Connecticut western news., 1882-10-25
THE TORPEDO IN WAR.
HOW IT WAS UTILIZED IN THE SOUTH AM
 THE DAMAGE IT DID.


 In an article on the s"Torpedo" dur. ing the war, M. Quad says that of the first Federal victims on the James was a 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 a four-gallon demljohn filed with pow der. Her destruction was followed by that of several others, and by it became a 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 erap- nels to fish them up.
 The first efforts at torpedo warfare were crude enough. The torpedo itself was demijohn or keg, 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 mile. Had the explosion occurred under the steamer, she would have been lifted ten feet high.
 Mobile Bay, at the time of Farraguts attack, had at least 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 8 water-spout. When she dropped back the shock must have shattered her into sections, for she went down like 8 cannon ball. Every gun was overthrown, most of the crew knocked senseless, and at least third of the bottom of the craft was torn away. Four fifths of the crew went to the bot tom with the Tecumseh, many of them dead before the waters closed over them. It has been asserted that the Tecumseh carried torpedo into the fight to use against the ram Tennessee, and that this monster doubled back under her bottom and exploded. Farragut makes no men, tion 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.
 It was calculated by Confederate au- thorities that the torpedoes planted in Mobile Bay alone destroyed $3, 800, 900 worth of Federal property and 4SO lives. Something like fifteen vessels altogether were blown up and totally destroyed. and out of this number three were first- class iron clads.
 Dozens of chim erical plans were pro. posed for the destruction of the block sding fleets, and there were many 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 might have worked in 8 narrow river with swift current, but it was failure in the harbors.
 The line would foul or be carried tc one side, or in some other manner ren. der its freight harmless. Scores ol floating torpedoes were sent down with the tide, in hopes they might infllct damage, bat in only one or two in stencea did they pay for the wasted