hour field telephones and telegraphs and aerial told the American commander enough to assure him that the enemy’s force in men was at least nearly equal to his own. He knew, too, that the invader had brought up preponderating artillery. Every road, every piece of negotiable country was held by guns.

The American army held tight. In its front, between it and the foe, there was not a rail-line, not a bridge. All had been destroyed. Behind it lay a perfect railroad system, with long trains and giant locomotives under steam, and all the gathered motor vehicles, ready to speed along perfect roads.

So far the fog was kind to the defenders. But the invader, too, was quick to seize its favor.

The Fishermen Who Caught More Than Lobsters

Long before, half a dozen men, dressed like fishermen, had made their way out of Narragansett Harbor in a small sloop, and had reported at the enemy headquarters. For a month or more past they had been fishing for lobsters; but they had caught more than lobsters. Their catch lay on the table in the Commander’s tent, in the form of charts with soundings and range lines and distances. They were maps of the mine fields.

As soon as the fog began, these men went aboard a mine-sweeper. It steamed eastward, followed by the others. The sweepers had more than the cables and grapples that make a mine-sweeper’s outfit. Set in rows on the after-deck of each vessel were bulging mines, filled with 300 pounds of trinitrotol.[58]

The fog became so thick that it was hard to say if it were daylight still, or night. Night could only make it more black. It could not increase the obscurity.

In the coast defenses of Long Island Sound and Narragansett Bay every man was straining eyes and ears and nerves. Every gun company was at its weapon. Every gun was loaded. Tall projectiles stood ready with the chains and grapples of the hoists prepared. Men stood waiting in the powder magazines under the batteries.

Nothing to see or hear at Fort Wright on Fisher’s Island. Nothing at Fort Michie on Gull Island. Nothing at Fort Terry on Plum Island. On all the shrouded, swift tide-ways that led into Long Island Sound there was nothing.

There was nothing in front of the Narragansett defenses that eyes could see or ears could hear. Nothing—and then, far out, it was as if a sea-monster had arisen in dying torment, and lashed, and spouted and screamed. Before the riven column of water could fall, there came muffled, thundering explosion under water—one, two, three!

The defenses split the fog with fire. Their mine-protecting batteries had been trained over the fields long since. There was no need for aim. Instantly they swept the hidden sea with shells that would clear twenty acres of water.

Again there was silence and blindness—the unearthly silence of the Atlantic sea-fog. It lay for half an hour, as if there were no such thing as war in the world.

Then once more came the roar and the crash, followed by its submarine echoes. Once more the land-guns raved, firing blind.

Fighting Mines with Mines

The enemy was counter-mining. Instead of sweeping, his vessels were dropping mines of their own in the fields, and then, backing off to avoid the fire from the batteries if they could, they exploded them by electric contact, to blow up the American mines with the shock.

Not all the mine-sweepers escaped mines or guns. But there were vessels to spare, and lives to spare. All night the counter-mining went on, and all night the American guns fired into the vapor and the darkness.

The sun arose invisibly. But it climbed, and when it had lifted all its disk above the rim of sea, it showed through the mist as a pale illumination. It was “burning off” the fog.

“It will be clear enough in an hour,” said the executive officer of a battleship under Block Island. The vessel’s wireless began to speak.

On one of the mother-ships men brought out and assembled an armored biplane. Its two fliers stowed range-finding apparatus, aerial telegraph, aneroids and charts in it. There were signal flags and light, brightly silvered balls. Men brought receptacles that contained bombs and adjusted them carefully in place. The fliers waited, watching the fog.

It lessened. It tore away in rifts. All around, the ships became visible.

Seven battle-ships swung around and put on speed and rushed in echelon toward the coast. They steered straight for the mouth of Narragansett Bay, turned just outside of the zone of fire of its defenses, slowed down and steamed across the mouth.

The bi-plane’s engine burst into life. The machine lifted and followed them. It flew high over them and into the bay, climbing.

“They’re over it!” said an officer on a ship, looking at the machine through his glasses.

Locating the Forts For the Enemy Ships

Far inside of the bay, so high in air that it was little more than a shining speck, the aeroplane was describing a series of regular, equal circles. All at once, as if it had been painted in the air with a mammoth brush, a jet-black descending streak stood out against the sky, and lengthened steadily toward the earth.

The azimuth and other range-finding instruments at both ends of the battle-ships caught

the angles and ascertained the range to the black smear that still hung in the air, like grease. The aviator had dropped a smoke-bomb to indicate the fort below.

The forward turret of a battleship turned, its hooded rifle lifted its muzzle to an angle of fifteen degrees, and spoke with a great voice.

Eleven miles away a ton of steel rushed from the sky, crashed into the water of the bay roaring, ricochetted, struck again half a mile beyond, and again and again. Four times it rebounded, like a pebble, before it disappeared at last; and each time it filled the air with its clamor, like a suffering thing.[59]

The ships’ wireless caught a signal from the aeroplane. The shot had fallen short. The battleship steamed on, and another one in line opened up the mouth of the harbor and fired.

From the aeroplane fell a silver ball. It glittered in the brightening sun, splendid. “Hit!” went the message to the turret; and the crew there embraced and cheered.

It had hit the outer earth-works of the defenses. It had plunged down with a shock that stunned men in mortar pits and gun-emplacements far away—small wonder, for this thing falling from the sky had struck a blow equal to that of New York’s obelisk plunging into Broadway from the top of Trinity Church steeple.[60]

“No Effect!”

“No effect!” reported the watchers in the coast defense to the commandant. Though the impact had shaken the works and the very earth: though the blast from the explosion of its charge had twisted three-inch iron bars within the works, and bent the steel doors of casemates, it had done no harm to the defenses. So well had they been built by the engineers that the rending explosion left a crater for only a moment. The earth rippled down and closed it. The steel and concrete facing underneath held true.[61]

The enemy had the range. Ship after ship passed the entrance, delivered its single shot, proceeded and returned to follow in the circling line. These were the most modern dreadnaughts, firing from 16-inch guns. Their shells tore the earth embankments away in tons and flung dirt high in air and sent it down to bury everything in its way under mounds. But all their fire and all their havoc was in vain, unless they could hit a gun. And the guns were protected by steel armor and concrete and earth piled on earth.

To hit a gun was to attempt to hit a bull’s eye only a few feet square at a range of eleven miles, farther than men can see.

Still the bombardment went on, undeterred. More aeroplanes soared over the defenses now, far out of reach from shots, and circled and signaled. The fire grew. The ships were not hesitating now to wear out the rifling of their guns. They meant to give the defenders no rest.

They were trying for a prize that was worth all the guns in their turrets. They knew that inside of the works there could not be more than a few thousand men, if that much. They knew that all the Coast Artillery forces of the United States combined numbered only 170 companies and that these 170 companies had 27 harbor defense systems to guard. Even if the United States had stripped its other defenses to the utmost, there could not be a sufficient force in these that were now being attacked.[62]

Only Enough Ammunition to Last Two Hours

So they poured fire on fire and shot on shot. It was a one-sided duel, for their great guns outranged the 12-inch guns of the defenses. The men in there fired only occasionally, when their observers and range-finders and plotters perceived an opportunity. There was another reason for their slow fire, besides the inability to reach. Those perfect defenses, those perfect products of engineering science, those results of millions on millions of expenditure, contained only enough ammunition for two hours of firing![63]

They waited till the enemy ships should try to force the passage and come within range, that they might make those two hours two hours of unspeakable destruction that should glorify their death with the fiery splendor of bursting ships.

The enemy did not try to force the passage. While they saved their ammunition, these defenses were fearful gladiators to approach. None could come within reach of their steel hands and live.

But the gladiators were gladiators fearful only in front. Steel-gauntleted, armored with steel breast-plates and shin-plates, mightily visored—so they faced the sea. In the back they were naked.

Fire, and noise, and bursting charges, and explosions that made hot gales within the works and whirled men like dried leaves! An hour passed. Still from the sea there came the coughing bellow, that made the air tremble and rolled inland like summer thunder among hills. Still there fell the screaming steel from the sky. Another hour! And still it came.

The sun was over-head. Suddenly, into the naked back of the defenses poured fire and steel that hammered and beat and tore through them. Under it, through flame and smoke and flying dirt appeared shining rows of bayonets. With a yelp 10,000 men poured in.[64]

And through the United States, smiting it into the dumbness of despair, went the news that the great Narragansett defenses had fallen, and that the enemy fleet was entering the harbor.

V

NEW ENGLAND’S BATTLE

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:

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.”

The army sat tight. It sat tight while New England worked, and Chambers of Commerce and Committees of Safety argued and resolved and argued and could agree on nothing except that the whole thing was a hopeless mess. It sat tight while a hundred millions stared at the mess, and hooted their Congressmen and politicians who wandered around feebly to explain that it was the fault of somebody else.

In Ohio and Indiana the mess was typified. Here in great camps were gathered the organized militia of the western States to be organized, with 300,000 entirely raw volunteers who had everything to learn. These green men were the pick of the country—physically perfect, intelligent, quick to understand. But there was nobody to teach them.

For years the United States had been warned that if the crisis ever should occur, there would not be any officers available for the work of organizing and training recruits. The warning had been whistled down the wind. Congresses that could find ample time to debate about mileage and constructive recesses and pork barrels had never found a time when they could debate this.