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masses of Sheridan's infantry and cavalry, and came to a stand at the creek for their final resistance to the overwhelming thousands of the enemy. The naval brigade held the right of the line, where it repulsed two assaults of cavalry and one of infantry with its firm formation and rapid, steady fire, the Federals splitting on its front and going to the right and left of it. In one of the dashes of the cavalry, Gen Ewell and his staff were captured, and he passed the order of surrender to his troops, whose line, except that held by the sailors, had been pierced by the Federal charges. The naval brigade and 200 marines, under command of Maj. Simmons, were holding precisely the same position then which had been assigned them in the morning. Com. Tucker was informed that Ewell had ordered a surrender, but refused to believe it. The brigades of infantry on either side of him had ceased firing, but with the remark, "I can't surrender," he ordered his men to continue the engagement. Gen. Wright, the commander of the Federal Sixth corps, had directed the fire of a dozen batteries upon him, and a mass of cavalry were making ready to ride him down, when he was informed for the second time, by Lieut. Clarence L. Stanton, C. S. N., who was on staff duty, of the surrender, and he followed the example of the infantry. He had continued the fighting fifteen minutes after they had lowered their arms, and the naval colors were the last to be laid down. The bravery of the sailors was observed along the Federal lines, and when they did surrender the enemy cheered them long and vigorously.'

The salutations of the foe to the men who "didn't know when to surrender," brought to a close the history of the navy of the Confederate States upon the waters of Virginia. Unconsciously, Com. Tucker and his three hundred sailors had emphasized with a force beyond the limitations of language to convey, the part which this branch of the service had borne through the years when Virginia was the great fighting ground of the war. They had given the final proof of the strength of the convictions which enrolled them under the Southern colors, and of their unswerving fidelity in the painful hour of irresistible disaster. They had sought every opportunity to fire a shot or strike a blow for the liberties of their States; they had unflinchingly obeyed orders leading them into combat against outnumbering enemies; and from they day when the Virginia swept Hampton Roads to that upon which they stood in embattled line at Saylor's Creek they made an unsmirched record as hard and honest fighters, obedient subordinates and loyal patriots.

1 Capt. W. H. Parker says in his "Recollections of a Naval Officer," that Com. Tucker told him afterwards that he had never been in a land battle before, and supposed that everything was going on well. Some years after the war Lieut. Mayo, then in command of a Chesapeake Bay steamer, had Gen. Wright as a passenger and

recalled to his memory the battle of Saylor's Creek. Wright said he remembered with what obstinacy one portion of the Confederate line had been held, and could not account for it until he found that it had been held by sailors who did not know when they were whipped.

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CHAPTER XXIII.

THE TORPEDO SERVICE.

N July 7th, 1861, occurred the earliest instance of the use of torpedoes in the war between the States, in an attempt to destroy an enemy's vessel. The effort was directed against the Federal squadron in the Potomac River at Aquia Creek, the torpedoes consisting of oil casks which buoyed cylinders of boiler-iron containing the explosive material. Fuses led from the casks into the cylinders, and each pair of casks was connected by a rope in order that, going down stream with the tide, they would bring up against the bows of an enemy's ship, the cylinders would swing against her side and the explosion would take place. The apparatus was sent down by the Confederates on the ebb tide, but being observed from the squadron, a boat's crew extinguished the fuses and it was harmlessly secured. In the latter part of July the Federals found adrift in Hampton Roads a barrel of powder so arranged with a floating line, that if the line fouled the anchor chains or the wheel of a ship it would fire a percussion cap placed upon the powder. This was probably the invention of some Confederate at the Norfolk navy-yard, and had been rendered innocuous by the leakage of the barrel.

Subaqueous and subterranean infernal machines came into use about the same time. During January, 1862, in some experiments on the Mississippi River with a submarine torpedo, the Confederates blew up an immense flat-boat "so high that only a few splinters were heard from;" and on entering Columbus, Ky., in March, the Federals found pear-shaped iron casks three feet long, and half as much in diameter, filled with grape, canister and powder, buried in mines under the river bank, and having an electric firing arrangement communicating with stations in the town. Other torpedoes (called the pronged torpedoes), were picked up in the river. On February 13th, 1862, the U. S. gunboat Pembina discovered in the Savannah River, near the mouth of the Wright River, a battery of five tin-can torpedoes anchored by grapnels and

connected with wires, which by the tension exerted upon them by the contact of a passing vessel would fire friction tubes (cannon primers) inserted in the head of each powder chamber. One of these machines was exploded that night when a convoy of artillery was but 200 yards distant, and this induced the Federal commander to suspect that some of them were connected by galvanic wires with Fort Pulaski. Torpedoes of this description were placed in large numbers in the rivers along the Southern coast. Another pattern was the "frame torpedo," which so seriously delayed Burnside's progress up the Neuse River, in March 1862, and was used in narrow channels both for obstruction and destruction. They were thus described:

THE PRONGED TORPEDO. 1

"Three heavy pieces of timber, placed in the position, at the bottom of which was placed a box filled with old iron, stones and other heavy materials, was sunk in the river, and then inclined forward at an angle of fortyfive degrees by means of ropes and weights. This heavy frame was capped by a cylinder of iron, about ten inches in diameter. Into this was fitted a shell, which was heavily loaded, resting on a set of springs, so arranged that the least pressure on the cylinder would instantly discharge the shell by means of a percussion cap ingeniously placed."

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In the retreat of the Confederates from Williamsburg, Va., in May, 1862, Gen. G. J. Rains, subsequently chief of the torpedo service, arranged some ordinary shells beneath the road and fitted them with sensitive primers. A body of Federal cavalry suffered severely from the explosion of these primitive torpedoes as they rode over them, and Gen. McClellan complained of what he styled this "most murderous and barbarous conduct." Gens. Joseph E. Johnston and Longstreet forbade Rains to use these implements of warfare, and the question was referred to Mr. Randolph, Secretary of War, who decided that torpedoes must only be used in a parapet or on a road to repel assaults or check the enemy, or in a river or harbor to drive off blockading or attacking fleets. After the battle of Seven Pines, Gen. Lee suggested to Rains the employment of torpedoes in the James River. The latter was

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"

U. S. IRON-CLAD "CAIRO (BLOWN UP BY CONFEDERATE TORPEDO).

placed in charge of the submarine defences, and claims to have put in position, at Drewry's Bluff, the first submarine torpedo made. Lieut. Hunter Davidson, C. S. N., lays claim to not only the first successful application of electrical torpedoes, but also to having established the system upon the James River. Capt. M. F. Maury,C. S. N., was the predecessor of Davidson in charge of the work, but went to Europe before it was far advanced, where he continued his experiments and invented an ingenious method of arranging and testing torpedo mines, which he was about to put into use at Galveston against the blockaders when Gen. Lee surrendered. Still another claimant to early operations with electric torpedoes is Lieut. Beverley Kennon, C. S. N., who writes that he experimented with devices of his own on Lake Ponchartrain in August, 1861. He also states that at Vicksburg, in the autumn of 1862, he gave torpedo instruction to Acting Master Zedekiah McDaniel, C. S. N., who, with Acting Master Francis M. Ewing, subsequently blew up the U.S. iron-clad gunboat Cairo in the Yazoo River. The expedition

to which that vessel belonged was under the command of Lieut. Com. Thomas O. Selfridge, U. S. N., and embraced also the Pittsburg, Marmora, Signal and ram Queen of the West. On December 12th, 1862, the vessels were a little below Haines' Bluff, where McDaniel and Ewing were stationed in charge of the torpedoes. Two were fired without doing any damage, but the third exploded under the Cairo's bow and sent her to the bottom in 12 minutes. The torpedo which accomplished this was a large demijohn inclosed in a wooden box and fired with a friction primer by a trigger line leading to torpedo pits on shore. It was the first instance of the destruction of a vesselof-war engaged in active warfare by a torpedo.

In October, 1862, the "Torpedo Bureau" was established at Richmond, under the charge of Brig. Gen. G. J. Rains, and the "Naval Submarine Battery Service" was organized under command of Capt. M. F. Maury, who relinquished it to Lieut. Hunter Davidson. An act of Congress, April 21st, 1862, provided that the inventor of a device by which a vessel of the enemy should be destroyed should receive 50 per cent. of the value of the vessel and armament, and the general appropriation bill of May 1st, 1863, embraced an item of $20,000 for this branch of the public service, to be expended under the direction of the Navy Department, which was the first appropriation of the kind. By the act of February 17th, 1864, $100,000 was appropriated for the construction of submarine batteries, and by the act of June 13th, 1864, $250,000 was appropriated for the same purpose. Legislation, however, was not as prompt as it should have been.

Torpedo stations were established at Richmond, Wilmington, Charleston, Savannah and Mobile, with sub-stations at other points. The men of the corps were sworn to secrecy and granted extraordinary privileges on account of the perilous and arduous nature of the service. Several boats engaged in laying torpedoes were destroyed with all their crews by accidental explosions.

The spar torpedo was an important invention which played a conspicous part in this service of the Confederacy. Many such machines were left by the Confederates at Charleston and Richmond when those places were evacuated. Some were cylindrical-shaped copper vessels with convex ends for boats. and tugs; others were larger and were shaped like an egg, the butt being carried forward to bring the greater power of the charge nearest to the object to be destroyed. All were intended to be operated at the extremity of a pole or spar projecting from the stem of the torpedo boat or other vessel.

This spar was attached to the vessel by a goose-neck, fitted to a socket bolted to the bow, near the water-line.

1 "For three years the Confederate Congress legislated on this subject, a bill passing each house alternately for an organized torpedo corps, until the third year, when it passed both houses with

acclamation, and $6,000,000 appropriated, but too late, and the delay was not shortened by this enormous appropriation." Gen. G. J. Rains, So. Historical Society Papers, Vol. III., Nos. 5-6, p. 256.

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