TORPEDO AND SUBMARINE ATTACKS ON THE FEDERAL BLOCKADING FLEET OFF CHARLESTON DURING THE WAR OF SECESSION.

By Augustine T. Smythe, Jr., Charleston, S. C.

The earliest mention of a submarine boat, as far as any official records at hand of the Confederate Army or Navy go to show, occurs in a letter dated October 21, 1861, written by Charles P. Leavitt, Co. K, 2nd Va. Regiment, to the Secretary of War of the Confederacy, in which he asks to be allowed to go to Richmond in order to draft plans of an invention of his which, for lack of a better name, he called a submarine gunboat. His description of his boat is, in part, as follows: "A vessel is built of boiler iron of about fiftytons burden, made of an oval form with the propeller behind. When within range of the enemies' guns it sinks below the surface. . When within a few rods of the enemy it leaps to the surface, and the two vessels come in contact before the enemy can fire a gun. Placed in the bow is a small mortar containing a self-exploding shell. As it strikes the enemy, the shell explodes and blows in the ship's side; then the engines are reversed, the gun boat sinks below the surface, and goes noiselessly on its way toward another ship. After a few ships are sunk, the enemy can scarcely have the temerity to remain in our waters."

Nothing seems to have come of this plan, however, nor does it appear even to have been given a trial. Later experiments and attempts with submarines showed that the successful construction and management of them was not so simple nor safe as Leavitt's letter would imply, and the handling of the two boats of this type which were used in Charleston, proved to be dangerous in the extreme. Perhaps no operations of any description during the entire struggle, made a greater demand upon the courage of those who participated in them, than did the series of attempts made, with these little craft, to destroy the federal blockading fleet on the southern coast.

This system of cutting off all communication between the Confederacy and the outside world, and thus closing up all of the chanof commerce by which the cotton of the southern states could be exchanged for the necessities of life, and for the financial and material means of carrying on the war, was largely what finally brought success to the United States Government; and the efforts made to evade the blockading fleets were varied and strenuous.

Early in the war the Confederate government promised to pay to the inventor of any contrivance whereby the Union gun-boats might be sunk or blown up, fifty per cent of the value of the vessel thus destroyed. A little later, the firm of John Fraser & Co., of Charleston, offered $100,000 for the destruction of either of the big gun-boats,

New Ironsides or Wabash, then lying outside of that harbor, or $50,000 for the sinking of any one of the monitors. But while these offers may, in the early part of the struggle, have served to stimulate endeavors in this direction, the attempts were continued long after the drains of war had made it impossible for such pledges to be redeemed. No rewards of money could have inspired men with the desperate courage which enabled them to volunteer, crew after crew, for expeditions which they knew meant almost certain death.

In March, 1863, Capt. Francis D. Lee, of the corps of engineers, reported to Gen. Thos. Jordan, Beauregard's chief of staff, that he had experimented successfully with his spar torpedo-boat. This was "a light built canoe about 20 ft. long with a spar suspended 6 ft. below her keel and projecting beyond her bow 22 ft., at the extremity a torpedo, with a charge of nearly 30 lbs. of powder." Lee had succeeded, with this contrivance, in blowing up an old hulk in the harbor; and a few days later received orders from General Beauregard to fit out ten such boats. In April, 1863, he was ordered to attack the fleet of seven iron-clads, but on the day before the projected excursion, the vessels weighed anchor and steamed to Port Royal, to refit after the bombardment of the forts.

Commander W. T. Glassell, having equipped several of these boats with the aid of Mr. George A. Trenholm, went out in one of them, later in the summer, to attack the gun-boat Powhatan. The night was dark and he succeeded in getting within two or three hundred yards before he was hailed by the sentry on deck. Asked who he was, Glassell answered that he was coming on board as quickly as possible, all the time urging his men to pull harder. He was now confident of being able to ram the Powhatan with his spar, when suddenly, one of his men becoming terrified, or through treachery, backed his oar, thus killing the headway of the boat. They were now in full view of the ship and the officer of the deck continued to ply them with questions, to which Glassell gave answers as evasive and senseless as possible, hoping, he said, that they would not fire upon such a boat-load of fools as he and his men must have seemed to be. Meanwhile the men had succeeded in cutting away the torpedo, and freed from this encumbrance, Glassell gave orders to pull away. The small boat was soon lost in the darkness, the men giving way with a will, expecting to be fired upon with small arms. For some reason, however, this was not done, and they returned uninjured to the city, the officers of the Powhatan not realizing, as Glassell says in his account of the expedition, how nearly they had achieved the distinction of being on the first ship ever blown up by a torpedo.

This failure convinced all concerned that steam propulsion was necessary for effective ramming and Capt. F. D. Lee set about the renovation of an old hull which had been turned over to him by the authorities at Richmond. Having been converted into a torpedo

ram, it was turned over to Capt. James Carlin. At 10 o'clock on the night of August 22, 1863, he reported at Fort Sumter and obtained a guard of eleven men, under Lieut. E. S. Fickling. Putting out from there, Carlin steered for the Ironsides, which was lying off Morris Island. When within about fifty yards of her, the engines were stopped, it being the plan to drift down silently with the tide and strike. But as fate would have it, the Ironsides just then began to swing to the tide. Carlin saw that unless the engines were started again, and the boat given steerage way, the tide would carry them past, without allowing them to ram. Accordingly he gave the order, but the engineer reported that the engines had stopped on the centre, and that he was unable to start them again. While in this predicament they were hailed from the deck of the Ironsides. "What ship is that?" "The steamer Live Yankee, from Port Royal, with dispatches," answered Carlin as he says in his report, "in an as official and stern a tone as possible." The engineer meanwhile succeeded in giving the ram a little headway, and continuing to answer the hails with assurances that he was coming on board immediately, Carlin managed to coax his craft to a safer distance, where the enemy lost sight of him, for they began firing in the opposite direction, finally, however, sweeping the horizon and sending two shots within 20 feet The crew of the Ironsides being now thoroughly aroused, it would have been madness to repeat the attempt that night, and the ram was steered up the harbour. Carlin recommended strongly in his official report that in view of her faulty construction, especially as to the engines, which were very old, she be abandoned for this kind of work, and his suggestion seems to have been adopted, for there is no record of her further use.

One or two other expeditions were made during that summer, one against the Ironsides, and one against the monitors at the mouth of the Edisto, but in both cases, information had been received as to movements of the Confederates, and the proposed victims were ready to repel all attacks. But on the 18th of August another scheme had been put into operation, this time the idea being to sink the blockading vessels by means of natural forces, and without exposing to any great danger, the lives of the attackers. Capt. M. M. Gray, with a few men, went in a small boat from Fort Johnson to Secessionville, and then down Light House Inlet till within about 400 yards of the fleet. He then put overboard a rope, 190 feet long, with floats every ten feet, and a torpedo containing 50 lbs. of powder, attached to each end. A strong ebb tide was running, and it was thought that by setting this contrivance adrift it would be carried on to the fleet,

and the rope catching in the anchor chain of one of the vessels, the tide would drive the torpedoes against her sides with force enough to explode them, and thus sink her. After floating his torpedoes and setting them adrift, Gray waited a long time, till the tide being almost ready to turn, he concluded that his plan had failed, either through failure of his torpedoes to explode, or because they had passed through the fleet without striking any vessel, though this seemed unlikely. But just before daylight, as he was about to return to Charleston, there was a muffled explosion, and waiting till it grew a little more light, he saw a large three-masted steamer on her beam-ends. This afterwards turned out to be one of the transports of the fleet.

The plan, successful though its first trial had proved, was not adopted, because it was feared that a turn of the tide might bring the torpedoes back up the harbor, where they would be as dangerous to the Confederate shipping as they had been designed to be to the Federals.

Meanwhile the ingenuity of the southerners was still at work, and many were laboring to devise some more perfect method of destruction. This time it was not a naval officer who suggested a new scheme for attacking the gun-boats, but Dr. St. Julien Ravenel, a citizen of Charleston, and a man of remarkable inventive genius. He had designed a torpedo boat, which he felt sure would be effective, but which for lack of means, he was unable to build. Mr. Theodore Stoney, of Charleston, having conferred with Dr. Ravenel and Capt. Lee as to the practicability of the boat, gave his check for $20,000 and within a very few days, she was under process of construction at Stoney Landing, on Cooper River. Within two months she was completed, and Commander Glassell having been given command of her, she was ready for her trial trip. A crew, to consist of only three men besides Glassell, was easily found, and on the night of the 5th of Oct., 1863, she set out on her famous expedition against the Ironsides.

The comparative sizes of the two vessels were so strikingly unequal that the smaller boat was dubbed the "David." She was fifty feet long, six feet beam, built of wood, in cigar shape. She was kept under water by ballast, exposing only about 10 inches, while six and a half feet were under the surface. The torpedo, carried fourteen feet ahead of the boat on an iron shaft, was a copper cylinder, containing 100 lbs. of rifle powder, and fitted with four sensitive tubes made of soft lead, inside of which were small glass vessels containing explosives.

Glassell and his men put out in this craft and steamed down the harbor. Having passed Sumter they waited for the turn of the tide and then continued out towards the fleet. The new Ironsides, at that time the most powerful vessel in the world, was selected, as Glassell put it, "to receive the highest compliment" and the course

was set for her. The wheel was so arranged that the helmsman could sit on deck and steer with his feet. Glassell occupied this position, with a double-barreled shot-gun, intending, when close aboard, to fire at the officer of the deck, and thus produce some confusion and give him time to ram, without being fired upon. They were hailed by the sentinel when about 300 yards off, but paid no attention to the hail, coming on full speed ahead. The deck officer then came up, and the David being about 40 yards off, Glassell thought it was about time to begin the fight. Accordingly, he fired both barrels of his shot gun at the officer, Acting Ensign C. W. Howard, and brought him to the deck mortally wounded. The engines were then stopped and the David struck with the momentum of her headway. The torpedo exploded about six feet below the surface, throwing up a great volume of water which fell back on the decks and down the smoke-stack of the David, flooding the hold and putting out the fires. In the meantime the Ironsides beat to quarters and her crew opened a heavy rifle fire upon the small boat. It being impossible with all the water in the hold, to start the engines, Glassell gave orders for the crew to save themselves by swimming, and they all went overboard. Glassell himself was picked up by a federal transport. Sullivan, the fireman, hung in the fore-chains of the Ironsides and was also captured, while Toombs, the engineer, started swimming in the direction of Sumter. But seeing the David still floating he decided to go up and try to bring her back to Charleston. When he reached her, he found the pilot, Cannon, who could not swim, still hanging on, on the farther side from the enemy, and protected from their fire. Together they climbed aboard, started the fires and returned safely to the city. This was the first successful attack ever made by a steam propelled torpedo boat upon an enemy's vessel.

The Ironsides was not sunk, nor was she very severely injured, and having been repaired, was used later in the war, in the bombardment of Fort Fisher, N. C. But the moral effect of the expedition was extremely valuable to the Confederates, for it made the blockaders very timid about advancing up the harbor, and the injury to the Ironsides prevented her being sent up Stono River, as was intended, to shell the city from the rear.

The success of the David created such enthusiasm that the Southern Torpedo Co. was formed in the city, a private concern which was to build similar boats, and put them at the disposal of the naval authorities, thus hoping in a short while to destroy the entire fleet. But though they did succeed in putting more than one vessel afloat, little seems to have come of their efforts.

In March of the following year, the David, under the command of J. H. Toombs, the engineer of the former trip, went down to the mouth of the North Edisto River, to attack the gun-boat Memphis. She had been fitted out with a steel shield over her upper works, and a cap over the smoke-stack to prevent a second drowning of her