Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 16.djvu/290

 284 Southern Historical Society Papers.

skilful and experienced mechanics, a want that made itself sorely felt during the whole war, as the full capacity of the fine works at Rich- mond, Savannah, Augusta, Selma and Mobile, from scarcity of work- men, could at no time be taken advantage of. By the fall of New Orleans, in the earlier part of the war, an even greater want of foundrymen, and especially ship-carpenters, was created in the Con- federacy."

And again he says :

" In regard to sea-coast defence two things resulted then from this combination of unfavorable circumstances in the condition of the South. Southern engineers were compelled, in the first place, to recog- nize the inefficiency of the existing modts of defence, and to draw on their scientific knowledge and on their ingenuity for new ones ; and secondly, the shifts to which they were reduced originating new com- binations and improved methods, which, in some cases, proved to be of the highest value." These observations of an intelligent, well informed foreigner describes graphically and explicitly our true con- dition. The forts for sea-coast and harbor defence had been con- structed when the largest guns in use were 8-inch Columbiads, so that they were wholly inadequate to resist high-power modern guns brought to bear upon them by the Federal fleets. New modes of defence had to be improvised, and there is perhaps nothing in the history of warfare in any age that surpassed the skill and ingenuity of the Confederate officers and engineers in providing against our weakness. The torpedo system of the Confederate Government worked a revolution in naval warfare.

The limits of an address like this will, of course, not permit me to go into details to establish this assertion, but an examination of all authorities, Confederate, Federal and foreign, will fully justify it.

The wonderfully inventive genius and energetic action of the Con- federate officers and engineers astounded the world by their achieve- ments in this hitherto practically untried science in naval warfare. They not only made it most effective for sea-coast and harbor de- fence, but terrible as an agency of attack upon hostile ships of war. Not only that, they brought the torpedo system to such a high state of perfection that little or no advance or improvement has since been made in it.

Considered in the light of the exigencies to be promptly met and difficulties to be overcome, in the language of a distinguished United States naval officer, Lieutenant Soley, " they were little less than phenomenal."