Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 29.djvu/308

 292 Southern Historical Society Papers.

[Cleveland Plain Dealer, August, 1901.]

OUR TORPEDO BOAT.

The Original David, Constructed for the Confederate Navy.

SOLD FOR JUNK.

Its Counterpart Sunk the Housatonic off Charleston Harbor in 1864

Fatal Experiments With the Queen Craft How

It Was Submerged.

A relic of great historical value was recently allowed to fall to pieces under the junk dealer's hammer and was carted away like so much scrap iron from the old Spanish fort, a few miles back of New Orleans, where it had stood for years a reminder of one of the for- lornest hopes upon which man ever ventured.

It was the original David, a counterpart of the one that sunk the Housatonic off Charleston harbor February 17, 1864. It was being secretly constructed out at the fort when New Orleans fell, and upon the occupation of the city by the Federal forces, to save the design, it was rolled into a canal near by. There it remained for years after the war, for its builders and all who knew of it went down with its successor. Years after, when the canal was being dredged, the hulk was found, raised, and set upon the fort.

A QUEER CRAFT.

Although this queer craft never itself played any part in the war, it was the first of a type which, in the Holland submarines, now gathered by the government into a little fleet, bids fair to revolu- tionize modern naval warfare. From the plans tested in its construc- tion was built the David that immolated its own crew in destroying its enemy. There was not in naval history another example of career so disastrous and tragic as that of the David. Four crews went down with it in trial trips, and it lost its fifth when it was itself involved in the destruction of its first and last intended victim.

When the original submarine was tipped into the canal in 1862, her designers already had in mind the construction of a duplicate craft. Working from plans of the sunken ship, they built in Mobile in 1863 the famous and ill-fated David. This name was given to it because