THE “DAVID” THAT SANK THE “HOUSATONIC.”
It was originally designed to make the attack by passing under the keel of a ship towing a contact torpedo, having a small reserve buoyancy. Under favourable conditions the torpedo would be drawn under water when the vessel descended, strike the bottom of the ship, and explode on contact.
During her first cruise under the orders of Lieut. Payne (or Paine?) an enemy’s vessel passed close to her without noticing her; the swill raised by her paddles sunk the David, and Payne alone of all the crew saved himself. When the boat was recovered from the bottom, Lieut. Payne persuaded eight sailors to embark with him; a squall of wind caused the boat to fill with water, Lieut. Payne and two bluejackets alone escaping by leaping out of her as she went down. No sooner was the boat recovered from the bottom than her gallant commander offered to try again. A new crew volunteered, and all went well for a time. But one night, off Fort Sumter, she capsized, and only four (of whom Lieut. Payne was one) escaped.
A third time she was raised, and the next essay was made in the Cooper River, under the lead of Mr. Aunley, one of the men who had constructed the boat. Alas! She sank for the fourth time, having caught her nose in the bottom, and all hands were drowned. Once more she was recovered only to foul the cable of a schooner at anchor in the harbour, and to sink for a fifth time.
Up to this time five crews of eight each had volunteered for service in the ill-starred David, and of these forty men, no less than thirty-five had perished. The brave Southern sailors, instead of fighting shy of the submarine, were as ready as ever to face death again. The David was recovered, and Lieut. Dixon, with Captain Carlson, both officers in the Confederate army, volunteered with five others to take her out against the Northern fleet. The Federal corvette Housatonic lay outside the bar in Charleston harbour, and it was on this vessel that on the evening of February 17, 1864, the attack was made, an attack which is thus vividly described by Admiral David Porter, U.S. Navy, in his book, “The Naval History of the Civil War”:—
“At about 8.45 p.m. the officer of the deck on board the unfortunate vessel discovered something about 100 yards away, moving along the water. It came directly towards the ship, and within two minutes of the time it was first sighted was alongside. The cable was slipped, the engines backed, and all hands called to quarters. But it was too late—the torpedo struck the Housatonic just forward of the mainmast, on the starboard side, in a line with the magazine. The man who steered her knew where the vulnerable spots of the steamer were, and he did his work well. When the explosion took place the ship trembled all over as if by the shock of an earthquake, and seemed to be lifted out of the water, and then sunk stern foremost, heeling to port as she went down. Her captain, Pickering, was stunned and somewhat bruised by the concussion, and the order of the day was ‘Sauve qui peut.’ A boat was despatched to the Canandaigua, not far off, and that vessel at once responded to the request for help, and succeeded in rescuing the greater part of the crew. Strange to say, the David was not seen after the explosion, and was supposed to have slipped away in the confusion; but when the Housatonic was inspected by divers, the torpedo boat was found sticking in the hole she had made, and all her crew were dead in her. It was a reckless adventure these men had engaged in, and one in which they could scarcely have hoped to succeed. They had tried it once before inside the harbour, and some of the crew had been blown overboard. How could they hope to succeed on the outside, where the sea might be rough, when the speed of the David was not over five knots, and when they might be driven out to sea! Reckless as it might be, it was the most sublime patriotism, and showed the length to which men could be urged on behalf of a cause for which they were willing to give up their lives and all they held most dear.”
It was by deeds such as these that North and South are to-day united, as they never were before.
When Lieutenant Hobson, during the Spanish-American war, offered to sink the Merrimac at the entrance of Santiago harbour, half the American sailors were wild to join in the hazardous task, and if volunteers for submarines had been requested it is certain that men would have come forward in 1898 as they did so nobly in 1864.
THE SINKING OF THE “HOUSATONIC.”