In 1869, however, a Dr. W.C. Pool attended a fisher family at Naggs Head, Kittyhawk, N.C. In the fisherman's hut hung an oil painting of a beautiful woman, which had been taken from an abandoned pilot-built schooner that drifted onto the North Carolina coast in that vicinity in January, 1813. No one was aboard and the vessel had evidently been looted. Ladies' clothes were found in great disorder in the cabin.
There was also a story told by a dying sailor who confessed that he had seen the crew of such a boat walk the plank, and that among them was a beautiful woman who walked into the sea with a Bible or prayer-book in her hand.
The painting is in the possession of the Burr-Alston connection, and is thought by them, on account of its striking family resemblance, to be a picture of Theodosia Burr. The painting story has often been scouted, but there is too much circumstantial evidence to ignore it in treating the legend.
The "Fish-Boat" of the Confederate Navy, which exhaustive research indicates to have been the first submarine vessel to sink an enemy ship in time of war, was designed by Horace L. Hundley in 1863. This boat was twenty feet long, three and one-half feet wide, and five feet deep. Her motive power consisted of eight men whose duty it was to turn the crank of the propeller shaft by hand until the target had been reached. When this primitive craft was closed for diving there was only sufficient air to support life for half an hour. Since the torpedo was attached to the boat itself there was no chance of escape. The only hope was to reach and destroy the
enemy vessel before the crew were suffocated or drowned.
Five successive volunteer crews died without reaching their objectives. But the sixth crew was successful in sinking the Federal blockading ship "Housatonic," their own craft being caught and crushed beneath the foundering vessel. These crews went to certain death in the night time, in such secrecy that it was often months before their own families knew the names of the men. And now, with the lapse of scarcely more than half a century, it has been possible to find the names of only sixteen of those who paid the price.
Because no nation of any time can point to a more inspiring example of self-sacrifice, and because now, in a country reunited and indissoluble, the traditions of both the North and the South are a common, glorious heritage, the poem, which presents the final episode in the drama, is written as a memorial to all who gave their lives in the venture.
D.H.