Evening bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1895-1912, 1898-07-07

ship and fouled with the anchor cable,
and all the crew perished. That was
the fifth fatal attempt to use the boat
as diver.
"After the fifth failure there were
volunteers ready to try again, but Beau
regard stipulated that the boat be rigged
for work on the surface of the bay. He
sanctioned q trial in that way under
command Of Lieutenant George Dixon
Of the Twenty-flrst Alabama. She was
re6tted and armed with spar torpedo
of about 90 pounds of powder. Thirty
lives had been lost in the little craft,
but Dixon found crew Of six men
willing to go out in her. Five Of the
number were seamen in the navy, and
Captain Carlson of the South Carolina
artillery battalion made the sixth. With
that crew Lieutenant Dixon set out to
remove the Housatonic from the North
channel.
1.-THE Housatonic was new screw
sloop mounting six guns, one of them a
100 FOUNDER. Her commander, Captain
W. r. Taylor, had seen service in the
Mexican war and was a gallant sailor.
On the night of Feb. II, 1864, the ship
was riding at anchor. The officer of
the deck paced mechanically to and fro
scanning the bay as well as the dark.
ness would permit. About O'Clock he
saw about 100 yards off a small object
that seemed to be floating plank. IL
was moving directly and swiftly toward
the ship. Waiting few seconds to
make sure that there was danger at
hand the lookout gave the alarm and
called all hands to quarters 1t was too
late to save the vessel, but the men
were ON deck when she swayed and
dropped from under them.
1.-THE little cigar boat had sneaked
alongshore the night previous. Hidden
among tall reeds on shore she had pass
ed the day and at twilight set out upon
her mission. While the cry was sound
ing on board the doomed sloop Lieuten-
ant Dixon rushed upon her and explod-
ed the torpedo just forward of the main
mast. The charge burst through the
side of the ship, making hole below
the water line. In four minutes she
rested on the bottom, fortunately in
shoal water. The crew took to the boats
or climbed in the rigging, and all but
five escaped"
In the commotion Of the waters caus-
ed by the torpedo the mysterious plank
disappeared, and the people on the
Housatonic did not know what struck
her until years after the war. Even the
Confederates were in ignorance as to the
sinking of the Housatonic and the fate
of the "cigar boat" There were other
internal devices floating around the har.
Dor to make mischief in the blockading
fleet. With her reputation for accidents
it was assumed that the little boat
might have gone down without accom-
plishing her mission. More than ten
years after the war the secret Of Lieu
tenant Dixon's fate was cleared up.
The wreck Of the Housatonic had re.
mained in the channel, but was finally
raised, and the divers engaged in the
work discovered in the debris that had
drifted around the hull mysterious
rusty iron machine. 1t lay 100 feet or
so from the PROV of the ship, with one
end pointing toward it. When broken
open the remains of Dixon and his crew
told the story. They had paid the pen.
atty of supreme daring and found O
coffin in the instrument of their glorifi-
cation.
Notwithstanding the reality of this
submarine war engine boats of this
character have been deemed chimerical
and popularity supposed to exist only in
the brains of crazy inventors or the
imagination of romances. Jules Verne
puzzled and amused the reading world
with Captain Nemo's strange craft in
his weird tales Of adventure, "Twenty
Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. I"
Some years ago General Lloyd Brice
wrote a satire upon the defenselessness
of the American coast, and one of the
improvised measures adopted for the
safety of New York against naval attack
was wonderful fishboat, invented and
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