Richard Launcelot Maury

“ A plan for determining by cross bearing when the enemy is in the field of destruction, and for “making connections” among the torpedo wires in a certain way and by which (the concurrence of two operators) becomes necessary for the explosion of anyone or more torpedoes. This plan requires each operator to be so placed, or stationed that a line drawn straight from them to the place of the torpedoes may intersect as nearly as practicable at right angles, and it requires the connections to be such that each operator may put his station in or out of circuit at will. ”

“ Boat ahoy! repeating the hail several times very rapidly. We were coming toward them with all speed and I made no answer but cocked both barrels of my gun. The officer of the deck next made his appearance and loudly demanded, ‘What boat is that?’ Being now within forty yards of the ship and with plenty of head way to carry me on, I thought it about time the fight should commence and fired my gun. The officer of the deck fell back mortally wounded (poor fellow) , and I ordered the engine stopped. The next moment the torpedo struck the vessel and exploded. ”

“ Hardly had Captain Maury arrived in Richmond than his active mind was directed to the problem of protecting the Southern coasts. The South had not a single vessel of war, and but scanty means of making, equipping or manning one; the North had all the old navy fully armed and equipped, with unlimited means for making more. ”

“ When either operator observes an enemy in range with any torpedo he closes his circuit for that torpedo. If the enemy before getting out of this range should enter the range for any torpedo from the other station the operator then closes his circuit, and discharges the igniting spark.
Consequently if the range belongs to the same torpedo its explosion takes place. But if not there will be no explosion; hence, here is an artifice by which explosion becomes impossible when the enemy is not within the field of destruction, and sure when she is. ”

“ The annals of naval warfare record few enterprises which exhibit more strikingly than this of Lieutenant Glassell the highest qualities of a sea officer. At this time there were sixty officers and men on torpedo duty at Charleston alone.
The most remarkable career in all torpedo history was that of a little boat built in Mobile Bay, and operated upon the fleet off Charleston. She was the pioneer of all submarine torpedo boats, as she was the first to achieve success. ”

“ My own experiments, Captain Maury says, show that the electrical torpedo, or mine has not hitherto been properly appreciated as a means of defence in war. It is as effective for the defence as ironclads and rifled guns are for the attack. ”

“ It was considered uncivilized warfare thus to attack and destroy an unsuspecting enemy and the United States, and many of her naval officers were specially loud in their denunciations of those who resorted to it. There was official apathy too, and opposition of friends, but regardless of such, he proceeded to experiment and demonstrate, and with such success that in time the nations of Europe became his pupils, and there were hosts of followers and fellow workers at home, and the Confederate Congress appropriated six millions of dollars for torpedoes. ”

“ Captain Maury was in the first boat with the pilot and four oars. Each of the others manned by an officer and four men carried a magazine with thirty fathoms of rope attached. These magazines were oak casks of powder with a fuse in each. Two joined by the rope were stretching across the ebb-tide and when directly ahead of the ships were let go, and floating down the rope caught across the cable, the torpedo would drift and the ship strain the trigger, ignite the fuse and explode. ”

“ When the boat was discovered, raised and opened the spectacle was indescribably ghastly, the unfortunate men were contorted into all kinds of attitudes horrible to see; some clutching candles, evidently endeavouring to force open the manholes; others lying on the bottom tightly grappled together ”

“ Maury stated that he had caused to be placed 180 in her channel and waterways, that they held the powerful fleet of Admiral Farragut for ten months at bay, and destroyed fully a dozen United States vessels, of which six were gunboats and four were monitors. Regular torpedo stations were establishedin Richmond, Wilmington, Charleston, Savannah and Mobile, at which sixty naval officers and men were on duty, preparing these new engines of war. The channel ways, rivers and harbours were protected by them from Virginia to Texas. ”

“ Several miles may be planted in a night and the assailants may be enticed, or invited out in the morning. Passes before an invading army may be mined in advance and thus if he cannot be destroyed, his progress may be so retarded by dress mines or sham mines as almost literally to dig his way. ”

“ M. F. Maury, Capt. Buchanan, J. M. Brooke, Catesby R. Jones and their assistants are the central figures around which revolve to the present day the changes from the old to the new in naval warfare.
Meantime Captain Maury was most diligently employed in London, under the order of the Navy Department in developing and improving his system, afforded by the workshops and laboratories there for experiment and construction. Here he continued during 1863 and 1864, pursuing these researches, perfecting many valuable inventions, and instruments with signal success. ”

“ Maury, assisted by Acting Master W. F. Carter, and R. Rollins, was charged with the duty of proving the tanks and packing them in casks. There are eleven others, each containing 70 pounds of powder. When tested in the barrels and found ready for use, they will be held in reserve in case of accident to those already down. A larger number was not prepared for want of powder. There are a quantity of admirably insulated wire, a number of shells for anchor or torpedoes and a sufficient quantity of chains for the wires remaining. They will be put in the navy store for safe keeping. ”

“ It can be ignored no longer. If sixty pounds of powder why not 600,” and the Secretary of the Confederate Navy reported: “On the evening of the 5th of October Lieutenant W. T. Glassell, in charge of the torpedo boat, “David,” with Assistant Engineer Tomb, Pilot Walker Cannon, and Seaman James Sullivan, left Charleston to attempt the destruction of the enemy’s ship, ‘New Ironsides.’
Passing undiscovered through the enemy’s fleet, he was hailed by the watch as he approached the ship and answering the hail with a shot, he dashed his boat against her and exploded the torpedo under her bilge. ”

“ At times as many as a hundred a day were caught by the enemy’s netting set out for that purpose in the James River alone.
Captain Francis D. Lee, of General Beauregard’s staff, recommended the spar torpedo, which was very successfully used, especially in the waters around Charleston. It was a case to contain seventy pounds of powder set on the end of a twenty foot spar and rigged on the bow of a boat. It was exploded by contact on the side of the vessel attacked. ”

“ The “Hunley” had thus cost the lives of thirty-three brave men, but nevertheless, there were still found volunteers to risk theirs for their country-and Lieutenant Dixon found no difficulty in enlisting eight more heroes to attack the Federal steam sloop of war, “Housatonic,” a powerful new vessel of eleven guns, lying on the north channel, opposite Beach Inlet, off Charleston. General Beauregard had refused to let it be used again, but Lieutenant Dixon, having undertaken to use the boat with a spar torpedo in the same manner as the “David;” ”

“ A plan for planting torpedoes where the water is too deep for them to lie on the bottom and explode with effect, by which they will not interfere with the navigation of the channel, and by which when the enemy makes his appearance they may, by the touch of a key be brought instantly into the required position and at the proper depth. ”

“ And these improvements and discoveries enable the engineer at small cost, and short notice effectually to defend any roadstad, or block any river, harbour or pass against the land and naval forces of an enemy without in the least interfering with the free use of the same by friendly powers. ”

“ The triggers were then set, the kegs carefully lowered into the water, taking great care not to strain the lanyard, all was cast off, the boat pulled clear, and we waited to see the torpedo float down until the buoy was reached, the lanyard foul strained and explode the torpedo. But there was delay, the lanyard fouled the buoy all right, the kegs floated past and strained the lanyard, but there was no explosion. ”

“ He, it was, who in 1861 mined James River, who, in person commanded the first attack with torpedoes upon the Federal fleet in Hampton Roads, and it was the development and improvement of this plan of defense which held the enemy’s ship throughout the South at bay, and caused the loss of fifty-eight of the ships, and the Secretary of the United States Navy to report to Congress in 1865 that the Confederates had destroyed with their torpedoes more vessels than were lost from all other causes combined. ”

“ They are to be exploded by means of Electricity. Four of the tanks contain 160 pounds of powder, the eleven other hold 70 pounds. All are made of boiler plate.
They are arranged in rows, as per diagram, those of each row being thirty feet apart. Each tank is contained in a water-tight wooden cask, capable of floating it, but anchored, and held below the surface from three to eight feet, according to the state of the tide. The anchor to each is an eighteen inch shell and a piece of kentledge so placed as to prevent the barrels from fouling the buoy ropes at the change of the tide. ”

“ McKinley and a trained crew came from Mobile, bringing with him Lieutenant Dixon, of the Twenty-first Alabama Infantry, to fight the boat. He made repeated descents in the harbour, diving under the receiving ship again and gain successfully. But one day, when Dixon was absent from the city, Mr. Hunley, wishing to handle the boat himself, unfortunately made the attempt ”

“ Acting Master Thomas L. Dornin and Midshipman Alexander M. Mason, having volunteered to accompany me, the evening was passed in preparing the magazine and in explaining in detail to the officers the manner of handling and working them. In filling the tanks I found that I would have 392 pounds to operate with, instead of 400, which I had calculated upon ”