XLIX.

A Confederate lieutenant was inspecting the new allotment of soldiers he had just received  These were the dunces he'd been shipped from Alabama. They were drunkards, shirkers, bogtrotters, low-downers and other assorted white trash from the Nickajack, about twenty of them rounded up in the last conscription class.  They'd been barged down from Vicksburg to Fort DeRussy on the Red River where the lieutenant was told these would the last reinforcements he would ever see.  The Yankee gunboats were marauding below Vicksburg now and were capturing transports and ferries all down the Mississippi River.  That may have been so now, but the South had a real surprise up their sleeve.  

The night before the Yankee gunboat USS Queen of the West had slipped into range of the gun batteries of Fort DeRussy and was disabled and abandoned.  She had careened into the brushy banks of the Red River where she was claimed by a band of whooping rebel soldiers. They swarmed across the hulk like so many Lilliputians and put her back into action as the CSS Queen of the West.  She was armed with a large 30-pound cannon on her bow, and three small 12-pound guns poking out three sides of her forward cabin. Her deck was crowded with wet bales of cotton to help absorb shot. And so the plan was to take the fight back to the Yankees and retake the Mississippi River with this contraption.  

So, the lieutenant said, we will be attached to this gunboat as sharpshooters. When we come across another a boat, you boys will sweep the enemy decks of Yankees.  

Some of these people were crack shots, but they were also ill-disciplined and he was certain half of them were drunkards. But this was all he had to work with. An old saying went that when it comes to recruits, Virginia gets the cream, Tennessee gets the corn, and the Trans-Mississippi gets the slops. 

Have any of you worked in the steamboat business?  

One man raised his hand.  

Step forward, private. State your name and your qualifications.  

A short and fat cherubic-like man stepped forward.  He smiled bigly, which flared his gin blossoms and exposed a missing eye-tooth.  It wasn't an unpleasant smile, but it gave the impression of some mental vacancy. He wore a greasy slouch hat and suspenders.  

Linus Poteat, he saluted. Sir, he added. I helped build an ironclad once, he said proudly. There were a few chuckles.  The lieutenant nodded slowly with astonishment, but not in the affirmative. They seemed to expect more, so Linus continued.  

Sir, I know how to work a boiler and I can work a grasshopper steam engine.  I owned a scow on the Tennessee River.  That was my ironclad.  We called it the Gar!  

More chuckles.  The lieutenant decided to test the recruit.  He dismissed the rest of the recruits with his sergeant and brought Linus Poteat down to the river bank where the CSS Queen of the West was being outfitted for her mission.  Linus never ceased smiling, and looking about at the trees and birds and soldiers, and he wiggled his nose towards the scent of coffee.  The lieutenant looked over his shoulder at Linus suspiciously as he followed him down to the gunboat.  Aboard was a Confederate officer, Major Joseph Bent, who would lead the operation.  Linus Poteat was led below decks where he stepped between the pipes and hoses and the boilers and piles of coal to examine the engines they called 'grasshoppers' on account of the motion of their stroke resembling the legs of a grasshopper.  Linus immediately impressed them against all better judgement. The man seemed to know his way around an engine.  So he was assigned to the chief engineer as a mechanic's mate and he immediately set to work getting the engines ready for their sortie against the Yankee invader.

Specifically, they intended to sortie against the Yankee ironclad USS Indianola, which had run the rebel batteries at Vicksburg to harass rebel shipping along the Mississippi and Red Rivers.  Here was a real river beast.  Squat like a river beetle with her rear paddle wheels protected by skirts of tin, she was armed with four enormous Dahlgren guns. These things were shaped like pop bottles and capable of firing enormous cannonballs the size of ten-pin balls.  She had already captured several rebel steamers and was now tied up near Davis Bend, just miles south of Vicksburg.  Lashed to her sides were several coal barges and she was undergoing replenishment while waiting for new orders from General Grant.  And so by the light of the half moon, the CSS Queen of the West was accompanied by another "cotton-clad" named the CSS William Webb as they shimmied among the muddy river's tortuous bends until they passed the rebel batteries at Grand Gulf, which were about 20 miles as the crow flies south of that Gibraltar of the South, Vicksburg. The rebels announced by horn that the USS Indianola was just up the next bend, which was David Bend where Jefferson Davis's family kept their great plantation estate.  The rebel gunners lined up along the earthworks overlooking the river and gave three cheers for the little rebel squadron as it chugged upriver.   

Major Bent called down by the sound tube - enemy in sight, increase to full speed.  The crew cheered. Linus was below decks and monitored the pressure gauges while maintaining his hands on the vital switches and valves that controlled one of the grasshoppers. The chief engineer barked near indecipherable Irish, but it was the sort of industrial pidgin language of the burgeoning caste of mechanics that they all seemed to understand.  It may have been February, but the colliers kept the coal hatches open as they shoveled filthy Arkansas coal into the boilers and the temperature spiked below decks to near 120 degrees.  Everyone was soaked in sweat. Suddenly they heard the boom of cannon fire as first the Confederate gunboats opened fire and then the Yankee ironclad responded. The grasshopper was kicking and the entire boat seemed to bound with each stroke of the pistons.  

He couldn't help himself.  Linus had to see what was going on, so he peeked above decks to see rebel rifleman popping shots off into the night and the enormous thunderclap and burst of sparks that resulted from the 30-pounder gun firing.  About a hundred yards ahead he saw the stooping, turtle shape of the Yankee ironclad abeam off their bow. When its Dahlgren guns fired, they created a tremendous roar and even a passing shot could knock a man to his feet from the passing shockwave. With this looming shape growing larger on the horizon, Major Bent called down the sound tube again - increase to ramming speed! With this the chief engineer lambasted the colliers in Gaelic curses and Linus released more pressure into the pistons.  The grasshoppers seemed to jump off their base plates. They jerked uncertainly in an arhythmic motion before finally grasping their rhythm, and the Queen of the West lurched forward with a few extra knots of speed.  

The crew of the CSS Queen of the West roared with awe and spectacle and exhilaration. The Yankees aboard the USS Indianola were horrified to see two rebel gunboats steering directly for her. They braced for impact as both rebel gunboats cleaved into the wooden coal barges that were lashed to the ironclad's side.  They were sliced in half and the USS Indianola shuddered under the impact. A sickening sound of crumpling iron and snapping beams was heard. The Confederate gunboats were crowded with whooping and excited rebel riflemen. They fired at the Yankee ironclad. They fired into the air. They fired into the moon.  They were like pirates of the damned.  

And that was not all.  Linus Poteat was thrilled. He threw the grasshopper into reverse with a clunking and a hissing, which backed the boat up, then Major Bent would order the boat forward again. Both gunboats rammed the Yankee ironclad again, and stove in her amidships and wrecked her rudder.  The rebels roared with excitement.  Yankees were already jumping over the sides.  Her humongous guns were too slow to load and never got more than a half dozen shots off. 

Reverse the engines, Major Bent called down the tube!  Ahead ramming speed, he called down again!

The rebel gunboats continued this business of reversing, then ramming again the mighty Yankee river beast again, then again.  Lastly, the CSS Queen of the West headed above stream, then swung back downriver to ram the USS Indianola with the full force of the Mississippi backing their run.  This final blow finished the river beast.  It took seven rams, but the river beast was vanquished. The Yankees hauled down their flag and were taken prisoner, their stricken ironclad towed to the rebel shore where the Confederates planned to place this Union warship in their service.  The victory was announced upriver to Vicksburg by the tolling of bells. The city fired salutary shots from its gun batteries in honor of the brave crew of the rebel gunboats.  Meanwhile, Linus Poteat and the other engineering crew of the rebel gunboats leaped aboard the captured Yankee ironclad. They were amazed the quality of construction, the size of the guns, and above all by the bottles of rum that was kept in the captain's locker.  This they immediately partook in celebration of their victory.  

The next morning, Major Bent left a crew of mechanics and engineers to help salvage and repair the Yankee ironclad. This they put to the attempt, and Linus Poteat set to work on assessing damage to the Indianola's grasshoppers.  As they all did so, Linus Poteat and the other colliers would sneak off behind the boilers to swill the rum and smoke the cigars they had found.  Meanwhile the Yankees were in great distress at this development.  They devised a most improbable plan to send a "fake" ironclad down the river crafted from wood painted dark like iron, bristling with wooden Quaker guns, and stoked by a false engine which was little more than bonfire.  Even its smoke stacks were made of pork barrels. They jokingly called it the "Black Terror," and they sent this bizarre raft downriver thinking it would no good at all.  In fact, it did. 

So drunk was Linus Poteat and the rest of the salvage crew that when the Black Terror was spotted drifting downriver towards them, they panicked and scuttled the Indianola.  This they did with such great alacrity that it was downright vandalism.  Linus and the others set the stricken ironclad afire. Then they took two of the giant Dahlgren guns, pointed them at each other, and with a long and spliced primer cord, they fire both guns into one another.  It blew the bow of the Indianola off in a great shower of splinters and the boat burned down to her waterline in a great bonfire of popping sparks and great coils of smoke.  Linus Poteat and the rest of the drunken salvage crew leaped to shore where they cheered the great display they had made.  

And when the Black Terror passed by the shore where they gawked, they were embarrassed to see that this new Yankee ironclad was nothing but an utter hoax. But they didn't seem embarrassed for long.  Linus Poteat snorted, then fell on his back drunk and laughing.  The rest did the same.  To them, it didn't feel like war. It felt buccaneering. And so at times, this war was fought strangely on the rivers and certainly seemed that way.