Hello everyone, I'm back again with another sotry that I hope you all will enjoy. I've been a fan of the Assassin's Creed series since it started and have often wondered where the series might go. Now I have the chance to write a fanfic about it. I hope you all enjoy, and please let me know how I'm doing.
DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING OR ANYONE IN THE ASSASSIN'S CREED UNIVERSE, ONLY MY OCS.
THIS FANFICTION WAS CREATED USING HISTORICAL PERSONS AND PLACES.
THOUGH I AM FROM THE STATE OF LOUISIANA (GOD BLESS LOUISIANA AND THE USA), WHICH WAS ONE OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES DURING THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, I, IN NO WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM APPROVE OF SLAVERY NOR AM I A RACIST INDIVIDUAL, SO DON'T SAY AS SUCH.
FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO DON'T KNOW SHIP DESIGNATIONS:
USS STANDS FOR 'UNITED STATES SHIP' (UNION)
CSS STANDS FOR 'CONFEDERATE STATES SHIP' (CONFEDERACY)
Prologue: Traitor and Hero, Patriot and Rebel
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Date: 27 May, 1879
Location: Near La Martinique, twenty miles from port.
"Captain, for all intents and purposes, no one must ever know of your actions. You sailed for both the Union and for the Confederacy during a time we were at our weakest. When many powerful nations could and would have challenged us while we bickered and would have swept us aside. You may never know the thanks of a nation as grateful as ours, but by God as my witness you have earned my everlasting gratitude for your service."
-Abraham Lincoln, 13 April, 1865.
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My name is James William Miller. And I am the Captain of a vessel that sunk some fourteen years ago, or at least that's how the Union Navy tells the story. Fact of the matter is, they had to claim my boat as sunk so that it could be used for its most dangerous mission yet. During a time of great unrest, I flew the flag of both Confederacy and Union from my ship.
Known to the North as the Raider (oh, the irony) and to the South as the CSS Alabama, I fought for both sides to bring an even quicker end to the war and to eliminate the ones behind it. I stormed through Union blockades, sunk Confederate smugglers and other privateers, and claimed numerous prizes as both Confederate and Union, all while working for one singular purpose.
History would say the CSS Alabama was sunk by the USS Kearsage, in 1864. The truth is much more terrifying and much, much more dangerous than any could imagine. As long as I stick to my mission, I am invincible; untouchable by all laws of man, save those of the sea. If I am caught by either side, I shall swing from the gallows as a spy. If I flee, I shall be pursued as a deserter and much more. I only have one mission: End the War, by any means. As the blood of my brothers and fellow Americans drowns the land, I have but one objective: Survive.
I am James W. Miller, a citizen of the state of Louisiana and an officer in both the Confederate and Union Navies; and I am an Assassin.
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I stood on the foredeck of the Alabama and gazed at the foreboding port before me. Somewhere in that city, was my target. A friend, now turned enemy. A man hell-bent on destroying what so many gave their lives to build. As I gaze out at sea, I am reminded of my path. How I started, how I came to join the Order, how I somehow managed to turn the tide and end the threat of those pouring near limitless funds into the war that had ravaged my homeland for five years.
Just like the war, my journey started in 1861; the news of John Brown's hanging fresh in our minds, and the news that Louisiana had ceded from the Union fresh in the papers.
It is almost impossible for me to believe that eighteen years ago, I was shooting damn swamp rats with my best friend John Harper just outside our hometown of New Orleans when the call to arms came about. Louisiana had just ceded from the United States and had joined the ever-growing Confederacy. Unlike most young men my age who joined the Army (such as another friend of mine, Joshua Cobb), John and I joined the Confederate Navy, stationed in New Orleans, our hometown.
Early in the war from 1861 to 1862 I was assigned to a Confederate gunboat, the CSS Selma. I fought in several battles including the Battle for New Orleans in 1862. In early 1863, I was supposed to be assigned to another gunboat, the CSS Chattahochee (no I am not making that name up). Yet, thanks to a work ethic born from hard farm life, I worked my way up from deck hand to gunner's mate and from there to midshipman and was bumped up the line to serving on the 'cotton-clad' warship, CSS Governor Moore.
It was during this time I first came into contact with a man who would become a new friend to me, and later, my most hated enemy: Lieutenant Charles Edward Briggs, an officer in the Confederate Navy, a lieutenant aboard the CSS Gaines which was a partial Ironclad vessel. A man I discovered later in life that he was a high ranking member of an order known only as the Templars.
He was the friendly sort. A very likeable man who was easy going on his men under his command. What made me like him was that, like me, hated slavery with a passion and never so much as wanted to own slaves. He came from a wealthy family somewhere in Florida that owned a few slaves but was the second son and thus would not inherit the plantation. He had managed to go to college at Richmond, Virginia and later joined the Confederacy as an officer.
Being an officer however, he could afford to buy slaves and often did, only to free and release them later on with forged papers. Before I knew what being a Templar (or an Assassin for that matter) meant, I was just as content to let him teach me about all manner of things. Though at first, I laughed about being 'taught' anything.
Being young and thinking I was smarter than every other living man alive, I naturally thought I could shoot the fleas of a hound's back at a thousand paces with a two dollar pistol, blindfolded, and with both hands tied behind my back and could have tackled any man alive in a drinking contest, knife-fight, brawl, or any other contest you could even think of.
All the times my mom and dad tanned my hide (in other words, a whipping) for doing something stupid should have prepared me for disappointment.
I accepted each challenge with the belief it was easier done than said yet time and again I was akin to a slack-jawed idiot every time I was shown how little I knew. (Which was very often.) Every day was a new lesson, a new adventure. Another step towards my destiny.
When I made midshipman and had a few actions to my name and credit, Edward requested my transfer to the Gaines as his assistant. Naturally he promoted me to Ensign and then began my instruction on how to act, speak, and fight like a Southern gentleman and most importantly, he taught me how to sail a vessel of war. Not some measly three-masted schooner used for hauling cotton and tobacco from Mobile to New York but a real sea-worthy ship. He even presented me with a sword and a pistol.
The pistol was a .36 caliber Savage Naval revolver often called the 'Figure-eight' because of the unique loading action, and the naval cutlass was said to have once belonged to a privateer named Shay Patrick Cormac.
I'll remember that day vividly because that next morning (while still drunk and hungover), I learned that my best friend, John Harper, had been killed when the Chattahochee exploded while in Blountsville, Georgia in May of 1863. Later Edward was made Captain of a new ship and was forced to leave me behind. He had been a sort of older brother to me and now, without my friend, without my brother, I felt I was truly alone.
It was later that month in fact that I was asked by a close friend of Edward to help him take possession of a new Confederate ship. It was no secret that the Confederacy had been paying European shipwrights to make ships for us. This vessel in particular had just been completed in Liverpool and was being armed in Nassau. All we needed to do was go down, flash our papers and sail her back.
However, there was more to the war than I was aware of at the time. Just as the war had split the nation in half, so too had it split the Assassin and Templar orders of the nation. It was while in Nassau that I first became aware of the Assassins.
On the way to Nassau, the Gaines was attacked by a vessel flying the Union Navy banner. Naturally we returned fire but we took some hits and I was sent over the side in one of the blasts. God much love those who seem to be in hopeless situations because just as I went under to consign myself to the deep, I felt someone grab my soaked uniform and pull me to the surface.
I found myself to be a 'guest' aboard the Union privateer, USS Kearsage, (again with the irony) and as it just so happened, she was a vessel that not only sailed for the Union but also for the Assassins (the Yankee branch of the Order).
Being a loyal southerner, I at first had nothing to do with them. The crew of the ship were a mixed lot to be sure. Some whites, mainly officers and high ranking deck hands, some blacks, even some indians and a chinaman or two. Most common were the Irishmen (God Bless the Irish).
Of particular note was a foul-mouthed deck watchman who kept the watch on me during the day and always started me off right in the morning with a bucket cold sea water (which I believe was used for swabbing the decks, or worse, flushing the bilge) over my head. I can safely say that from the smell that clung to my hair, it was bilge water.
There was a man with them though, he looked to be part Native-American and white and spoke with a clear albeit pure 'Yankee' accent. Little did I know at the time that I had been introduced to James Connor Kenway, the great-grandson of the Mentor Connor Kenway of the Colonial Brotherhood, and the great-great-great grandson of Edward James Kenway, a pirate who terrorized these same waters at the turn of the last century and fought both Spanish and British Templars.
I don't know what it was but something about James seemed approachable. While the rest of the Union crew treated me with disdain, he was open, always speaking as if trying to understand me. Eventually I told him my name, my rank, and the reasons I joined the Confederate Navy in the first place. When asked if I was a slave owner, I laughed and said something that, had I known the effect it would have had...
I would have kept my damn mouth shut.
After spitting out some blood (and a broken tooth) compliments of the freedman who was on deck who took 'offense' at my language, I amended my previous remark and assured them I despised slavery. I grew up on a farm, the son of an English mother whose own father had disowned her for running off to the 'colonies' with my father, a German dockworker turned sailor turned Louisiana farmer. We were poor as dirt, had only a flea-bitten nag to plow the fields, and could barely raise enough crops to feed ourselves much less an army of slaves.
My Mother, being a properly educated woman, taught me my letters and numbers while my Father taught me German as well as the way of the sea. I also picked up French easily enough while I worked in New Orleans at the harbor offloading and loading goods from far off places. (To this day I can still smell those endless crates of cheese imported from France.)
When I mentioned my time as the subordinate of Edward Briggs, James took an exceptional interest in that subject as did the rest of the crew. I told them that he was not an evil man as I knew some Yankees were wont to say about any Southerner. They left me alone for a few days and just as the port of Nassau was coming into view from my station (by which I meant being chained to the foremast), James approached me wearing a Union blue coat which looked more like a robe than anything. Hood down, hair tied back, sword, boarding axe, and pistols at the ready. An Assassin.
Seeing him like that, I will freely admit I felt like soiling myself. He had transformed from a man who was merely curious as to my existance and my purpose to a man who would kill anyone who crossed him in cold blood with little to no hesitation. He looked down at me and nodded at which point I felt the ropes binding my hands come away and I was helped to my feet. James pulled one of the two revolvers from his belt and handed it to me. I'll never forget his words as long as I live.
"If you wish to still believe that this war only encompasses North and South, then go ahead and pull the trigger. I am an officer of the Union Navy and you an officer of the Confederate Navy. You may kill me but my crew here will avenge me ten-fold and still see my buisness here concluded. If, however, you want to see the world in a new light. If you want to understand that this war is just as much about ideaologies and faiths as it is about freedom and liberty, then follow us and we will show you the true enemy that we all face, North and South, black and white. Know this though, once you choose this course of action, you can never go back to the way things were."
He saw my grip on the revolver relax and he took that as a sign and nodded. Then he, and six others wearing the same blue coat/robes leapt from the bow and began swimming for the shore. I holstered the revolver and stared at the swimming men and felt the eyes of the remaining crew upon me.
What made me move, I'll never know. Perhaps my own curiousity. Perhaps I was still mourning the death of my friend and wanting to see if he had died in vain or not. Perhaps it was the hand of God giving me a gentle nudge forward to set me back on the straight and narrow. Perhaps I just felt there was something bigger awaiting me than simply being an officer in the Confederate Navy. I'll never know.
The moment I leapt from the boat and followed James into Nassau, I knew I had become a traitor.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Perhaps it is best I start back in the beginning. Back on the Gaines, that moment I jumped and started swimming into Nassau. The flag of England in the distance, overshadowing the Confederate Naval Ensign that flew from the Gaines as well as the nearby ship they were retrieving, the CSS Florida.
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Alright everyone, he's the prologue to the Assassin's Creed story I've been thinking about for a time. Now then, for those of you who, like me, enjoy the historical ascpects of the game, he's a little 'Codex' for you.
(I'll try to place them at the end of every chapter.)
CODEX:
Louisiana Sucedes:
On January 26, 1861, in an incredible 113 to 17 vote, the state of Louisiana adopted the 'Ordnance of Sucession' and thus declared their ties to the United States of America cut. Celebrations throughout the state were common and the Governor of the state asked all citizens and buisness owners to put lights in their windows as a show of support. The Port of New Orleans was especially vocal about the sucession and even fired harbor and fortification cannons in celebration.
Sucession was not without its opponents however. Most outspoken was Judge James G. Taliaferro of Catahoula Parish who stated that sucession would bring about war, ruin, and decline.
Given the sentiments at the time, it is not surprising that his opinion was not asked for when the state suceeded.
Battle for New Orleans:
On the morning of April 25th, 1862, the city of New Orleans Louisiana awoke to the sound of cannonfire coming from the port. To the horror of the citizens, they discovered that the Union Navy Fleet commanded by Admiral Farragut had begun to attack the harbor and the nearby position of Fort St. Philip.
New Orleans, being one of the largest ports in the Confederacy as well as historically being the 'Las Vegas' of the 1800s made it desirable as a blockade port and as a position for the many Louisiana offenses that the Union planned. Furthermore, many in the city had Union sympathies and many buisnesses had pro-Union behaviors. After the city fell, it was declared a Union State by the Federal Government and was granted a voice in Congress. For the rest of the war Louisiana had two governors, one appointed by the people of the Confederacy and another elected by the Union.
During the battle, the Confederate ironclads 'CSS Louisiana' and her sister ship 'CSS Mississippi' ,which were under construction at the harbor, were burned and cut from their mooring to avoid capture.
CSS Louisiana was actually armed when the attack took place but had no engines. She was installed as a secondary battery for Fort St. Philip and was burned when the fort fell. The CSS Mississippi on the other hand was largely incomplete and was burned in the port.
It is speculated that, had these two collossal ironclads been completed, armed, and fully operational at the time of the attack, the outcome might have been different.
Naval Combat in the Civil War:
By the time of the Civil War, the steam engine had become a necessary addition to most ship designs. Though the ships such as the mighty man'o war, frigates, schooners, gunboats, brigs and barques were still seen, they had far fewer guns than previously in history and were fitted with one of three modes of movement. Most vessels relied on sail power with a single simple steam engine while some larger vessels used paddlewheels and a few notable examples used all three.
Sail power was the first and most used mode of movement. Though the speed was slow and the wind could leave you in a moment's notice, there was no risk of an explosion setting the ship ablaze underneath you as was so common (and widely feared) of early steam engines at the time.
The second was paddlewheels which were less common than sails but more common than screws or propellors. You know what I mean, giant wheels with long beams that rotated through the water being powered by one or two massive pistons and steam engines? Like the riverboats on the old Mississippi River? Anyway, there were three types of paddlewheelers: a single rear paddlewheel, a side wheeler that held two thinner paddlewheels and were usually covered by a 'fender' and were powered by a central shaft and rotated by a series of piston rods. The third was a bit of a rarity, a central wheeler; a ship that had a hole somewhere inside the center of the ship and the covered paddlewheel centered amidships.
The third was true steam power, the forerunner to the modern day ship design. Steam engines would rotate one of two central shafts that was connected to a propellor (oftentimes called screws because of the way they pushed the ship through the water). This mode of transpirt became a sort of 'secret weapon' for many ships because you could not see the propellor unless you were right next to the ship and looked down. If a vessel was being pursued or wished to make better time, the sails would sometimes be furled to prevent embers, the boilers lit, and the ship was propelled through the water.
Ironically, steam powered vessels were among the fastest ships in the world some attaining speeds of 13, 14, even 15 Knots. Yet they were well known for the risks that speed granted. Many was a time a careless engineer let the boiler run out of water or an officer insist safety checks be 'delayed' for the sake of a timely arrival in port and a big bonus for early delivery and the result was a boiler explosion that could and often did sink the ship or leave it with incredible (and expensive) damages to repair.
(For those of you saying 'Oh they're ships, why not boil sea water?' Sea water is salt water, most engines back then were made of iron; boiling sea water produces a highly corrosive steam that could and did eat through and rust the internal workings of the engine, resulting in more expensive repairs.)
Confederate Ships:
CSS Selma (Gunboat):
One of the longest serving gunboats in the Confederate Navy, the Selma was originally built as a mail boat in Mobile, Alabama. After the war started, she was cut down, armored, armed and redeployed as a gunboat. She is most well known for engaging the Union ships 'USS Massachusetts' and 'USS Montgomery' during the Battle for Mobile. She was sank and refloated but in the end was surrendered when Mobile fell and was pressed into Union service until being sold in 1865.
CSS Chattahochee (Gunboat):
A three masted schooner-class vessel built in 1863, she was also equipped with two steam engines that propelled this graceful ship through the waves at 12 Knots. Three months after being launched however, she sank in Blountsville, Florida after a boiler explosion. She was refloated and towed to Columbus, Georgia for repairs but was burned to prevent capture in the Apalachicola River in Florida.
CSS Governor Moore (Cotton-clad):
Another schooner-class side-wheeler vessel that was siezed for the Confederacy in New Orleans. She was equiped with two heavy guns and a reinforced ram on her bow. She fought in the defence of New Orleans where she rammed the Union vessel, 'USS Varuma' and forced her aground. As she headed back into the battle, she came under fire from another Union ship, 'USS Oneida', and was forced to beach herself near the crippled Varuma.
To be presise, a 'cotton-clad' is a vessel that uses pine timbers and bales of cotton to protect the machinery and boilers in the ship's hull. Think of them as the answer to the Union's tin-clad or rubber-clad vessels of similar size and abilities.
CSS Gaines (Partial Iron-clad):
This vessel was originally an all wood schooner-class but was refitted with 2 inch armor plates partially covering her hull (hence the type 'partial iron-clad'). The Gaines, along with the gunboats 'CSS Selma', 'CSS Morgan', and the full iron-clad 'CSS Tennessee', engaged Farragut's fleet in Mobile on August 5, 1864. After the Tennessee surrendered and the Selma sank, the Captain of the Gaines fired the ship to prevent its capture.
CSS Alabama (Confederate Raider):
Built in the Azores, this vessel struck terror into Union shipping as one of the most successful privateers of the war sinking or capturing some 65 vessels from the West Indies to Cherbourg, France where she was engaged and sunk by the Union ship 'USS Kearsage'.
Using both sail and steam power and a single propellor (screw), the Alabama could reach a speed of 13 Knots and made history by embarking on a 22 month long terror campaign against Union shipping that ended with her sinking June 19, 1864.
Other notable vessels include 'CSS Florida' with 58 vessels sunk or captured and the 'CSS Shenandoah' with 38 vessels.
Union Ships:
USS Kearsage (Union Sloop of War):
A vessel a history teacher of mine once called 'the Bismarck of the Union Navy'. This white oak reinforced sloop was launched in 1861 and from the start was a dedicated privateer hunter. Though somewhat slower than her quarry at 11 Knots, she nevertheless proved herself time and again. Her most notable victory was in June 19, 1864 off the coast of Cherbourg, France where she engaged the Confederate Raider 'CSS Alabama' and sunk her.
Alas this vessel is also a tragic one as in 1894, she was wrecked on a Central American reef and lost. A tragic end to a noble vessel.
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Okay everyone, that's the Codex. So...like it? Like the idea of the story? Please PM me, review, fav, or follow the story. To know people are actually reading my stories and enjoying them are what makes me want to write more.
Redid the dates so that I can fit in the plot of the next few chapters.
Until next time!