the Mound City Navy-Yard, was six hundred feet long and sixty wide, and filled with stores for the fleet. Notwithstanding the greatest vigilance was exercised, a torpedo resembling a lump of coal was introduced on board, and the vessel was destroyed by the fire which took place after the explosion. At the time of this occurrence, my flag-ship, the Black Hawk, was made fast to the wharf-boat, and the first notice I had of her danger was a slight explosion, when the whole vessel was immediately wrapped in flames. Here was a torpedo beneath the notice of the Bushnells and Fultons, yet sufficiently effective in its particular line.

It would perhaps require a subtle casuist to determine how far such contrivances are justifiable in war. My own reason and experience have taught me that the most prompt and harassing measures are the best; and if ever war is made so dangerous that every combatant will to a certainty be killed, then there is an end of the business, and the Peace Society can put up their shutters. I had rather an exciting time with some of the explosive landtorpedoes operated by Secretary Mallory's horse-marines. In the fall of 1864 I was at "Dutch Gap," on James River, making arrangements for the government of the naval forces left to take care of the obstructions in that stream, and to prevent the rebel fleet coming down while I was absent at Fort Fisher. General Butler came up soon afterward in a swift steamer called the Greyhound, and, as he desired to see me on some public business, I started to accompany him in that vessel to Fortress Monroe. Dutch Gap was then the rendezvous for all kinds of people who were working on the famous canal; many of them their own mothers would not have recognized, and, a thing that could hardly have been provented, emissaries from the enemy's camp frequently visited the place. As we steamed down the river I drew General Butler's attention to several rough-looking fellows on deck, and he ordered the vessel rounded-to at Bermuda Hundred, and turned the strangers over to a guard. We then continued on our way, but in about half an hour an explosion took place in or near the furnaces, and the vessel was almost immediately in flames amidships. The crew jumped overboard, and we in the after part lowered a boat and just managed to escape from the flames. It was my belief that the men we had set on shore had deposited some of their infernal machines among the coal; at the

proper time they exploded, and the result was the loss of a beautiful steamer, with a fine lot of horses belonging to the general. The work of these incendiaries was so thoroughly done that in ten minutes from the time of the fire breaking out not a vestige of the steamer remained.

During the Red River Expedition, in the spring of 1864, the Confederates used every effort to give us a warm reception, and torpedoes were planted all along the river, which we removed as we passed up. On our return down the river, the Eastport, a splendid and costly iron-clad ram, struck a torpedo, which apparently contained not more than twenty pounds of powder, and in five minutes the vessel sank in shoal water. I brought to the assistance of her commanding officer two heavy pump-boats, and by pumping and bailing managed to get her two hundred miles farther down the river, where her progress was effectually stopped by a tremendous barrier of logs. Any attempt to force the ironclad through this would have exposed the rest of the vessels to destruction, many of them being already badly cut up, so I ordered the Eastport to be blown up. This was the last vessel of my command that was sunk by torpedoes on the Western waters; but had Mallory's horse-marines shown common energy and intelligence in resisting, with their torpedoes, our advance up Red River, few if any of our vessels would have escaped.

I mention these occurrences to show how very destructive a small quantity of powder or gun-cotton can be made to an enemy afloat; and, although Fulton was so violently opposed and ridiculed, he was not much out of the way in advocating a torpedo corps, to consist of a thousand boats, with their complement of officers and men, to attack the enemy's vessels wherever they could be found at anchor or in a calm. In Fulton's day such a notion received less encouragement than would now a scheme for transporting passengers to the Paris Exposition by a balloon. Of late years, so great has been the progress made in the sciences and mechanic arts that there is no longer room to question the success of this once dubious system of naval warfare.

All told, we lost nearly twenty vessels from torpedoes during the war of the rebellion. Most of the occurrences were simply mentioned in the public dispatches of the time, and are, hence, not familiar to the general reader. Persons unacquainted with a VOL. CXXVII.-NO. 264.

16

sea-life are apt to imagine it a fine thing to be a naval officer, roaming about the world in a noble ship, with all sail set alow and aloft, and doubtless it is a privilege to serve one's country in so honorable a calling; but this is only the rose-colored view of the matter, and there are very many incidents in the profession which would be exceedingly distasteful to a landsman—among them the liability to being blown to atoms when skimming over the bosom of a summer sea. Who does not remember the fate of the gallant Craven and his officers and men, when fearlessly advancing in the Tecumseh to the attack on Mobile, how the ship encountered a hundred-pound torpedo, and in thirty seconds after the explosion went to the bottom, leaving but a few survivors to tell the story? Here was a vessel, costing over a million dollars, destroyed by a small torpedo which cost less than one hundred.

The case of the Commodore Jones, a large gunboat that was blown up at "Deep Bottom," on James River, was a particularly painful one. This vessel was at the time employed in dragging for torpedoes, and was surrounded by row-boats employed in the same service. The captain having been notified by a negro pilot that he was near sunken torpedoes, the gunboat's engines were stopped and she commenced backing. Scarcely had she gathered stern-way, "when suddenly and without any apparent cause she appeared to be lifted bodily, her wheels rapidly revolving in the air, and persons declared they could see the green grass of the river-bank beneath her keel. An immense fountain of foaming water shot to a great height, followed by a denser column thick with mud. The vessel absolutely crumbled to pieces, dissolved as it were in mid-air, enveloped by the falling spray, mud, water, and smoke. When the excitement of the explosion subsided, not a vestige of the vessel remained in sight, except small fragments of her frame which came shooting to the surface." Nearly every one on board was killed or wounded. This vessel was destroyed by a charge of about two thousand pounds of powder contained in a tank and fired by electric wires. It is needless to say that this catastrophe checked the advance of the other vessels astern of the Jones, but measures were immediately taken to capture the torpedo-operators, who, to save their lives, pointed out the location of other infernal machines, and explained the secrets of their torpedo service.

The Confederates took particular pains to defend the James River by torpedoes, which had the effect of completely closing it against the approach of the United States vessels. Our fleet would have been destroyed in detail had it attempted to force its way up against the concealed torpedoes protected by heavy batteries. In the early part of 1864 the Confederates had completed their system of defense throughout the South, and the difficulty of approaching their strongholds through their lines of torpedoes was almost insurmountable. The ideas of Fulton seemed to have taken possession of our humane friends at the South, and it would require a book to describe all the incidents connected with Confederate torpedo warfare, and to recite the damage we sustained in the latter part of the war, when the enemy had by means of blockade-runners imported hundreds of electric batteries, and tons of iron carcasses to be filled and distributed, as occasion required, through all parts of the Confederacy. Every navigable stream within their jurisdiction was amply defended by submarine batteries; and General Beauregard remarked concerning Charleston, that he attached more importance to one of his pet torpedoes for the defense of that place than to five teninch guns; and well he might, since our iron-clads were impervious to the latter, and entirely vulnerable to the torpedoes.

The following is a list of our vessels destroyed or severely damaged after the Confederates had succeeded in getting their torpedo system in full operation. Some of the saddest episodes of the war were in connection with the loss of these vesselsCairo, Baron de Kalb, Eastport, a wharf-boat, Commodore Jones, Tecumseh, Otsego, Basely, Patapsco, Harvest Moon, Milwaukee, Osage, Rodolphe, Scioto, Ida, Althea, Housatonic-to say nothing of injuries to vessels, destruction of boats, and a somewhat demoralizing effect temporarily produced on a navy which has never yet declined to attempt the most hazardous undertakings.

If, after investigating the results of torpedo warfare since the year 1862, any one will undertake to decide against its efficiency, I should give him little credit for judgment. Had we established at the beginning of the war a torpedo corps superior to that of the Confederates, supplied with the modern appliances, we might successfully have fought torpedo with torpedo, and, if the Confederates blocked up the inside of their

rivers, we could have blocked up the outside channels with such contrivances that the blockade-runners would either have been blown up or kept out of the harbors, and the enemy would soon have been deprived of the sinews of war. torpedoes are employed, there are always two sides to the game, In whatever shape and it must not be supposed that it will belong exclusively to one party. We showed during the war either a want of intelligence in not using torpedoes, or an excess of humanity, and a rash confidence of easily overcoming a vigilant and energetic foe, a confidence which was not justified by our experience as the war went on. But since the close of the war we have paid particular attention to the subject, and at present are as well informed in all that relates to the torpedo, and as ready to discard our false notions of humanity, as any other nation, for at present the naval powers of the world are acting as if they almost believed in Fulton's prophecy, that the torpedo would "finally revolutionize all naval warfare."

Hitherto I have alluded principally to the torpedo as used for the defense of rivers and harbors, but that is not the most formidable mode of employing it. Since the close of our war the torpedo-vessel has been successfully developed; and now that the nations of Europe have constructed great iron-clad fleets armed with monster guns, the admiration of the world, behold there springs into existence this little ocean-scorpion, bristling with outriggers and exploding tails, and endowed with a speed sufficient to overtake or escape from the strongest ships! A naval officer might almost stand aghast at the prospect of his ship being struck unawares by one of these stealthy and effective sea-devils. He will dread them in the future as the whale dreads the swordfish: when once the enemy has struck, there is no hope of escape; and the blockheads who have pooh-poohed the torpedo-vessel as a harmless affair will be the first to surround their ships with logs and nets, so as not to be blown into eternity while quietly eating their dinners.

The Confederates were the first to use the torpedo-boat, and began by launching several cigar-shaped vessels, each about fifty feet long, propelled by steam, and carrying a torpedo on the end of a boom, which could be run out, lowered under a ship's bottom, and fired. These vessels were called "Davids," in allusion,