Cushing, after serving as a cadet nearly four years at the Naval Academy, resigned on March 21, 1861—just why has never been told. In May he entered the navy once more. He was made a master’s mate, and by July, 1862, had obtained a lieutenant’s commission through repeated “acts of successful daring.” He was with Rowan at Elizabeth City, and obtained command of the Ellis, captured there. His courage, combined with good judgment, continued to keep him in the eyes of his superior officers. He was constantly looking for something to do, and when he offered to destroy the Albemarle he was allowed to try.
At about this time Engineer John L. Lay, U. S. N., had devised a torpedo boat that consisted of a light steam launch rigged to carry a torpedo at the end of a long spar—a torpedo that might be placed against a ship’s side and fired by means of a string that led from the trigger of the torpedo to the launch’s bow. It would be considered a crude affair now, for the man operating the torpedo had to stand erect in the bow of the launch, wholly unprotected even from musketry. Two of these little boats were built in New York, and Cushing carried one of them through inland waters to Albemarle Sound, Norfolk being then in Federal hands. Admiral Ammen, in his history, complains that “the newspapers had gratuitously furnished the enemy with information” about all the movements of Cushing, “as well as the avowed object of destroying the Albemarle.” The writer hereof was not a reporter in those days, but he imagines that some naval officer told the reporters where Cushing was going before the destination was announced in any newspaper; though the matter is important only as a warning to naval officers not to tell vital secrets to reporters. As to the effect of this publicity, the Confederates put double lines of pickets along the river below Plymouth, stationed 1,000 soldiers about the wharf, built a boom of cypress logs around the Albemarle at such a distance that no torpedo spar could reach over it to the hull, and kept the sentries on board, pacing to and fro at night, constantly on the lookout, while an outpost was established in the river on the wreck of the sunken Southfield, one mile down-stream.
It was in the month of October, 1864, that Cushing brought his boat to the waters below Plymouth, and on the night of the 26th the gunboat Otsego towed the launch to the mouth of the river, where Cushing cast off, and with a ship’s cutter loaded with armed men in tow of his launch, he started up the river. The cutter’s men were to land at the outpost, on the old wreck, if necessary, and care for the Confederates there, while the steam launch was to be driven at full speed to the Albemarle, a mile away. But luck was against the expedition. The launch grounded, and before she could be gotten afloat day was at hand, and Cushing returned to the Otsego.
And then came the night of the 27th. There were thirteen officers and men in the launch with Cushing, besides the cutter load in tow. It was a dark night, and with no light and with his machinery working in perfect silence, Cushing steamed up the river. Cushing himself stood in the bow, steering-wheel in hand, with a loaded howitzer on one side ready for firing, and with the gear for working the torpedo on the other. There were two schooners beside the old wreck; but the sentinels failed to see Cushing, and wholly unobserved, he arrived opposite the well-guarded ironclad, and then for the first time learned that the boom was so far out from the ship that the torpedo could not reach her.
For a moment Cushing thought to land, walk boldly on board, and strive to carry her out into the stream. But even as the thought came to him he was discovered by the sentinels on shore, and a hail was heard.
“Boat ahoy!” followed almost instantly by a musket-shot, and then by a rattling fire from an uncounted line of sentinels up and down the shore and on the ship. A huge bonfire of fat pine knots blazed up to illuminate the shore, and the call of the ship’s crew to quarters arose on the air.
To the mind of any other man than a Cushing the expedition was a failure, but casting off the cutter with orders to pull for life, Cushing turned his launch out into the stream, swung her around in a wide circle to give her full speed, and then headed straight at the log-boom abreast of the fated ram. A host of Confederates gathered on the ram’s deck to beat him off. Two howitzers loaded with canister, and a score of muskets, were fired at him, and a man by his side fell, but Cushing with his own well-aimed howitzer scattered the Confederate host. And then the sled-runner bow of the launch struck the half-submerged boom, rose with the impetus, and over she went with her bow half under water, but inside the boom. The muzzle of a hundred-pounder was shoved out through the Albemarle’s broadside port, directly in front of the launch, but Cushing drove the torpedo under the hull of the ironclad, raised it up until he felt it strike her bottom, and then, as the Confederates fired their big gun, he pulled the trigger. A dull roar from beneath the ship answered to the crash of the broadside gun. The charge of the gun flew over the heads of the launch’s crew, but the torpedo opened wide the hull of the Albemarle, and down she went.
Cushing Blowing up the Albemarle.
The huge wave thrown up by the torpedo swept over the bow of the little launch, and she, too, sank. Even then the fortitude and resourcefulness of Cushing preserved him. Plunging into the river, he swam away unhurt and reached the swampy shore below, utterly exhausted. There he lay in the water until day was breaking, when he crawled into the woods and hid himself. While lying there he heard two men talking as they walked in an alongshore path, and learned how complete had been his work. During the day he found one of the enemy’s picket-boats, and that night he paddled his way off to the Valley City, where he arrived at 11 o’clock at night.