Fulton arrived in America in December, 1806, and so far from being discouraged by the apathy displayed towards his inventions in Europe, inaugurated fresh experiments, under Government sanction, a certain expenditure being authorised. An amusing account of one of his semi-public exhibitions is given by his biographer:[47]—“In the meantime, anxious to prepossess his countrymen with a good opinion of his project, he invited the [pg 149]magistracy of New York and a number of citizens to Governor’s Island, where were the torpedoes and the machinery with which his experiments were to be made; these, with the manner in which they were to be used and were expected to operate, he explained very fully. While he was lecturing on his blank torpedoes, which were large empty copper cylinders, his numerous auditors crowded round him. At length he turned to a copper case of the same description, which was placed under the gateway of the fort, and to which was attached a clockwork lock. This, by drawing out a peg, he set in motion, and then said to his attentive audience, ‘Gentlemen, this is a charged torpedo, with which, precisely in its present state, I mean to blow up a vessel; it contains one hundred and seventy pounds of gunpowder, and if I were to suffer the clockwork to run fifteen minutes, I have no doubt but that it would blow this fortification to atoms!’ The circle round Mr. Fulton was very soon much enlarged, and before five of the fifteen minutes were out there were but two or three persons remaining under the gateway; some, indeed, lost no time in getting at the greatest possible distance from the torpedo with their best speed, and did not again appear on the ground till they were assured it was lodged in the magazine.” Fulton, of course, displayed the utmost coolness, knowing that his torpedo could not explode till the clockwork had run its allotted time, and of course taking care that it should be stopped long before the expiration of the fifteen minutes.
On the 20th of July, 1807, he attempted to blow up with torpedoes, in the harbour of New York, a large hulk brig which had been provided for the purpose. Several unsuccessful [pg 150]attempts were made at first, owing to some derangements connected with the locks of the exploding apparatus. At length, however, the explosion took place, and was a thorough success. He has left a full account of it in his own work.[48] Nothing was left of the brig; all that was seen in her place was a high column of water, smoke, and fragments. It showed, as Fulton always believed, that the torpedo should, if possible, be exploded under the vessel to be blown up. In his cool but yet enthusiastic way he says: “Should a ship of the line containing five hundred men contend with ten good row-boats, each with a torpedo and ten men, she would risk total annihilation, while the boats, under the cover of the night and quick movements, would risk only a few men out of one hundred.”
Fulton, after this, lectured frequently before the members of Congress, and so favourably impressed them that a sum of 5,000 dollars was voted in aid of his experiments. One of the plans he proposed was to couple by a line two torpedoes, then letting them drift on the bow of the vessel to be destroyed, the line would catch on the cable or bows, and the torpedoes would drift towards the vessel on either side. He also proposed “block ships” of 50 or 100 tons, with cannon-proof sides and musket-proof decks (i.e., virtually ironclads), to be propelled by machinery, which was to be worked by the crew. “On each quarter and bow she was to be armed with a torpedo fastened to a long spar, the interior end of which was to be supported and braced by ropes from the yards.... By means of these spars the torpedoes were to be thrust under the bottom of the vessel to be destroyed.” Half the many plans proposed for torpedo warfare may be traced back to Robert Fulton at the end of the last and beginning of the present century. Among his inventions was a “cable-cutting machine,” a description of which would occupy an undue amount of space in a popular work. Suffice it to say that by its means he succeeded in cutting, several feet below the surface of the water, the cable—a 14-inch one—of a vessel lying at anchor.
One of the most important experiments made at this time was his attempt, under sanction of Government, to blow up the sloop-of-war Argus, and the case demonstrates very clearly the ingenuity of the defence, and the means taken to foil the assailing torpedo. We have heard quite recently of propositions to defend a vessel by means of a kind of “crinoline,” as it has been termed, a strong network, &c., surrounding the whole or a part of the vessel at some distance from it, which should prevent the torpedo from exploding near the hull. Such was actually the means devised by Commodore Rodgers, of the United States Navy, in the year 1809, and which proved entirely successful in foiling Fulton’s torpedo. Colden says:—“She had a strong netting suspended from her spritsail-yard, which was anchored at the bottom; she was surrounded by spars lashed together, which floated on the surface of the water, so as to place her completely in a pen; she had grappling-irons and heavy pieces of the same metal suspended from her yards and rigging, ready to be plunged in any boat that came beneath them; she had great swords, or scythes, fastened to the ends of long spars, moving like sweeps, which unquestionably would have mowed off as many heads as came within their reach.”
THE OLD STYLE AND THE NEW (A THREE-DECKER AND A TORPEDO BOAT).
By these devices the torpedo-boat was unable to get near the Argus, while the netting, [pg 151]anchored to the bottom of the harbour, prevented any probability of the torpedo being fired under the vessel. The Government had practically said to Fulton, “Do your best, and we’ll do our best to defeat you.” The experiment was not one-sided, as are so many. Fulton, far from complaining, thus wrote: “I will do justice to the talents of Commodore Rodgers. The nets, booms, kentledge, and grapnels which he arranged around the Argus made a formidable appearance against one torpedo-boat and eight bad oarsmen. I was taken unawares. I had explained to the officers of the navy my means of attack; they did not inform me of their means of defence. The nets were put down to the ground, otherwise I should have sent the torpedoes under them. In this situation, the means with which I was provided being imperfect, insignificant, and inadequate to the effect to be produced, I might be compared to what the inventor of gunpowder would have appeared had he lived in the time of Julius Cæsar, and presented himself before the gates of Rome with a four-pounder, and had endeavoured to convince the Roman people that by means of such machines he could batter down their walls. They would have told him that a few catapultas casting arrows and stones upon his men would cause them to retreat; that a shower of rain would destroy his ill-guarded powder; and the Roman centurions, who would have been unable to conceive the various modes in which gunpowder has since been used to destroy the then art of war, would very naturally conclude that it was a useless invention; while the manufacturers of catapultas, bows, arrows, and shields would be the most vehement against further experiments.”
LIEUT. CUSHING’S ATTACK ON THE “ALBEMARLE.”
Torpedoes were used extensively during the civil war in America, but almost entirely for rivers or harbour defence. One of the most prominent examples was the following:—The ironclad ram Albemarle[49] had been carrying all before it, till Lieutenant Cushing, a brave young officer, scarcely twenty-one years of age, took a steam-launch, equipped as a torpedo-boat, on the night of October, 1864, up the Roanoake River. He had with him thirteen men. The launch was steered directly for the ironclad, which lay at one of the wharfs of Plymouth, protected by a raft of logs extending thirty feet. The enemy’s fire was at once very severe, but the torpedo-boat went bravely on, and succeeded in pressing in the logs a few feet. Cushing, in his despatch, says—“The torpedo was exploded at the same time that the Albemarle’s gun was fired. A shot seemed to go crashing through my boat, and a dense mass of water rushed in from the torpedo, filling and completely disabling her. The enemy then continued to fire at fifteen feet range, and demanded our surrender, which I twice refused.” Cushing leaped into the water and, with one of his party, made good his escape. The rest of the little crew were either captured, killed, or wounded. The object of the attack was, however, successful, and the Albemarle was found to be a complete wreck. Torpedoes were also employed with great effect by the Paraguayans in their war against the Brazilians in 1866.