CHAPTER XXVI.
A Woman's Discoveries.—An Infernal Machine.—The Shipping in Danger.—Discovery and Destruction of the Submarine Battery.
The destiny of nations, history tells us, sometimes turns upon the most trivial things. Rome was once saved by the gabbling of a flock of geese, whose cries awoke a sentinel sleeping at his post, just in time to give the alarm and enable the Roman soldiers to successfully repel the attack of an invading foe. A certain exiled and fugitive king took courage from watching a spider build its web, recovered his kingdom, and a crown that had been wrested from him by the misfortune of war. Darius, made King of Persia by the neighing of a horse—and in our own day historians agree, that had it not been for the opportune appearance of the "Monitor" when the rebel iron-clad "Merrimac" steamed out of Hampton Roads in March, 1862, the destruction of the Union might have been an accomplished fact. For had not that formidable battery met her match in the "Yankee cheese-box," as the "Monitor" was derisively called, she might have cleared the water of Union sloops of war, raised the blockade, opened the way by river to Washington, shelled the national capital and turned the fortunes of war decidedly in favor of the South.
This battle was an important epoch in the history of nations, and demonstrated to the world the formidable character of iron-clad war vessels, hitherto unknown; and placed the United States on record as having produced the most invincible navy in the world.
In addition to the "Merrimac," the South, early in 1862, had devised a great many ingenious machines in the shape of torpedoes and submarine batteries, that were designed for the purpose of blowing up the Union vessels that blockaded the Southern ports.
It was through the efforts of one of my operatives that the existence of one of these submarine batteries was discovered, and that, too, just in the nick of time to save the Federal blockading fleet at the mouth of the James River from probable destruction. It was in the early part of November, 1861, that I dispatched one of my lady operatives to Richmond and the South, for the especial purpose of ascertaining as much information as possible about these torpedoes and infernal machines, which I had good reason to believe were constructed at the rebel capital. The Tredegar Iron Works, the largest factory of the kind in the South, were located at this place, and since the commencement of hostilities had been manufacturing cannon and all kinds of shot and shell for the Confederacy.
The lady whom I selected for this task was Mrs. E. H. Baker; she had been in my employ for years, and at one time had resided in Richmond, although, prior to the war, she had removed to the North, where she had since dwelt.