Part 7

Before the news of Narragansett’s fall was an hour old, the cities of the United States, including many towns so obscure that few Americans ever had heard their names, had subscribed enough money to raise and equip an army twice over and keep it in the field for months. But the country that was so efficient, so intrepid, so resourceful, was facing a disaster now that it could not conjure away with all the money and men that ever were.

Money, the magician, was futile now. It could not stamp its golden foot and make guns and ammunition spring from the empty ground. It could not send to the army in Connecticut cannon that did not exist or cartridges that had not been made.[65]

_Not Enough American Ammunition for Two Days’ Battle_

An order had gone out from the American headquarters that morning--an ominous warning that, given in battle, would have indicated, surely, the beginning of the end. It was:

“IT IS OF THE UTMOST IMPORTANCE THAT NO AMMUNITION BE EXPENDED WITHOUT URGENT NEED. COMPANY COMMANDERS WILL ENFORCE THIS ORDER RIGOROUSLY.”

While the futile dollars were being flung to the Government for new armies, the army that was already in the field was counting its small-arms and artillery ammunition, knowing that it did not possess enough for two days’ battle.[66]

From ocean to ocean men with naked hands were crowding to enlist. The generous Nation that never yet had denied a need when the need was made apparent, was as generous with its lives as with its dollars. For two and three blocks around the recruiting stations of regular army and militia the streets were packed with men. They had come from work and pleasure. They had come home from far places. They had dropped shovels and tennis-rackets, pens and picks. They stood shoulder to shoulder, in fine stuffs and in rags, made equal by one loyal purpose. And they were as futile as the dollars.

One million men, it was computed afterward, had offered themselves in America in that one day. But there were no weapons for them. There were not enough rifles. There were no uniforms. There were no tents. There were no shoes.

Keen-eyed men of trails and wilderness offered themselves for the signal corps. There were no signal corps supplies. Telegraphers were there, but all the field telegraph outfits that the country had were with the army. Teamsters volunteered, but there was no reserve of army wagons. Men trained in bridge building and engineering were turned away, because there was no equipment to fit out sorely needed companies of miners and sappers.[67]

Cavalry was needed, urgently; and men who could ride tried to enlist. But there were no mounts for them. Army officers in Texas and New Mexico and Oklahoma were buying, at unheard-of prices, rough horses wild from the range, while in Connecticut were regiments of regular cavalry whose troops were only three-quarters filled with either men or horses.[68]

Money, money, money! Men, men, men! It was too late.

_Newport’s Palaces Occupied by Enemy Officers_

The bulletins still were displaying the news of the loss of Narragansett’s defenses when the mine-sweepers of the enemy, unhampered now, completed their work in the channels of the great harbor and signaled to their fleet that it was safe to enter.

The big liners crowded in--ships that hitherto never had entered an American harbor except New York or Boston. Followed by horse-transports and vessels laden with artillery, they passed in a gigantic parade past Newport.

Only destroyers and light-draught gun-boats preceded them. There was no further need of cruisers with shotted guns to protect them. The enemy flag was flying over Forts Adam, Wetherill, Greble, Getty, and Philip Kearney. The American guns which the garrison had not been able to destroy now looked down the harbor to hold it for the invader against American attack.

Newport’s villas and palaces were occupied by officers of the invading army and navy. The avenues and gardens and shores of the rich men’s pleasure-place were thronged with bluejackets and marines. The famous power-boats, rich with mahogany and cedar, were brought out of their opulent housings and launched. Glittering steam yachts were being eased down the ways, to take the water and go into commission under the foreign flag.

After the last of the ships had entered, an American sea captain, who had been crouching in a hiding place on Sakonnet Point at the eastern entrance to the harbor, clapped his telescope together, arose cautiously, and straightened out his stiffened old limbs. Taking great care to select by-paths, he went inland to the village of Little Compton, where he found an automobile stage that took him to the railroad station at Tiverton.

Thence he telephoned to Fall River, and Fall River sent it on to Boston, and Boston sent it on to Worcester, whence it went to the army, that an old seaman had not only counted and identified the transports, but was able to say approximately which ships had troops aboard and which vessels probably carried only supplies.

There were liners of more than 40,000 gross tons. There were three ships of more than 25,000 tonnage. Each of them was a famous liner whose character was known to its last details. It was a matter of only a few minutes to figure out that the net tonnage of the troop-laden vessels was 200,400. Under the foreign military allowance of one soldier for each two net tons of ship capacity, it was indicated with fair accuracy that the force that had entered the harbor was at least 100,000 men.[69]

“With the ample landing facilities,” said the American Commanding General to his staff, “the men can, no doubt, be disembarked within twenty hours. Count in the work of landing supplies, artillery, ammunition and horses, and organizing the army for effective movement--we cannot safely figure on more than fifty hours before the enemy will be ready to undertake important operations. He will, no doubt, have occupied Providence and Fall River at once.”[70]

_An Incident of the Occupation of Fall River_

A gunboat was lying at that moment in the mouth of Taunton River, with 4-inch guns covering tall, smoky Fall River. Its officers were watching the signalmen who had been left behind by a detachment of marines that had been sent in to occupy the river streets.

Crouching behind a third-story window of a square, multi-windowed monster of a cotton mill, three men, roughly clad, watched the bluejackets approach. “I tell you,” said one, “it is no use, no use. Have you not read the order? It is that we must not do anything.”

“We have been made citizens,” answered the other, savagely. “And shall we not fight for this country? Go, then, you, if you fear. Peter and I will kill these men. Is it not so, Peter?”

The man addressed nodded, silently. He had a bomb in his hand. The first speaker, shrugging his shoulder, hurried out.

“Now!” said Peter. His comrade raised the window, and Peter’s arm went out swiftly. He tossed the bomb.

It fell in front of the blue-jackets and burst. The detachment reeled. But the smoke had not quite dissipated before the sailors were in order again, running back, dragging their machine-gun and carrying two men, one dead, one wounded.

At the corner they stopped and aimed the gun at the mill. There was a tearing scream, like the sudden yelp of a circular saw when it bites a plank. A stream of steel-jacketed bullets blew against the building. The windows vanished with a clash of splintering glass. Three men, their heads bent low and their arms covering their faces as if to breast a tempest of hail and wind, ran out of the door. They had not gone ten yards when they were jerked, and tossed high, and flung forward, and dropped into a heap that might have been nothing except a huddle of old clothes.

The man at the machine-gun grunted. Squatting comfortably behind his little demon, he turned it on the factory again like a man manipulating a hose. Exactly as if he were sprinkling, he fanned the rows of windows, systematically.

Behind them the gunboat awoke. Its men had learned by signal what had occurred. Their guns opened fire on the street. Four steel projectiles struck the brick buildings, broke through them and tore up floors and walls and girders. As the shells exploded inside, the walls bent outward, seemed to recover, and then suddenly leaned out again and toppled, with smoke and dust mounting into a column on a cyclone of their own making.

Through the smoke and thick dust sped another flock of shells. A building at the head of a street moved. It seemed to jump, curiously like a frightened man staggering backward. Then there was no building. There was nothing but a pile of stone and twisted iron--with half a dozen men under it.

_Providence’s Handful of Desperate Men_

The gunboat lowered boats and sent more men ashore. They rushed machine guns into the town. “Our men have been attacked,” said their Commander, appearing at the City Hall. “The town is subject to punishment under the rules of war. Write a proclamation to your people at once. Inform them that a single other hostile act will cause your immediate execution and the complete destruction of your city.”

“Fall River Destroyed!” was the news that went through the country. It was spread by men who had seen the houses fall, and had run away in terror with the roar of tumbling walls and exploding shells in their ears, and who truly believed that they had seen the entire city in flame and ruin.

“Quick! Quick!” shouted a newspaperman in Providence when the news came in. “Get this on the street with the biggest head you can and rush copies to the madmen at the barricade. It’ll probably be the last thing we print; but it may save Providence.”

Behind the barricade, made of stones and wagons and all the useless, pitiable defenses that desperate men in desperate cities have always used, there were a hundred or more men who had lost their heads and would listen to nothing but the voice of their own fury. They were armed with old rifles taken from a plundered marine store’s establishment whose dusty cellar was piled with condemned arms. From the same place they had taken four automatic guns on rusty tripods.

Lashing themselves to greater and blinder rage at every attempt at opposition or argument, they had sworn to turn the weapons on their own police. But the black headlines on the extras that were tossed to them acted like the shock of ice-cold water on a drunken man.

One by one they slouched away. When the enemy arrived, there was nobody to oppose the files of bluejackets and marines that marched past the silent, gloomy crowds to occupy the city for the troops.

_Green Scouts for the American Army_

“Reports here that Providence is occupied,” Washington telegraphed to the army. “Send details.”

The General laughed sarcastically, and tossed the dispatch to his aide.

“Blazes!” growled the latter. “Since they established their aviation camp back of their lines at Narragansett Pier yesterday, every reconnoisance we’ve attempted has been just like stirring up a nest of yellow-jackets. I’m afraid that we’ve lost another machine, sir. It should have been back here hours ago. If it’s gone, we have only six left; and our crack aviation squadron from San Diego has been whittled down to 14 officers and 90 enlisted men. They simply pile on top of every machine of ours with half a dozen or more of their own.”

“The mounted patrols that we pushed out toward the south last night got good results,” said the General.

“Yes, sir. But,” the aide selected a sheet of paper from the pile, “it’s like trying to build up a monster from a single bone. Look at this, sir. Here’s a green patrol--plucky, too, for they got in farther than most. But see what they give us. They report a regiment of infantry at Exeter, west of Wickford; and they say that there is positively no artillery with it.”

“Of course!” answered the General. “They didn’t know where to look for artillery, or how it is concealed.”[71]

“Nice man-trap that sort of scouting is!” grunted the aide.

“Well, well!” The old General laughed again. “It’s late in the day to kick. We’ve known long ago what sort of soup was being cooked for our eating. The only thing to do now is not to let them ladle it into us too hot.”

An officer with the insignia of the aviation corps appeared before the tent-flap and saluted. A trickle of blood was creeping down his forehead and across one cheek. “Hullo!” said the aide. “Then we haven’t lost that machine after all! Did you get anything?”

_The Report of the Air Scout_

“Cavalry and artillery have seized all the railroad and electric lines to Providence,” reported the flier. “Apparently they are not moving into the town, but holding tight so that the troops that are landing there can complete their line. Couldn’t get details--three bi-planes got after me within twenty minutes.”

“What delayed you?”

“They drove me south to the coast. Going over Kingston, I got touched up with shrapnel. Then two other fliers came down on me, coming from the direction of our own lines. I had to hustle across the Sound and fly around Montauk Point and inland before I could shake them off.”

“What did you see on Montauk?” asked the General, quickly.

“A small force is holding it, apparently for a supply and repair base,” said the scout. “I saw a row of forges in one place.”

“That’s better news, anyway,” said the General. “I’ve been anxious since we heard that a force had been landed there. Feared it might be a second army moving toward New York. Well, we’d better tell Washington what we’ve gathered.”

“Hostile line,” Washington learned, “is strongly extended through Rhode Island along entire railroad system from Westerly northeast almost to Providence. Enemy’s left flank at Westerly has been strengthened by successful assault on Fort Mansfield near Watch Hill whose two-company garrison was overcome before it could destroy the 5-inch guns.[72]

“The enemy holds in strength Westerly, Niantic, Wood River, Wickford Junction and Landing, River Point and East Greenwich, thus maintaining line that touches Narragansett Bay at one end and the ocean east of Long Island at the other. Extraordinarily powerful artillery supports reported along entire front.”

“No important news from the front,” said Washington, transmitting this information to the newspapers. “Providence appears to have been occupied, as all communication with that place has ceased. It is reported that two blocks of buildings in Fall River have been destroyed, but the rest of the city is intact.”

Washington had become the only source of news, for the time, after the foe had effected a base in Narragansett Bay. The coasts of New Jersey and Long Island suddenly had become as quiet again as if there were no enemy within three thousand miles. No demonstration was made against the ocean defenses of New York City. No ships threatened the defenses of Long Island Sound.

_The Plight of New Bedford_

Simultaneously with the severance of communication with Providence, Boston had been cut off from direct communication with southern New England, and could telegraph or telephone only by way of Worcester.

Late that night the city transmitted a dispatch that had come to it from Fort Rodman, near New Bedford in Buzzards Bay. A strong force, numbers unknown, had begun moving along the railroad out of Fall River, with evident design against the town or the fort. Trains were being assembled. “Send reinforcements,” said Fort Rodman. “No militia in the city. We have in our defenses only 63 men, Fourth Company, New Bedford Militia Coast Artillery, besides our own two companies of regulars and the two companies that were sent here from Charleston and Mobile.”[73]

The morning newspapers announced that New Bedford was in uproar and had demanded of Washington to know if the Government intended to abandon its sea-board cities utterly. The people had gone out to tear up the railroad tracks leading into the town, but one train of fifteen cars had already advanced half way from Fall River, with another of twelve cars behind it.

Shortly afterward a dispatch from a station along the line informed Boston that three other trains had just passed, close behind each other, going slowly. One train had twelve, one had eight and the other had ten cars.

“Fifty-seven cars,” said the War Department, “would indicate that two regiments with artillery were on the way.”

Two hours later Washington gave out this bulletin:

“New Bedford was occupied at nine A.M. by a regiment of infantry and three batteries of heavy field artillery. Shortly before 10 A.M. this force, augmented by a further regiment of infantry, a strong body of sappers and miners, and a battery of howitzers, proceeded in the direction of Fort Rodman. Since then it has been impossible to gain any intelligence.”

_The Demand of the Cities for Protection_

At noon an enemy force of unknown strength advanced toward Taunton, Massachusetts, by way of the railroad running north from Fall

River. It was reported that two companies of infantry, Massachusetts Volunteer Militia, had attacked enemy cavalry outside of the town and had defeated it. A little later came a report that the Americans had been surrounded and forced to surrender.

Then Taunton was cut off. Boston telegraphed to Washington: “We have practically stripped ourselves of militia and demand help at once.”

“Hold the army where it is!” said New York, promptly. “To move it toward Boston would simply uncover us, and open all Connecticut to capture.”

“Protect Boston!” demanded Lawrence and Lowell and Haverhill.

“Hold the army in Connecticut!” telegraphed New London and New Haven, Bridgeport and Hartford.

“Most of our militia is with the army!” urged Philadelphia. “We insist that our men be kept between us and the foe.”

“What is the disposition of the enemy forces now?” Washington asked army headquarters.

“Disembarkation proceeding swiftly,” was the reply. “The line Providence to New Bedford appears to be strongly held. Main strength, however, evidently being thrown to face our front. The original army is being steadily augmented by additions from the forces now landing. Believe that hostile line stretching across Rhode Island and threatening us is now fully eighty thousand men, with preponderating artillery.”

The news bulletin that the War Department in Washington gave out as a result of this information was that the American army, though numerically inferior, was holding the invader in check for the time. No immediate movement, said the bulletin, was expected.

To the General in command, however, the Department telegraphed: “It is of the utmost importance to know if you can maintain present position, and if so, how long. We wish to work Springfield arsenal to the last moment. Must have twenty-four hours to dismantle it and ship machinery away.”

_Two Days in Which to Make Ammunition for the American Army!_

Springfield Arsenal, lying behind the protecting army, was a-glare with light at night and a-roar night and day with labor. It was toiling almost literally over a mine; for the foundations were mined, ready for the dynamite that was to blow them up when the need came.

An army of workmen, each provided with his own specific instruction, were ready, when the word came, to tear out what machinery they could and load it on the trains.[74]

Thus, with men standing ready to pull it apart, the great place was being “speeded” to turn out rifles. Under civilian and military experts all the workers who could find room were working in eight-hour shifts. They had increased the output from the normal one hundred rifles an hour to three thousand in the twenty-four hours.

“Forces in our front constantly increasing,” the army leaders informed Washington, after a council of war. “No doubt of offensive intention. We believe, however, that no forward movement will be made until completion of landing operations. The total destruction of all roads in our front will then delay enemy for not more than two days. Think it safe to delay dismantling works till expiration of that time.”

“Thank God!” said one of the men in Washington. He was thanking God for two days of grace--after fifty years of unused time. Two short days had become suddenly precious. In that time there could be added to the stock of arms 6,000 rifles before the Springfield works should have to be abandoned and the country forced to depend on the output of the Rock Island arsenal in Illinois, whose utmost capacity was only two hundred and fifty rifles in each eight-hour day.[75]

_Militia That Had Come in Without Rifles_

Already, without a battle, the army had made requisition for 2,500 new rifles. The militia had come in with many rifles corroded from the powerful fumes and acid deposits released by smokeless powder. The rifling of many was ruined by rust, due to lack of cleaning after use. In more than one militia company there were men who had come in without rifles.[76]

Beholding this wastage that had occurred in peace, the authorities were inclined to believe the dictum of some of the military men who insisted that for every infantryman in the field there must be a rifle in reserve. Certainly it was evident enough that when fighting should once begin, the waste of small arms would be enormous.[77]

Two days more! The word went secretly to Hartford and Ansonia, to Bridgeport, to New Haven, to all the crowded world of Connecticut and southern Massachusetts where machines were panting night and day, buildings trembling with their steam fever, men toiling without sleep, to take advantage of the days of grace.

It was not only the brass cases for the fixed ammunition, the fuses for shells, the cartridges for rifles and pistols, the bayonets and entrenching tools for which the army depended on New England. A hundred places of peaceful manufacture were working as desperately as were the manufacturers of quick-firing guns, to provide the food that war devours with such monstrous rapacity when it begins to feed.

There were shops that turned out chains, and shops that turned out cooking utensils. There were workmen who never had done anything more warlike than to make bootlaces. There were manufacturers of whips and hats, and wheelwrights and makers of thread. Up and down all the river valleys, and in all the crowded towns they were working to give the army what it needed before the enemy should reach out and make the land his own.

Now that it was on the verge of being lost, the United States knew suddenly what this New England meant to it. It realized all at once what vast productiveness had enriched the entire Continent with its manifold variety. So accustomed through long generations to the endless supply, even the merchants of America had not realized how much they depended on Connecticut and Massachusetts factories for a thousand articles of daily utility.

From every point in the Union came orders. Had such a torrent arrived in a time of peace, Connecticut might have built one unbroken factory reaching from the Berkshire Hills to Stonington, to meet the demand.

“_We Will Play Our Hand Out!_”

And all that lay between this treasure-house of the United States and capture was a bluff--a last, desperate American bluff.

The American General knew that his adversary must know that it was a bluff; but bluffing was an American game.

“We will play our hand out,” he said to his staff. “No doubt he knows that he could drive us back now, without waiting for his whole army to land, and all that ungodly mess of artillery that he’s brought with him. But he wants to play safe. He wants to clean the whole thing up in one operation. He wants to lick us, true; but he wants still more to accomplish his bigger job--the possession of the seaboard. We’ll sit tight--and bluff him into going slow.”