A brief sketch of the work of Matthew Fontaine Maury during the war, 1861-1865

by Richard L. Maury

He did begin his deep sea soundings as soon as he was strong enough, and found that two ridges extended from the New York coast to England, so he made charts for ships to sail over one path to England and return over the other.

The proceeds from the sale of this little pamphlet will be used as the beginning of a fund for the erection of a monument to Commodore Maury in Richmond.

KATHERINE C. STILES.

TORPEDOES

Torpedoes as effective weapons in actual war were first utilized by the Confederate navy, and Captain Matthew F. Maury introduced them into that service, and continually improved and perfected their use until they had become the mighty engine of modern warfare and revolutionized the art of coast and harbour defense. He, it was, who in 1861 mined James River, who, in person commanded the first attack with torpedoes upon the Federal fleet in Hampton Roads, and it was the development and improvement of this plan of defense which held the enemy's ships throughout the South at bay, and caused the loss of fifty-eight of the ships, and the Secretary of the United States Navy to report to Congress in 1865 that the Confederates had destroyed with their torpedoes more vessels than were lost from all other causes combined. Their use was soon extended from James River to the other Southern waters by eleven young naval officers, active and alert, who planted, directed and exploded torpedoes wherever there occurred favorable opportunity, and with a daring and coolness never surpassed; officers whose ability was abundantly shown by the remarkable inertness of the United States Navy after they had left that service in response to the call of their States to come and help protect their invasion.

Hardly had Captain Maury arrived in Richmond than his active mind was directed to the problem of protecting the Southern coasts. The South had not a single vessel of war, and but scanty means of making, equipping or manning one; the North had all the old navy fully armed and equipped, with unlimited means for making more.

Penetrated as the country is by innumerable navigable waters, and save at the entrance of a few of her largest rivers, altogether unfortified, he urged that the only available defense was to mine the channel ways with torpedoes, floating and fixed, which should be exploded by contact or by electricity, when the enemy attempted to pass. At that time there was nothing save a few shore batteries to prevent any ship whose captain was bold enough to run past their fires from ascending James River to Richmond, or from reaching any other maritime town in the South. Fortunately there were but few bold enough for the attempt.

In the beginning there was much prejudice against this mode of warfare, which, notwithstanding, has since, under Captain Maury's instruction, become the chief reliance of most maritime nations. It was considered uncivilized warfare thus to attack and destroy an unsuspecting enemy, and the United States, and many of her naval officers were specially loud in their denunciations of those who resorted to it. There was official apathy too, and opposition of friends, but regardless of such, he proceeded to experiment and demonstrate, and with such success that in time the nations of Europe became his pupils, and there were hosts of followers and fellow-workers at home, and the Confederate Congress appropriated six millions of dollars for torpedoes.

His initial experiments to explode minute charges of powder under water, were made with an ordinary tub in his chamber at the house of his cousin, Robert H. Maury, a few doors from the Museum in Richmond, Va. The tanks for actual use were made at the Tredegar Works, and at the works of Talbott and Son on Cary Street; the batteries were loaned by the Richmond Medical College, which also freely tendered the use of its laboratory. In the early summer of 1861 the Secretary of the Navy, the Governor of Virginia, the chairman of the Committee of Naval Affairs, and other prominent officials were asked by him to witness a trial and an explosion of torpedoes in James River at Rocketts.

The torpedoes were composed of two small kegs of rifle powder, weighted to sink a few feet below the surface. They were fitted with hair triggers and friction primers, and thirty feet of lanyard attached to the triggers connected the keys. When in use they were to be set afloat in the channel way as near as possible to a vessel and to drift down with the current until the connecting lanyard fouled the anchor chain, or the bow of the vessel and the kegs swung around against her side when the tightened lanyard would fire the trigger and cause the torpedo to explode. So the Patrick Henry's gig was borrowed, with a couple of sailors to pull, and the torpedo having been embarked, with the trigger at half-cock, Captain Maury and the writer got on board and were rowed out to the buoy just opposite where the James River Steamboat Company's wharf now is, where the invited spectators stood to witness the explosion. The triggers were then set, the kegs carefully lowered into the water, taking great care not to strain the lanyard, all was cast off, the boat pulled clear, and we waited to see the torpedo float down until the buoy was reached, the lanyard foul strain and explode the torpedo. But there was delay, the lanyard fouled the buoy all right, the kegs floated past and strained the lanyard, but there was no explosion. Impatient we backed water to the buoy and the writer leaned over the stern and caught the lanyard to give the necessary pull, but in the very act the explosion took place, a column of water went up twenty feet or more, and descending, gave us a good wetting and filled the surrounding water with stunned and dead fish. The officials on the wharf applauded and were convinced, and that the experiments might continue Governor Letcher loaned power, and shortly after the Naval Bureau of Coast, Harbour, and River Defense was organized with ample funds for the work, and the very best of intelligent and devoted young officers as assistants and an office was opened in Richmond at the corner of Ninth and Bank Streets, where Rueger's now is.