Homing shot?

The Union seem to have an uncanny ability to murder Royal Navy captains. The very opening of the work informs us that 'Rinaldo’s captain, Commander William N. W. Hewett, was killed by a Yankee shot on the quarterdeck of his ship.' In Chapter 4 part 1, HMS Racoon is sunk: we are told that there were 'more than 100' British casualties in the battle, most of which came from Racoon's crew of 270, and naturally the captain is one of them. In the attack on San Francisco, meanwhile, the captain of HMS Bacchante is 'cut in two by a round shot'.

Presumably we are intended to applaud this remarkable accuracy. In reality, hitting so many captains suggests that the Union Navy were firing consistently high, missing their opponent's hulls as they did so- though, strangely, this factor never seems to enter into the results of battles.

There seems to be much that TFSmith does not understand about how contemporary navies worked. For instance, we are informed that:

Alfred had asked to transfer as an observer to Racoon, for the voyage north to Nova Scotia. The Prince had died serving as a gun captain, after replacing an officer killed by the initial shell from Mississippi.

However, in both the Royal Navy and the Union Navy, gun captains were enlisted men rather than officers, and other members of the gun crew were trained to lay the gun if the original captain was killed.