, the sense of the floor of the cutter vanishing in favor of pure air, and then a smashing wave of water.
The torpedo exploded at the same instant that Warley discharged his gun. The canister flew over the attackers’ heads like a swarm of iron bees, costing some their caps but none their lives. Similarly, the torpedo went off imperfectly, with much of the force of the explosion venting outside the ship and into the water, creating a momentary vacuum that sucked in Picket Boat No. 1, then threw Cushing and his men and a great blast of water flying back toward the surface. But if the explosion wasn’t perfect, it was good enough. Warley sent his carpenter to inspect the damage. He soon reported “a hole in her bottom big enough to drive a wagon in.’’ In minutes the ferocious Albemarle was gone. The Beast of the Roanoke River, the Confederacy’s most effective ironclad, fell to a man standing in an open boat.
Cushing and his men, jostled and jarred, could not discern what had happened, but they clearly heard calls from the shore for their surrender. “Never!” Cushing cried. “Men, save yourselves,” he shouted, and dived into the river.
Over the next hours, as Confederate posses combed the banks of the Roanoke, Cushing swam and skulked down the river. At midmorning he encountered an elderly black man, who was the one who told him the news about the ironclad. “She is dead gone sunk,’’ the man said, “and they will hang you, massa, if they catch you.” Around noon, Cushing spotted a rebel patrol. While its attention was distracted, he stole their flat-bottomed skiff and began paddling, and did not stop. Near 10 o’clock, he reached the safety of the Union fleet, and with his last ounce of energy, he called “Ship ahoy!” to the nearest vessel, the Valley City. The men aboard did not know what to expect; they knew that there had been an explosion, and they assumed that Cushing had been lost. When the exhausted and bleeding mariner was hauled onto the deck of the Valley City, its captain peered at the nearly inert form. “My God, Cushing,” he said, “is this you?”
Cushing nodded. “It is I.”
“Is it done?”
“It is done.”
Fortified by a little brandy, Cushing made his report to the commanding officer. Soon word spread throughout the fleet. On every ship, rockets were thrown up and all hands were called to cheer the ship. Exhausted and exhilarated, the young lieutenant watched the sky explode in tribute.
Jamie Malanowski is a frequent contributor to Disunion. His biography, “Commander Will Cushing, Daredevil Hero of the Civil War,” is being published this month by W.W. Norton.