Page:The Galaxy (New York, Sheldon & Co.) Volume 24 (1877).djvu/306

300 fully resisted the heaviest guns then used in war, against whose armor the heaviest artillery was of no avail, sunk in an instant by a contrivance which probably did not cost five hundred dollars! A premonition that the days of great navies were passing might well alarm the naval mind. The glories of the quarter deck were fast departing, and the magnificence and pomp of naval display were giving place to the labors of grimy mechanics operating infernal machines. From this time to the close of the war, which was now rapidly approaching. Admiral Dahlgren's flag steamer, the Harvest Moon, the double-turretted monitors Milwaukee and Osage, the gun-boats Rodolph, Sciota, Ida, and Althea, were in rapid succession destroyed by torpedoes, killing and wounding many officers and men.

But the terrible war record of the torpedo is not completed. The Confederates, encouraged by their success in the use of torpedoes as means of defence, began to carry the war into Africa by employing it as a means of attack. The contrivance they used for this purpose was what is now known as the "spar" torpedo. These spars were from twenty-five to thirty-five feet in length. They were carried suspended, pivoted over the bows of small cigar-shaped boats, some thirty feet in length, and nearly submerged. On the extremity of these spars was placed a canister containing from fifty to seventy pounds of powder, and provided with a contact exploder. On approaching the enemy's vessel the end of the spar carrying the torpedo was lowered beneath the surface of the water far enough to strike the foe well below the water line. It was then rammed against her side, the contact producing the explosion. These were more difficult to manage than the defensive, moored, or floating torpedoes. They were more complicated, and owing to the deficiency of the Confederates in mechanical resources, were rudely built. Still they did considerable execution, and spread consternation among the Union fleets. The name "David" was given to these boats—an appropriate name, as the comparison is obvious between little David with his sling and the towering giant Goliath clad in armor of brass. The name was generically adopted, and such craft were always afterward called "Davids."

The capture of the iron-clad Atlanta by the monitor Weehawken was the first evidence that the Confederates had adopted an offensive torpedo. The Atlanta had a huge torpedo suspended from an iron outrigger, some forty feet beyond her bow, and it was only the terrible blows she received from the fifteen-inch gun of the Weehawken, which caused her surrender before she could get within striking distance, that prevented her from destroying that monitor. This is a lesson that should impress itself on our naval authorities, as it shows the folly of using vessels larger than mere launches for torpedo purposes unless they are proof against the enemy's shot. It points out that either the tiny "Davids" copied from the Confederates—which now form part of every navy—must be employed, or else invulnerable vessels, properly called torpedo carriers, with which to defend road-steads and harbors from hostile fleets.

The first attempt with one of the "Davids" was against the iron-clad New Ironsides, at anchor off Morris Island, in front of Charleston, on the night of October 5, 1863. The official reports state that about nine o'clock a scarcely discernible object was observed rapidly approaching. It was challenged in the usual manner. To this hail there was no reply but a rifle shot, which killed the officer of the deck. Simultaneously with this shot a fearful explosion occurred close alongside, and the Ironsides quivered from stem to stern; her decks were deluged with water. For a moment it was supposed that her side had been blown in, and that the sea was rapidly filling her; but, as was afterward ascertained from Confederate sources,