Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 03.djvu/267

 The following will show who is the founder of this arm of service:

"In the experiments with the torpedo lately in the Florida channel," says an Eastern paper, "the country has been furnished with a more complete exhibition of the destructive capacities of this submarine projectile, than is now known to military and naval science." Admiral Porter, in his recent report, called particular attention to the torpedo as a defensive and offensive weapon, and urged upon the navy a thorough study of its powers as a destructive agent in warfare. We therefore congratulate the service upon the success of the torpedo exercises, believing that they will command the attention of all the navies in the world. Enthusiasms claim that naval warfare has been substantially revolutionized by its invention; and the exercises of the squadron during the closing days of February, prove that "this newfangled concern" is not to be despised, as the navy often learned to its sorrow during the protracted blockade of the Southern coast at the time of the recent war. The Wabash, Congress, Ticonderoga, Canandaigua, Ossipee, Colorado, Brooklyn, Wachusett, Kansas, Lancaster, Alaska, Franklin, Fortune and Shenandoah, participated in the practice. This recalls to mind the following narration, well known to some of our readers: During the war with the Seminole Indians in Florida, April, 1840, the Seventh United States infantry was stationed at posts in the interior of the peninsula, and the country had been divided into squares of twenty miles each, and the headquarters located at Fort King, the former agency, which was commanded by Colonel Whistler, and Captain G. J. Rains commanded at Fort Micanopy, just twenty-five miles distant. Though there was, and had been since the beginning of hostilities, an Indian town within sound of drum at Fort King; yet it was so surrounded by swamp that it had not been discovered, and some twenty miles journey was required to reach it, and the Indians so located their depredations in Micanopy square, that Colonel Whistler made representation that there the enemy was to be found and not at Fort King, and General Taylor changed the headquarters accordingly. The colonel's command, consisting of several companies of infantry and dragoons, was transferred to Fort Micanopy, and Captain Rains and his command, one company with diminished numbers, to Fort King.