Paddleboat Battalion

Early 1860s, somewhere in the Confederate States of America

It was late afternoon. The fighting was winding down at this point with intermittent gunshots from some ‘clean up’ skirmishing on the perimeter. The carnage was horrific. Not just in the traditional battlefield sense, but more of a combination of war and traveling circus kind of way. The battlefield was spent with the dead of both armies. There was also the unexpected, the paddleboats.

The paddleboats, just by unforeseen chance, had become implements of war late in a defensive action. Very colorful paddleboats, some fit for solo paddlers others equipped to handle two. But too late and poorly deployed. In the aftermath of today’s melee they were scattered along the river’s shoreline, askew, upended many of them, laden with wounded or dead soldiers and riddled with grape shot and minie balls. Grape shot, of course, being a cluster of iron balls wrapped with canvas in a bundle and shot from a cannon. Minie balls were muzzle-loaded iron balls shot from a rifle. Some paddleboats remained afloat but no longer in use as their passengers were all dead, or wounded and dying. They floated down river wherever the slow moving current would eventually decide to deposit them. The battle was done. The paddleboat battalion, their ill-thought tour of duty, concluded.

Human bodies were destroyed and splayed out across the open field over four hundred yards by another two hundred yards. One army dominated the other on this sad bloodstained afternoon, sun still blazing, but descending from its apex. The losing army needed reinforcements, of which there were many, but separated by that lazy, slow rolling river just beyond the battlefield. With the losing army hunkered down along the river’s edge waiting for the reinforcing troops, the victors approached from higher ground and shot at will. A turkey shoot, so they said to each other standing proud, pointing and shooting. Oh sure, many of them were being shot dead in return, but they had the numbers and would clearly win the day.

Across the river were the late-coming, but finally here, reinforcements. But the river! There was no easy crossing and it was easily more than 200 feet across, and too deep to traverse on foot. The soldiers couldn’t swim it because they were bogged down with much heavy gear. There hadn’t been time enough to seek out a way to traverse it nor build a bridge across. But, as wondrous as the odds might be, a traveling carnival had been caught up in the preamble to this brewing war. The people associated with the carnival had scattered long ago as the armies engaged. What they left behind was mostly unusable junk, tents and portable booths. The soldiers approached the river, could see the war in progress, their comrades in distress and sought to get across to do their part. 

A very dedicated corporal was the first to take up the initiative. He saw a paddleboat up river, sat down and got underway, paddling furiously, fueled by rage and adrenaline. He was so exhausted when he finally crossed that he stumbled ashore with wobbly legs only to get popped in the heat of the ‘turkey shoot’ as he disembarked the paddleboat. Meanwhile other soldiers, having seen what was perceived as smart action, engaged paddleboats themselves and were making their own journeys across the river, one by one and two by two. This strange visual of the rainbow colored army had only a minor affect on the actual fighting. The victors were distracted by the colorful, slow moving watercrafts poorly working their way across the river. This then brought some very untimely, and understandable, laughing. The victors watching a makeshift navy of 50 or so paddleboats making unimpressive and inefficient trajectories as they set out on their mission to cross the river. The soldiers who had been hunkered down along the shoreline were briefly rejuvenated at seeing the reinforcements, they loaded their rifles with minie balls and successfully fired upon the soon-to-be victors, temporarily preoccupied with hands on knees laughing at the amusing scene setting up before them.

Many paddleboats lost a soldier from sharpshooters. The remaining paddling combatant in the two-seated paddleboat would be unable to project enough energy for the needed force, as a result the vessel ended up down river rather than across it. Down river they went despite the paddling, a continuous volley of rifles followed as long as necessary. 

As the paddleboat reserves were emptied, the bulk of the reinforcement stranded across the river, the victors finished off what remained of the losing forces, plus the paddleboat battalion still trying to join in. Not a good decision. Paddleboats, as strongly evidenced here, were proven no vessel of choice by which to enter war. The colorful carnival rides littered the shoreline. Broken, bullet riddled and blood soaked.

[Regrettably inspired by a ridiculous thought while reading about Civil War reenactors and the horrors of those battlefields.]