Thieves Of Mercy

Начало книги

Ere we were two days old at sea, a pirate of very warlike appointment gave us chase.

Finding ourselves too slow of sail, we put on a compelled valor, and in the grapple I boarded them.

On the instant they got clear of our ship, so I alone became their prisoner.

They have dealt with me like thieves of mercy…

SHAKESPEARE, HAMLET, ACT IV, SCENE 6

The completion of the iron-clad gunboat at Memphis, by Mr. Shirley, is regarded as highly important to the defenses of the Mississippi. One of them at Columbus would have enabled you to complete the annihilation of the enemy.

STEPHEN R. MALLORY, SECRETARY OF THE CONFEDERATE NAVY, TO GENERAL LEONIDAS POLK

It was nighttime in the shipyard, the working day long over. But there were men there still, nearly fifty men, standing around in the dirt and sawdust. The air was damp and warm, alive with summer bugs and the sounds of frogs and the lap of water. Just to the north, the lights that climbed up the steep banks and low hills along the Mississippi showed where the city of Memphis was still awake, like the soldiers at Agincourt, too restless to sleep on the eve of battle. To the men in the shipyard, the city might as well have been Agincourt, it felt so far removed. The men were shipwrights and house carpenters. They were blue-water sailors and river men and black gang. They were from Charleston and New Orleans, Yazoo City and Memphis and Richmond and Mobile, all the states that now formed the Confederate States of America, and a few transplant Yankees thrown in.

Читать дальше →