Gone With the Wind

Writer and journalist, Margaret Mitchell, was not quite a year old when her mother rapped her in blankets and fled their home during the early hours of a warm August morning. Mitchell’s father was an attorney and her family was prominent in the social circles of Georgia. Her cousin was none other than Crawford Long, the man who took away pain during surgery. She had other relatives that were of more local prominence, including the Holliday’s who founded the first dental school in Georgia. Despite her high standing family, Margaret would go on to out shine them and all for an event that it is doubtful she even remembered.

It is often suggested that what she did remember, and what inspired her tale, that became a best selling novel, was the fact that she grew up without a father. Eugene Mitchell was a local civic leader and for that reason, after sending his family away, stayed behind to help organize a citizen fire fighting brigade when it was clear that Atlanta’s professional firemen would not be enough. No one is exactly sure when or how Eugene died. All that is known is that both he, and most of the men with him, never came out of the blazes they rushed into.

The firestorm that engulfed the city of Atlanta, a vital Confederate rail hub, was neither accidental nor unique. The series of bombing raids that were carried out by the US Air Corps, in early August, have remained controversial on both sides of the border. Strangely enough, they were firing up heated debates in the upper, echelon’s of the US government, before they were even carried out. They are also the reason that the name Roosevelt is a much hated one in Georgia and other parts of the CSA. Before the war, Roosevelt was viewed as a somewhat sympathetic figure given that he had relatives who lived in close proximity to Atlanta. By late summer of 1901 this image would be changed irrevocably and it would also cement a split in the Roosevelt/Bulloch family, forever.

What the raids truly were, once you get past the emotional scars, were the first strategically effective bombings of a large scale nature. Ever since the Kingston raid, which was tiny in comparison, the US Air Corps had grown from less than twenty Zeppelins to nearly a hundred. This had all happened in a few months time and it was largely thanks to one man, a car engineer by the name of Henry Ford. Ford had heard of Astin’s Greens production innovations that were being tried out in Mexico. He saw merit in them and where Astin had to fight to make every little improvement, Ford had a near free hand when he found himself employed by the war department.

At first, Ford got into some serious hot water over his assembly line ideas. Months went by and he had not produced the first Zeppelin. The reality was that Ford had spent his time gathering materials and then organizing both them and his labor force. When they went into full production the calls for his resignation abruptly ceased. Of course, Ford was not running the only production facility. There were three others and before all was said and done, all of the US Zeppelin factories were using his organization charts. Word of this filtered up to Roosevelt who then promptly sent Ford out to Kansas where he was tasked with doing the same thing to the new US airplane shop.

The US raids were more aimed at short term operational goals than in the past. Prior to the use of incendiary bombs, the zeppelins had showed a distinct weakness in their ability to effect combat operations on a tactical level. Most of their targets were factories and, most of their bombs were seldom hitting the target. The solution to this problem was fire and, once testing showed that the munitions could adequately combust, several key factors were realized. The single biggest of these was that the zeppelins no longer had to hit their targets. This led to a theory that would be put to the test in Atlanta, Nashville, and Chattanooga.

The real targets that the US Air Corps were salivating to wreck were the Confederate rail lines. These targets proved to be beyond their ability. To hit an actual track was once compared to trying to hit a cotton thread with a penny from fifty feet in the air. There were attempts at bombing rail yards but, they met with only limited success. Even the bombs that hit the actual yards did not cause enough damage and most of it was easily repairable. The military effects were negligible but, now, the US aviators realized that they did not have to directly hit their targets to render them neutralized.

The first bombings that occurred, in Atlanta, were some of the quietest that the citizens could remember. They were so quiet, in fact, that few paid them any attention at all. What they did not know was that these initial strikes were only meant to the light the targets for the real payloads that were still on the way. Some fires were started but they were minor and the fire brigades were dispatched to handle them. Some of them had already been put out when the next wave of Zeppelins came in. They had no problem finding their targets because they were no longer trying to spot buildings from high above. These fully loaded bombers were targeting the initial fires set by the advanced wave. Every wave that came after that had a much larger target to hit.

The attacks were not universally successful. Nashville was actually the primary target in the first round of attacks. Much of the city burned to the ground but, as near as US military intelligence could determine, the rail system, and the military stores there, were only partially effected. There were also later attacks on the steel center at Birmingham, as well as one attack against the nearby Confederate Zeppelin base. Those attacks would utterly fail but, at that point it no longer mattered.

The destruction of Atlanta and Chattanooga, despite being secondary targets, did more than make up for the failures at Nashville and Birmingham. It has been theorized since the war, that weather and terrain were largely responsible for the successful US Strikes. Chattanooga sits in a valley that is quite literally bowl shaped. Atlanta sits on the threshold between the cooler continental weather and the more tropical Gulf of Mexico climate. This ensures that Atlanta is usually breezy and, for what the US Air Corps was trying to do, those were perfect conditions.

The heat of the firestorms fed on themselves. In Atlanta it was aided by the breeze while in Chattanooga, the unusual terrain reflected the heat right back on it’s source. In both cases, the rising hot air formed a low pressure center that began sucking the surrounding oxygen right into the rising column. This not only made the fire hotter, as it began to reach points where it melted metal but, anyone who may have found some degree of safety from the heat found that they could no longer breath. It is all too likely that this is what happened to Eugene Mitchell.

It took three days of continuous bombing to create the fire storms but, once they were going, the zeppelins could no longer even approach the cities due to turbulence. That was just fine at Fort Lincoln because they no longer needed too, the mission was accomplished and after seeing the first pictures of the effects, Shafter was eager to begin a full bombing campaign. The only thing stopping the complete destruction of the Confederacy was the fact that the US had used up it’s entire supply of incendiaries. They could be replaced but, that was going to take some time. That’s why Shafter had never put all of his money on the air campaign. It was only the beginning of an all out attack.

The effects of the raids were also long lived. Rail traffic from the eastern part of the CSA to it’s western states came to a complete halt for several weeks. The rail lines were thought to have survived the firestorm but, this proved to be an illusion. The heat had warped rails and not only had it turned the ties into useless charcoal but, the beds themselves proved to have been weakened. Service was only resumed by diverting traffic to alternate tracks that took them a long way out of their way.

As for the damage in the cities, no one even knew where to start rebuilding. The rails were an obvious priority but, in order to fix them you had to have workers. After the attacks there were precious few. Nobody knows exactly how many people lost their lives but, in the immediate aftermath, it might as well have been everyone. Workers tend to skip work when their homes have been burned to the ground and this obviously happened.

Strangely enough, the most important side effect of bombing was not the direct damage that it caused. It was yet another one of those unforeseeable circumstances that was an indirect result and, also, one in which mother nature would come back to prove that she would not be out done by man. One of the very first reactions to the attacks, even while they were going on, was the immediate sortie of the entire Confederate Fleet at Mobile. The CSN had no desire to see their ships caught at anchor with a fire storm raging around them. As a result, most of the fleet retreated to their secondary base at Galveston, Texas. It was reasoned that the further they were from enemy bombers, the better. Some were sent to the Caribbean but, even a light examination of the records show that these were on scheduled patrols.

There have been many who have criticized this decision since it happened but, the reason that the CSN had for keeping their fleet together, seems logical enough given the circumstances. The US Navy no longer had the chore of imposing a full blockade of Canada. There was still a blockade of sorts but, given that the British were no longer trying to run it, the number of ships required by the US Atlantic fleet had now been greatly reduced. The only thing that was now holding the USN in check was the threat of an attack by the CSN. Of course, the Confederate Navy was nowhere near as strong as the US fleet but, it did not have to be. It only had to exist to do it’s job.

The move to Galveston would wreck all of that. Less than a month after the move had been completed, the city would suffer a literal shot from the dark, that came on them as much by surprise as the US firebombing did in Atlanta. This should have never happened because the CSN’s primary operating theater was the Gulf of Mexico and they were no strangers to hurricanes. The CSN actually spent a lot of money studying the storms and had some of the foremost authorities in their employ. Their fatal weakness was that they knew this fact and had failed to heed warnings from similar experts in the new Confederate territory of Cuba. Apparently, the only reason for this was that the men warning them had a darker shade of skin.

This storm occurred before the habit developed of naming them after girlfriends and wives, so, we have nothing more to call it than ‘the hurricane.’ What we do know about this particular storm is that it passed over Cuba and that Confederate Naval Authorities had been alerted to it’s presence. They also received all the relevant data concerning the storms path and intensity.

While over Cuba, it is believed that the storm was what we call, today, a category 3. It was also believed to be turning out towards the Atlantic and weakening. Due to the multiple reports from any number of merchantmen who put in at New Orleans, over the following week, we know this did not happen. The storm had actually turned west, over the warm waters of the Gulf, and was gaining strength as it zeroed in on the southern coast of Texas. When the first bands of intense winds and rain struck Galveston, given the reports we now have, it is believed that the storm had increased in strength to a category 4 or, quite possibly, even a category 5.

The city proper sits on what is a coastal barrier island even if the casual visitor might not notice due to the roads and bridges that have been built up in the region. These barrier islands are really nothing more than glorified sand dunes that have piled up, over centuries, to the point that their tops form narrow strips of usable dry land. While meteorologists had spent a great deal of time studying the winds and rain, none of them had ever considered calling in a geologist so that they could factor in the land equation. The fact was, Galveston sat only inches above sea level and the storm surge raised that by feet. The city was flooded, the CSN shipyards destroyed, and a good deal of the fleet, right along with it.

Navies generally have one strategy in dealing with such storms. That is always the act of pulling up anchor and getting out of it’s way. The Confederate Fleet got absolutely no warning at all and by the time they realized this was truly a significant storm, and that Galveston Bay would not be any protection at all, it was too late. Some ships did attempt to raise anchor and head for the high sea but, by the time they did, as soon as the anchors came up, the winds would push them towards the land. Some of these vessels would collide, several smaller destroyers would partially capsize. A few more would take on too much water and bottom out in the shallows.

The larger vessels, such as the battleships would fair the storm well enough. The CSS Alabama clung to her anchor, put her bough in the wind, and manage to escape with only minor damage. The CSS Texas, the revolutionary new battleship, was not so lucky. The destroyer CSS Hawkins had been one ship that pulled anchor when it became obvious that wind and water might capsize her should she remain in place. She collided with the Texas which might have not been so big a thing had it not been for the fact that she smashed two of the ships anchor chains in the process. The only one left that was still holding was aft and the Texas drifted into a position where her superstructure caught the full brunt of the wind. That, in turn, pushed the Texas harder. The last anchor lost it’s grip and the ship was literally blown towards the shore.

It became one of the most sensationalized photographs from the war. The CSS Texas was no longer the terror of the sea and not because she was wrecked. It was because the Texas was no longer on the sea. When the storm surge retreated, the Confederate battleship was sitting in the middle of downtown Texas City, almost a half mile from the water. It dwarfed the wreckage of the buildings around her.

It was an odd sort of disaster for the CSS Texas and, also, quite ironic because her crew actually faired much better than the ships who managed to remain in harbor. Not a single crewman had been killed in the entire incident. Still, it did not matter. The CSN would eventually get the battleship Texas back into the water. A crew of military and civil engineers would eventually cut a channel from the water, through Texas City, and right up under her. This operation would be an engineering masterpiece and, it would also be too late. While the damage to both the battleship, and the fleet that she belonged too, was far from totally encompassing, the fact remained that the Confederate trump card had been neutralized. It would take years to repair the damage and the Confederacies pride would not play a significant role in the war from then on.