Chapter X: The Bombardment

During the interval between the return of the British fleet, on the 15th of May, and the time fixed by the Admiral for the commencement of the bombardment, an active interchange of messages had been going on by cable between the Governments of the United States and Great Britain. Inasmuch as the minister of each power had been recalled from the other's capital, this intercourse could only take place through the British and American ambassadors at Paris.

Protests against the inhumanity and barbarity of bombarding a defenseless city, were met by propositions for a settlement of the whole dispute. Great Britain offered to cede Canada to the United States, and conclude a definite treaty of peace, and withdraw her fleet from American waters at once, provided the United States would pay the sum of £300,000,000 sterling (about $1,500,000,000). This proposition was met with a howl of indignant rage, by the Senators and members of Congress from the Western and Central States; and the old and almost forgotten cry of "Millions for defense; not one cent for tribute!" was resuscitated by these back-country orators, and used with as much dramatic effect as though it had never been uttered before.

For the first time in the history of the country, parties seemed about to divide, on entirely new sectional lines. Heretofore it had always been the North against the South. Now it was the seaboard against the interior. The Pacific Coast States joined with the Atlantic and Gulf States in advocating a settlement, even on the harsh terms proposed by Great Britain.

They pictured the enormous destruction of property which the bombardment of all our principal coast cities would involve, and although they conceded the truth of the assertion of their opponents in the debate, that there could be but one ultimate result to the war, if fought to its natural termination, and that Canada was practically ours already, yet they claimed that as a mere matter of dollars and cents, it would be cheaper to pay even fifteen hundred millions of dollars, than to go on with the war; when the enormous amount of property involved, and the vast extent of Canadian territory to be overrun, were taken into consideration.

The orators from the west, however, took the high and lofty ground of "millions for defense, etc.," and numerous propositions were made to establish navy yards at various points in the interior, on navigable rivers a hundred miles or more from the coast, and also on the great Lakes; thus indicating that their authors had an eye to the "main chance," and were willing to vote for the "old flag and an appropriation," provided the appropriation was to be expended in their own states. The debate waxed hot, and it was with the greatest difficulty that several personal encounters among the members and senators were prevented.

A member from one of the so called "Granger States" even went so far as to intimate that he would rejoice to see these soulless monopolists and capitalists of the eastern cities brought down a peg or two. They had for years been sapping the foundations of the country's prosperity by vast combinations of capital; and had levied extravagant tolls on everything that the farmers of the Great West bought and sold, thus increasing the cost of their living, while diminishing the product of their labor. Of course he was not unpatriotic enough to rejoice at beholding a foreign foe upon American soil; nor did he anticipate any such result from the present war; which would certainly end by establishing the stars and stripes as the sole National Emblem of the North American Continent. "Nevertheless, while we of the Great West send our brawny sons and brothers to the battle-field to wrest a portion of its ill-gotten territory from the so-called British Empire, it is not too much to expect our friends In the East to bear their proper share of the burdens of the contest. Patriotism has its responsibilities and its duties, and these frequently involve the sacrifice of life and property; and I would be the last man to deprive my eastern friends of one iota of the patriotic satisfaction which they will experience, when some of their ill-gotten gains are sacrificed on their country's altar,"--and a lot more rubbish of the same sort.

To which a New York member replied, by making sarcastic allusions to the "honest Grangers," who he said had for years been going down on their knees and begging the capitalists of the great eastern cities, to send their money west and invest it, in railways, water-works, gas-works and other public improvements; or to lend money to western farmers on their farm mortgages; and then, as soon as they had fairly gotten the money out there, they had invariably tried to steal it--or to confiscate it through forms of law--which amounted to the same thing. They passed laws limiting the price of gas and water to such low figures that many of the gas and water companies were bankrupted; they organized state boards of Railway Commissioners who assumed to fix passenger and freight rates at figures which would scarcely pay operating expenses; and having discovered that several hundreds of millions of dollars of eastern capital had been advanced on what were known as "farm mortgages," at rates of interest varying from seven to twelve percent., passed usury laws fixing the rate at not to exceed six per cent., and also passed laws exempting a farmer's house and barns from sale under execution. It is true, this last law had been decided to be unconstitutional, but it only showed the lengths to which the "honest" agricultural toiler would go in his efforts to get something that did not belong to him. "Why sir!" continued this metropolitan statesman, "Who supports our confidence men? Visitors from the country, who want to play a 'skin game' where they think they have a 'sure thing.' How do our 'green goods' men find their customers?'

"By mailing their circulars, offering to sell well executed counterfeit money at ten cents on the dollar, to 'honest' tillers of the soil in all parts of the country. Show me a man who is constantly prating about the 'tyranny of capital,' and the 'grinding of honest toilers' by corporate greed and individual usury; and I will show you a man who is at heart a scoundrel and a knave; and who will never pay even a just debt, if he can sneak out of it."

Of course these speeches were entirely foreign to the subject under discussion, but I introduce these brief extracts merely to show to what extent sectional feelings and prejudices ran, as well as to explain to a certain extent, the almost incredible failure of Congress to act promptly, and prevent the vast destruction of property which the bombardment of our seaport cities would involve.

These discussions were continued day and night (for Congress sat in almost continuous session) from the 15th to the 18th, without any result being arrived at. The members and senators were flooded with letters and telegrams from all threatened points, begging them to act at once; to pay the indemnity demanded; take Canada, and bide our time for a final settlement with Great Britain. But owing to the objections of the Western and Central States, nothing could be accomplished, and when the sun rose on the morning of the 18th of May, it was a foregone conclusion that New York and Brooklyn were to suffer all the horrors of a bombardment, unless (as was highly improbable) the British Admiral should see fit to further extend the time of probation. This he utterly refused to do; and having on the two previous days silenced the forts on Long and Staten Islands, and easily repulsed a feeble attack by the unarmored cruisers "Atlanta," "Baltimore," "Boston" and "Philadelphia," and a score or so of torpedo boats, he prepared, on the morning of the 18th, to force his way through the Narrows into the Upper Bay, where he would be within easy range of the two cities. He had satisfied himself that the torpedoes, with which the Narrows were supposed to be thickly planted, would not be able to prevent his fleet from passing through. Many of these torpedoes had been cut loose and destroyed by his torpedo destroyers; and the officers of these little boats assured him that they had cleared a narrow channel, which they had marked with diminutive buoys; and that if he would take his fleet in, in single file--each vessel following as closely as possible in the wake of the one immediately preceding her--the whole fleet could unquestionably pass through without damage.

This suggestion was adopted, and before 10 o'clock on the morning of the 18th, the whole British fleet, with the exception of the "City of New York," was safely riding at anchor in the Upper Bay. The "City of New York" was one of the merchant steamships which had been metamorphosed into a cruiser. She had formerly been plying in the passenger trade between New York and Liverpool. Owing to the shortsighted policy which our Government had previously adopted in refusing to aid or encourage the establishment of American steamship lines; this ship, although her owners were Americans, had been built in England, and sailed under the English flag in order to secure the subsidy of £10,000 a year, which that Government agreed to pay for the privilege of turning her into a cruiser in time of war.

Thus, when war was declared, the American owners of this vessel and the "City of Paris," had the mortification of seeing their own property taken from them, to make war upon their own country. In attempting to enter the Narrows with the rest of the fleet, the "City of New York," owing to her superior speed, could only keep her place in the line with great difficulty, and in sheering off, to avoid a collision with the vessel just ahead of her, she ran out of the channel which had been buoyed by the torpedo destroyers, and getting directly over two large torpedoes, she was partially blown up, and sunk in the deepest part of the Narrows in about a hundred feet of water.

Her destruction caused great rejoicing among all classes of Americans, who had protested loudly but vainly against this unpatriotic use of the British flag. But after all, the owners of the vessel were not so much to blame for it as Congress was.

As the fleet proceeded up the Bay and came to anchor between Bedloe's and Governor's Islands, its movements were watched with intense interest by a large crowd, which had assembled on the seawall of the Battery. As the hour of noon approached, however, this crowd thinned out rapidly; and at twenty minutes of twelve o'clock--at which time it had been announced that the trains on the elevated railways would cease running,--there were not more than a dozen persons visible along the whole water front of the Battery. At ten minutes before twelve, a shudder of apprehension ran through the few remaining denizens of the two cities, as they heard the ominous boom of a heavy gun. It was, however, not immediately followed by any others; and as was subsequently ascertained, was only a blank cartridge, fired as a preliminary signal to the rest of the fleet, to hold themselves in readiness to commence firing, in ten minutes. It was like the preparatory gun before starting a regatta. Everything was apparently to be done in exact accordance with a programme previously agreed upon; and the bombardment was to commence with true "man of war" precision and ceremony.

To us of the present generation, who have never experienced any of the horrors of war, it seems almost incredible that civilized and Christian men, could thus coldly arrange the details of the destruction of life and property on such a vast scale, and calmly count the seconds on their watches as they ticked away the few remaining moments which separated the two great cities from destruction.

Promptly at noon, the guns on the portside of the flagship flashed the signal to the rest of the fleet, and the work of destruction commenced in earnest. The fire at first seemed to be directed against the tall buildings in the lower part of the city, which were in plain eight, and afforded excellent marks for the gunners. But as these became rapidly battered down into masses of ruin, the guns were elevated a little, so as to throw the shells further uptown, and the area of destruction was thus vastly widened.

During the first day's bombardment, there seemed to be a tacit understanding among the artillerists (probably the result of a general order on the subject) to spare the Brooklyn Bridge; and although many projectiles came very near to the towers and supporting cables, and some almost grazed the structure itself, yet it remained intact on the evening of the 18th.

On the morning of the 19th, however, when the bombardment was renewed, these orders (if any such had existed on the previous day) had evidently been countermanded, foe nearly the whole fire of the fleet seemed to be concentrated on the towers and the cables, and in less than half an hour after the opening of the second day's cannonade, the massive granite towers gave way, and the whole magnificent structure fell into the river beneath, where for many months it remained an absolute barrier to navigation through the East River and Long Island Sound.

The Brooklyn Navy-yard was also thoroughly riddled during the second day. The British gunners had evidently been studying their charts over night, and had gauged the distance and direction of the yard so exactly, that before noon of the 19th, they had thrown over five hundred shells into the yard itself, or its immediate vicinity.

Nearly everything inflammable took fire and was consumed, and all of the buildings in the neighborhood were more or less damaged.

One rather amusing feature of the bombardment occurred here. A Mr. Higgins had an immense soap manufacturing establishment almost adjoining the Navy-yard and (with the ingenuity and enterprise, which then, as now, seemed to characterize that particular industry in the invention of novel advertising devices) had erected on his premises a gigantic fac-simile of a soap box, the sides of which being transparent, were brilliantly illuminated at night with powerful electric lights. This box, being elevated on an iron frame-work more than 100 feet high, made a most striking and conspicuous display, plainly visible for a long distance up and down the East River, and was unquestionably very successful as an advertisement. One of the first shells which was intended for the Navy-yard, went crashing through this counterfeit soap box on the morning of the 19th, shivering it to atoms; and as a matter of course, putting an end to its career as an advertising device.

Meanwhile, affairs in the business and residence quarters of the two cities were in a deplorable condition. Fires were raging in every direction, caused by the exploding shells, and although the police and firemen stood their ground bravely, and were most efficiently aided by such troops of volunteers and militia as still remained in town, their efforts were entirely futile in staying the progress of the flames; and it seemed as though any further bombardment would be a mere waste of ammunition; as such portions of the cities as had not been already shattered by the shells, seemed doomed to certain destruction by fire.

The whole of the lower portion of New York was a confused heap of ruins. The palatial business structures, many of which rose to an enormous height, and which had been such a source of pride to the citizens, had all been demolished, and the streets in the lower portion of the city were rendered almost impassible, by the debris which lay scattered about in confused piles throughout their entire length. The numerous safe deposit vaults, which occupied the basements of many of these mammoth structures, were buried so deeply, that several week's excavation were required before they once more became accessible.

In short, the destruction was about as complete as it could well be, and the British Admiral could at least have the satisfaction of feeling that he had carried out his instructions to the very letter.