Chapter 4
When he could finally pull himself free and some of the other mourners
were comforting his wife he went to check on Jeffrey. Marybelle
met him in the hallway. "Is this young man responsible?" she
asked.
"Certainly," the General answered. "Why?"
"I can't keep my daughter away from him!" the maid
answered. "I've told her not to bother the gentleman and your
son, that they're busy. But she continues to find some excuse to
go into the room. She just took their supper in a while
ago. I'd prepared it, and was going to take it in, but she
grabbed it before I could. I've never seen her so infatuated with
a man! It just makes me nervous!"
Jeff smiled. "A young girl," he remarked, "and a handsome young
man? I'm sure you had a few crushes on a few young men in your
day, too, Marybelle!" The man smiled.
"Yes sir!" she answered, "But nowadays, sir, with some of the
things that men do with little girls, a mother's got to be cautious!"
"How true!" the General answered, "How true! But I assure
you, madame, the young man is completely responsible, and you have
absolutely nothing to worry about."
He continued on into the boys' room. He found everybody giggling
and laughing. "What is so funny?" the General remarked, coming in.
"Oh, sorry father!" his son answered. "Jeffrey was just
teasing me and little Marybelle, saying we might get married some
day. Marybelle's reply got us going. I'm sorry. I
know it's not appropriate to be laughing right now."
"Your sister would not want you not to be able to laugh," the General
answered, "she certainly loved to enough!" He ruffed the little
girl's hair. "You don't think my son would make a good husband?"
he asked.
"Mama says I'm not to get interested in no white boys," she answered,
"not that some of them aren't just adorable. But marrying them
just makes too much trouble for colored girls."
The General suppressed a giggle. "Well," he managed, "take the
dirty dishes back to the kitchen. This gentleman has some
important work to do!"
"Excuse me," Henry put in, "nature is calling and I can't wait!
I'll be right back, father."
"Get!" his father answered, and the boy hurried off. While
he was gone the General commented "The girl's mother is worried about
her infatuation with you. You think they might get married, huh?"
Very matter of factly Jeffrey answered "They'd better, or I won't be
here! That's my mother!"
"OH!" the General sighed. "No wonder she's drawn to you!
Anything yet?"
"Not a thing!" Jeffrey answered. "As far as I can tell
things have gone exactly as they were supposed to have had.
There's no diversion at all."
Henry returned and sat back down at the computer. "If I knew what
we were looking for," he put in, "I might be able to speed things up."
"It would be a turning point in the war," Jeffrey answered, "something
so important that if it hadn't happened the south would've lost the
war."
The young man thought for a moment. "Well," he finally commented,
"my history teacher always said that the turning point of the war
wasn't on land but in the water, at The Battle Of Hampton Roads when
The Monitor was sunk with a motorized torpedo and The Union thought the
vessels had a design flaw and didn't build any more. The Mirrimac
destroyed the Union blockade ships. Later the motorized torpedo
attacks on Boston and New York devastated them. The resulting
fires destroyed 65% of New York, and, 35% of Boston! The
Confederacy's intelligence was so good they knew where all the munition
ships were. It was utter devastation! Miraculously all the
torpedo pilots were retrieved. The Union never learned the secret
of the torpedoes until twenty years after the war when The Confederacy
figured the technology was so obsolete that it was safe to reveal the
secret of how they had devastated The Union."
Jeffrey looked at the young man, eyes wide. "Motorized
torpedoes?" he asked, "Show me about these!"
The young man tapped some codes into his computer. "Here we
are!" he remarked. "The motorized torpedo, invented by
Patrick Shaunassey, a boiler engineer, who was a patient in the
consumption sanitarium at Carlton, Virginia. The first torpedoes
were built in the consumption sanitarium's workshop. After the
first battle of Hampton Roads between The Merrimac and The Monitor
which resulted in a draw, neither ship being able to seriously harm the
other, Shaunnassey brought one of his torpedoes to the captain of The
Merrimac, explaining how it worked. That evening The Merrimac
went back out into the water, drawing out The Monitor. As the two
ships exchanged volleys, Shaunnassey piloted his motorized torpedo into
The Monitor's side. She blew up, and sank in seconds. The
success of the weapon thus proven, The Confederacy began to build
hundreds of them, and use them with devastating results, breaking The
Union blockade."
Jeffrey stared at the pictures of the strange looking devices. "How
were they piloted?" he asked.
"The pilot laid on top," Henry explained, "maintaining the
boiler, and keeping the torpedo on course. At the last moment
before the torpedo struck he would roll off into the water and an
automatic guidance system would keep the torpedo on course 'til it hit
its target."
"Incredible!" Jeffrey muttered. "But The Union still had
horrendous numbers of ground troops. How did The Confederacy
overcome that?"