The officer of the deck perceived a moving object on the water quite near and ordered the chain to be slipped: the captain and the executive officer went on deck, saw the object, and each fired at it with a small arm. In an instant the ship was struck on the starboard side between the main and mizzen masts. Those on deck near were stunned, the vessel began to sink, and went down almost immediately.
The Department will readily perceive the consequences likely to result from this event: the whole line of blockade will be infested with these cheap, convenient and formidable defenses, and we must guard every point. The measures of prevention are not so obvious. I am inclined to the belief that in addition the various devices for keeping the torpedoes from the vessels, an effectual prevention may be found in the use of similar contrivances. * * *
I have attached more importance to the use of torpedoes than others have done, and believe them to constitute the most formidable of the difficulties in the way to Charleston. Their effect on the "Ironsides" in October, and now on the "Housatonic," sustains me in the idea. And thereupon he makes application to be furnished a number of torpedo boats made upon the model of the "David," a sketch of which is submitted, and also a quantity of floating torpedoes, and suggests that as he has information that the Confederates have a number of "Davids" completed and in an advanced state of construction, the Department would do well to offer a large reward of prize money for the capture or destruction of any of them, say $20,000 or $30,000 for each, adding, "they are worth more than that to us."
About the same time Admiral Farragut, who had little faith in torpedoes at first, and who like other naval officers had denounced their use by the Confederates, and ordered that no quarter should be shown those captured operating them, also applied to be furnished them, saying, "Torpedoes are not so very agreeable when used on both sides, therefore, I have reluctantly brought myself to it. I have always deemed it unworthy of a chivalrous nation, but it does not do to give your enemy such a decided superiority over." And the Government of the United States, who had savagely denounced the Confederates for using them, now invited plans from inventors and mechanics for their construction, and operation, and soon supplied them abundantly to Army and Navy—adopting generally the Confederates as the best.
In August, 1864, the Federal fleet advanced upon Fort Morgan at the entrance of Mobile Bay, the line being led by "Tecumseh," the newest and most powerful of the enemy's ironclads, which was completely destroyed by a torpedo planted under the direction of General Raines, Chief of the Confederate Army Torpedo Bureau. She sunk in a moment, carrying down with her her entire crew of one hundred and forty souls, save about fifteen or twenty who escaped by swimming to Fort Morgan.
This was the greatest achievement of a single torpedo during our war and served to stimulate the Confederate authorities to renewed vigour. Thenceforward, the Bay of Mobile and adjacent waters became the chief scenes of torpedo operation. Genl. Maury stated that he had caused to be placed 180 in her channel and waterways, that they held the powerful fleet of Admiral Farragut for ten months at bay, and destroyed fully a dozen United States vessels, of which six were gunboats and four were monitors. Regular torpedo stations were established in Richmond, Wilmington, Charleston, Savannah and Mobile, at which sixty naval officers and men were on duty, preparing these new engines of war. The channel-ways, rivers and harbours were protected by them from Virginia to Texas. Sometimes a hundred were taken out of James River in a single day, and when the Southern seaports fell hundreds of torpedoes were found floating in their waters ready to explode upon the first contact. At first the older Confederate officers who regarded them with disfavour, as Captain Wm. H. Parker says he did, were now "torpedo mad." "Commodore Tucker and I," he said, "had torpedo on the brain," and the destruction of the enemy's vessels increased so rapidly that in the last ten months of the war forty or fifty were blown up, and in the last three weeks ten or more were destroyed. Its possibilities became better and better appreciated every day. Think of the destruction this machine affected, and bear in mind its use came to be fairly understood only during the last part of the war. During that period, when but few Federal vessels were lost and fewer still severely damaged by the most powerful guns in use, we find this long line of disasters from the Confederate use of this new and in the beginning despised comer into the arena of naval warfare. Our successes have made the torpedo a name spoken of with loathing and contempt by the self-sufficient Yankee, a recognized factor in modern naval warfare, and now we see on all sides the greatest activity and genius in improving it.
The wonderful inventive genius and energetic action of the Confederate officers, and engineers astounded the world by their achievements in the unknown and untried science in naval warfare. They not only made it most effective for sea coast and harbour defence, but terrible as an agency of attack on hostile ships of war. Not only that, but they brought the system to such a high state of perfection that little or no advance or improvement has since been made in it, and within a short period of the inception of the design a system was formed so perfect and complete as that the advance upon the water by the enemy was materially checked. They startled naval constructors and officers in the civilized world by the rapidity, audacity and novelty of their original methods, and will be known through all ages for their wonderful achievements. Maury, Buchanan, Brook, Jones and their assistants are the central figures around which revolve to the present day the changes from the old to the new in naval warfare.
Meantime Captain Maury was most diligently employed in London, under the order of the Navy Department in developing and improving his system, afforded by the workshops and laboratories there for experiment and construction. Here he continued during 1863 and 1864, pursuing these researches, perfecting many valuable inventions, and instruments with signal success. He reported to the Secretary of the Navy at home, so far as it was safe to do so, by whom results were passed on to officers in charge for their instruction and guidance and shipping continuously to the department supplies of insulated wire, exploders, and other inventions and devices whose object was to increase the destructiveness of the torpedo and to test it continually without removing it. In the spring of 1865, he sailed for Galveston with the most powerful and perfect equipment of electric torpedo material ever assembled. Great results were confidently expected from this armament, but before he reached Havana news arrived of General Lee's surrender.
But his experience and study and his scientific renown had now made him the leading authority in this new weapon of war mainly perfected by him. He was also now relieved from the seal of secrecy hitherto imposed upon him, so that when a year afterwards he returned to Europe he felt himself at liberty to impart to the sovereign there the secret of his discoveries concerning his new made science. Most of the European powers sent representatives to his school of instruction—and all of them have built upon his beginnings, the most powerful branch of their naval armaments.
To France he first imparted his secret and the Emperor witnessed the experiment and himself closed the circuit and exploded a torpedo placed in the Seine, near St. Cloud, to the perfect satisfaction of all. Russia, Sweden, Holland, England and others soon also received his instructions and they, too, have since built up a new method of defence second to none.