Page:A Life of Matthew Fontaine Maury.pdf/217

Rh This barricade was in the bend of the river. In order to get round it, General B. F. Butler conceived the unsuccessful and much ridiculed plan of cutting "the Dutch Gap Canal." Thus, by a single torpedo with its powers of "moral suasion," that formidable fleet was paralysed and rendered impotent during the whole time that Richmond was beleaguered by Grant with his armies and the whole Federal host on land.

Admiral Porter confessed that, in his first attack with Butler upon Fort Fisher (at Wilmington), it was the fear of these electrical torpedoes which kept him from entering the Cape Fear River with his gunboats. He afterwards entered, found no torpedoes, and carried the place.

Every one knows the dread that sailors have of hidden rocks and sunken dangers; but when those dangers may at any time and at the bidding of an enemy burst out into live volcanoes, the idea of encountering them is simply awful

This James River torpedo was planted on the bottom in seven fathoms of water. It was an old steam-boiler, and contained 1800 pounds of common powder. The battery used was galvanic, and the igniting arrangement was made by cutting the wire and connecting the two ends by a bit of fine platinum wire, which left a space of a quarter of an inch between the two ends of the copper or conducting wire, then lashed firmly to a bit of wood; this was thrust into a small sack filled with fine rifle-powder, which was the exploding charge; but the whole wire, battery, and bursting-charge were mere makeshifts. Much ingenuity was called into play to defend Southern harbours by means of other submarine contrivances; such as mechanical torpedoes which, when struck by a vessel, would explode by means of percussion or some other device.