Page:Brief Sketch of Work of Matthew Fontaine Maury 1861-65.pdf/18

 Shortly after, Captain Maury was ordered to London on secret service for the Navy Department, and that he might avail himself of laboratories and workshops for experiment and improvement of his new science, in which he was now regarded as supreme authority. He was to report progress and improvement in this new means of making successful war from time to time to the Navy Department, which was constantly done during the next two years, and thus the result of his labours and inventions communicated to the officers in charge of the torpedo stations now established along our Atlantic Coast. His devices and inventions, which have not since been surpassed and some of which are still in use, had reference chiefly to exploding the torpedo; to determining with certainty from a distance the moment when a ship should enter within explosive range, and at all times to test its condition and to verify its location.

Lieut. Hunter Davidson, his valued assistant, succeeded him in charge of the James River batteries, and in time extended the mines some distance. During the two years when he was in charge he planted many electrical torpedoes in the channel of the river, to be fired from concealed stations on shore. Some of these containe 1,800 pounds of powder.

In August, 1862, the Federal steamer "Commodore Barney" was badly disabled by one of these, and in 1864 the "Comm. Jones" was totally destroyed, with Maury's electrical torpedo defense. The first vessel destroyed by a submarine torpedo was the gunboat—ironclad—"Cairo," in the Yazoo River. The torpedo was a demijohn of powder enclosed in a box sunk in the river and fired by a string from the shore. Lieut. Beverley Kennon claimed the credit for this but Masters McDaniel and Ewing did the actual work.