A World on Fire_ Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War - Amanda Foreman [407]
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James Bulloch did not accept that time had run out on the Confederacy, especially since—after the disappointments of the previous year—he was experiencing a late surge of success.11 The Ajax, one of two river steamers he had commissioned to defend the entrance to Wilmington, sailed from Glasgow undetected in the second week of January. “It is quite impossible to predict what may have transpired when you reach Nassau,” Bulloch told the captain of the vessel, Lieutenant John Low. “Should [Wilmington] have been taken by the enemy … you will then proceed with the ship to Charleston, SC.… You may find Charleston itself closed to you, in which case there will remain no port on the Atlantic coast of the Confederate States into which you can take the Ajax.” But even then Bulloch wanted Low to find a way to use the ship against the North: at the very least she could bring cotton out from Texas or Florida.12
He was already thinking of weapons other than cruisers to send across the Atlantic. His two remaining blockade runners, for example, were useless for fighting but could easily be deployed as rocket launchers against fishing towns in New England.13 Bulloch had also managed to buy back one of the French ironclads that had been sold after the emperor ordered the secret construction program to end.36.2 The cruiser, which he had decided to christen the Stonewall, was coming from Copenhagen, and Bulloch had arranged for a ship with a crew and arms to meet her in neutral waters. After waiting two weeks for news that the transfer had taken place, Henry Hotze suggested to Bulloch on January 25 that they should go ahead and announce the existence of CSS Stonewall. It would, he argued, cause panic on the East Coast and force the U.S. Navy to send ironclads to New York, opening the way for the Stonewall when she reached Wilmington.14 Hotze’s Index had been heavily advertising the Shenandoah’s last known captures for that very reason, unaware that the raider was now anchored at Port Phillip Bay, four miles from Melbourne, bereft of coal and in serious need of refurbishment. The Australians were delighted to be front-row spectators for a change, and thousands were visiting the Bay in the hope that the notorious Captain Semmes of the Alabama was the new commander of the Shenandoah.15
The diehards had no trouble accepting Hotze’s propaganda. His own staff believed him. John Thompson wrote in his diary: “Am told we shall soon hear something of importance. I think it refers to an ironclad from Europe to attack Boston and New York.”16 The shipping owner Alexander Collie ridiculed James Spence for being “blue.” “We might be prepared to hear of Wilmington and Charleston being captured, and of Richmond being evacuated,” Collie wrote to Wharncliffe on January 23, “but, in spite of it all, the South will wear the North out and gain its independence.” In the meantime, he was expecting his steamers to begin taking “three or four cargoes monthly for the next four months.”17
The Stonewall was in greater danger than either Bulloch or Hotze knew. Her arrival at Quiberon Bay, on the south coast of Brittany, on January 24 was telegraphed to the U.S. minister in Paris. William Dayton was no longer in charge of the U.S. legation in France, having died under mysterious circumstances in December; John Bigelow, the consul in Paris, had been promoted to his place. A man of far greater intelligence and vigor than Dayton, Bigelow almost succeeded in scuttling the mission by his protests to the French authorities. But one of the worst storms in recent memory ultimately achieved his work for him; on January 29, only a day after the Stonewall sailed from Quiberon, the ship’s bridge was smashed to pieces by giant waves. Unable to sail on to Wilmington, Captain Page took the damaged vessel to Ferrol, on the Spanish coast, and waited for repairs. Twenty-four hours later, Europe learned that