Page:Brief Sketch of Work of Matthew Fontaine Maury 1861-65.pdf/14

 coolness and bravery of acting Master Dornin and Midshipman Mason, and the boat crews associated on duty with me.


 * I am, sir respectfully your obedient servant,

R. D. MINOR Lieutenant C. S. Navy.

Commander M. F. Maury, C. S. Navy,
 * Fredericksburg, Va.

The torpedoes used by Captain Maury in his attack upon the "Minnesota," at Fortress Monroe, and by Lieutenant Minor upon the "Congress," off Newport News, were as follows They were in pairs connected by a span 500 feet long. The span was floated on the surface by corks, and the torpedo, containing 200 pounds of powder, also floated at a depth of twenty feet. Empty barregas, painted lead color, so as not readily to be seen, serving for the purpose.

The span was connected with a trigger in the head of each barrel, so set and arranged that when the torpedo being let go in a tideway under the bows and athwart the hawser had fouled, they would be drifted alongside, and so drifted would tauten the span and set off the fuse, which was driven precisely as a ten second shot fuse, only it was calculated to burn fifty-four seconds, because it could not be known exactly in which part of the sweep alongside the strain would be sufficient to set off the trigger. That they did not explode was attributed to the fact that the fuse would not burn under a pressure of twenty feet of water, which conjecture was confirmed by after experiments, when it was found that the fuse would very surely at a depth of fifteen feet but never at twenty. Sometime after these torpedoes were