News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1882-11-09
THE TORPEDO IN WAR.
HOW IT WAS UTILIZED IN THE SOUTH AND
THE DAMAGE IT DID.

In an article on the ''Torpedo" dur
ing the war, NJ. Quad says that of the
first Federal victims on the James was
transport loaded with forage. She
was steaming swiftly on her way when
all of sudden she rose several feet in
the air, broke in two before she came
down, and sunk out of sight before one
could have counted ten. She had struck
four-gallon dem1iohn filed with pow
der. Her destruction was followed by
that of several others, and by it became
part of the duty of the crew of an
armed vessel to take small boats and
hunt out these monsters, and many of
the irOn-clads were furnished with grap-
nels to fish them up.
The first efforts at torpedo warfare
were crude enough. The torpedo itself
was demjjOhn or key, and the idea
was to fire it by percussion. Not one
out OF eight were of any value. The
powder would get damp, or the torpedo
would be carried away, or something
would occur to render it useless. A
Confederate who helped plant torpedo
In the James, told me that he saw the
same explode after a steamer passed
over it and was one hundred feet beyond.
The explosion threw a column of water
fifty feet high, and run wave over two
feet high along the shores for a mile.
Had the explosion occurred under the
steamer, she would have been lifted ten
feet high.
Mobile Bay, at the time of Farragut's
attack, had at least a dozen torpedoes
planted in the channel, and although
only one exploded, the consequences
were appalling. That was an electric
torpedo suspended by two buoys. As
the iron-clads moved to the attack the
Tecumseh ran afoul of this torpedo. It
seemed to the Confederates who saw
what followed that she was lifted thirty
feet high, accompanied by such mass
of water that it seemed as if she was
about to sail away in water-spout.
When she dropped back the shock must
have shattered her into sections, for she
went down like cannon ball. Every
gun was overthrow, most of the crew
knocked senseless, and at least third
of the bottom of the craft was torn away.
Four ffths of the crew went to the bot
tom with the Tecumseh, many of them
dead before the waters closed over them. |
1t has been asserted that the Tecumseh |
carried torpedo into the fight to use
against the ram Tennessee, and that this
doubled back under her bottom
and exploded. Farragut makes no men,
ton OF any such torpedo in his official
report, and the Confederates who planted
the internal machine in the channel, saw
the Tecumseh lifted just as she reached
the spot.
1t wascalculated by Confederate au-
thoritiee that the torpedoes planted in
Mobile Bay alone destroyed So. SOC, OO9
worth OF Federal property and 48O lives.
something like fifteen vessels altogether
were blown up and totally DESTROYED.
and out of this number three were frat.
class iron-c lads.
Dozens OF chimerical plans we're pro-
posed for the destruction of the block.
sdlng fleets, and there were manv dis
NAL failures. One plan was to string
torpedoes on long rope suspended by /
buoys and let the affair drift down
ACROSS the bows of the ships. This
night have worked in a narrow river
With swift current, but it was failure
n the harbors.
The line would foul or be carried To
me side, or in some other manner rem
Ter Its freight harmless. Scores of ,,
ioating torpedoes were sent down with