Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 26.djvu/77

 Rh a few riflemen and a field piece, has many times stopped the advance of, and ultimately defeated, large numbers.

The first use in war of iron armor on this side of the Atlantic was Citizen C. H. Stevens's iron battery in the harbor of Charleston, in the early months of 1861, and when this invention was further developed, and in 1863, two years afterwards, was brought against Fort Sumter in a fleet of heavy ironclad ships, J. M. and T. D. Eason had meantime changed smooth-bore ordnance into rifled guns of heaviest calibre, with new projectiles which proved equal to, and had their full share, driving off this ironclad fleet and its heavy armament on April 7, and sinking one of these formidable new vessels; officers from civil life directing the guns for the most part.

The old-fashioned way of moving heavy guns in action with hand-spikes and many men was improved upon by the late Lieutenant-Colonel J. A. Yates's invention of a traverse with crank and cogwheels (an officer from civil life), which facilitated the easy movement of the heaviest guns, so that, with limited power, the aim could be kept on a moving object, and the fire delivered with accuracy and rapidity.

The application of torpedoes for the defence of harbors and waterways was the invention of Southern men, who actually put it to use in Southern waters as early as July 7, 1861, and from this and other primitive experiments have been developed the improved torpedo boats of the present day.

When the last heavy gun had been dismounted in Fort Sumter, and it was no longer useful as an artillery post, Major John Johnson, an engineer from civil life, utilized the debris of walls and parapets and other available material, and rendered the fort impregnable to the end of the war with an infantry garrison. "Difficulty was opportunity" Fort Sumter was "kept virgin to the end."

The ironclad Keokuk finally sunk off the southern point of Morris Island, three-quarters of a mile from the beach, after the fight of April 7, 1863. Her two ii-inch Dahlgren guns, thirteen and a half feet long, three feet in diameter at the breech, and weighing eight tons each, were taken from her turrets by the brave and indomitable Adolphus W. Lacoste in night work, with a force of Charleston artisans, almost from under the eyes of the Federal fleet, and both guns subsequently mounted on the harbor defences and used effectively. Details of these and other meritorious achievements will be found in Johnson's Defence of Charleston Harbor, a volume which