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
America had lost Narragansett Bay, with all its defenses, great guns and government stations, in less than two weeks after the declaration of war!
The generation that faced this disaster had faced many catastrophes which had seemed great disasters. It had seen States razed by cyclones. It had seen giant floods. It had seen magnificent cities thrown down by a shaking earth. Unterrified, it had flung money and men to the stricken places to make them whole. Destroyed cities rose in beauty almost before the dust of their fall had ceased to veil the sun.
Money, money, money! Men, men, men! It seemed that no disaster could be so colossal that the wonderful resources and efficiency of the United States could not mock at it.
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:
“IT IS OF THE UTMOST IMPORTANCE THAT NO AMMUNITION BE EXPENDED WITHOUT URGENT NEED. COMPANY COMMANDERS WILL ENFORCE THIS ORDER RIGOROUSLY.”