Part 3

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. Indeed, such is the progress made in what may be called this new Department of Military Engineering that I feel justified in the opinion that hereafter in all plans for coast, harbour and river defences and in all works for the protection of cities and places whether against attacks by armies on land or ships afloat, the electrical torpedo is to play an important part. It will not only modify and strengthen existing plans, but greatly reduce the expense of future systems.

These experiments have resulted in some important improvements and contrivances, not to say inventions and discoveries which as yet have been made known only to the Confederate Government. They are chiefly as follows:

First. 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 any one 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. When the torpedoes are laid, a range from each station is established for every torpedo or group of torpedoes. 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.

Second. The "Electrical Gauge," a contrivance of my own, by means of which one of the tests which the igniting fuse has to undergo before it is accepted, is applied. By means of it the operators can telegraph through the fuse to each other without risk to the torpedoes, and by which the torpedoes, may without detriment to their explosibility be tested daily, or as often as required. And thus the operator can at all times make sure that all is right.

Third. 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.

These contrivances are all very simple; they are readily understood from verbal instruction, they require neither models or drawings, and enable the operator chiefly to use the self same wire for testing his torpedoes daily after they are planted, and then to explode them at will.

Though these torpedoes, owing to the lack in the Confederacy of the proper materials and appliances for their construction and use, were make-shifts, yet so effective had their use become, especially during the last year of the war, that the Secretary of the American Navy, in his annual report of December, 1865, to the President of the United States, thus testifies to their efficiency: "Torpedoes always formidable in harbours and internal waters, have been more destructive to our naval vessels than all other means combined."

Since 1862, finding myself in reach of the facilities afforded in England, I have made the study of Electrical torpedoes a specialty, and the results are such, to say the least, as to show that it is capable of doing quite as much for the defence as ironclads and rifled guns are likely to do for the attack.

These results consist in improvements and discoveries which enable the adept in that new department of military engineering to explode his torpedoes whether buried on land or submerged in the water, singly or in groups, instanteously and at any distance to transmit through them without the risk of explosion, orders and commands, and as readily as through the ordinary line of telegraph. To determine with unerring certainty when the enemy is in the field of destruction of this or that torpedo. To render its explosion impossible, unless he be in such field, even though the igniting spark should be discharged; and so to set an electrical current to watch it, as to make the injuring of it without his knowledge impossible, and the removal of it by an enemy, if not impossible, extremely difficult and dangerous.

Electrical torpedoes are also available for the defense of mountain passes, roadways and fortified positions on land.

I am not aware that electricity was used at all in the Confederate war for springing mines on land. Shell cast for this purpose should be used but in an emergency, tin canisters, or other perfectly water-tight cases, will answer. These shells should be one-fourth of an inch thick to one inch, according to size and probable handling in transportation. They should be spherical only instead of a hole for the fuse as in a hollow shot they should have a neck like a bottle, with a cap to screw over, not in the neck. The case should be charged through the neck, and the wires let in through two holes counter sunk diametrically opposite, the counter sinking being for the purpose of receiving pitch or other resinous matter, to keep the water out. The fuse being adjusted to the wires should be held in place by a string through the neck while the wires drawn out taut and sealed within and without. Having proved the fuse, first fill and then drive in the peg. Then fill the space between it and the screw-cap with red lead and screw down so as to make water-tight. Now secure the tails of the wires so that they will not be chafed or bruised, and the mine is ready for transportation.

They are general to be used in stone fougasses, the wire being buried at convenient depths and all marks of fougasses and trenches removed as completely as possible. Any number not exceeding twenty-five or thirty may be arranged in a single circuit for the Ebonite; but if the magnetic exploder of Wheatstone be preferred, and the ground be perfectly dry, hundreds may be planted in a latter circuit.

The operator may be at any distance from these primas when he explodes them, provided only he has established some mark or point which on being seen by the enemy should serve as a signal. The area of destruction of fougasses properly constructed with a charge of twenty or thirty pounds of powder may be assumed to be that of a circle seventy-five or eighty yards in diameter. Twenty mines would therefore serve for a mile. 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.

The power to telegraph through these torpedoes is of little consequence, in as much as there need be but one station and one operator. Using the testing fuse manufactured by Abel and a weak voltaic current, the operator can at any time satisfy himself as to continuity. Thus "bridge" and "gulfs" or "breaks" are not required for the land as they are in sea-mining. Ebonite has the further advantage on land that it takes but a single wire.

Forts may be protected against assault and your own rifle pits from occupation by an enemy simply by a proper distribution of these new engines of war. They may be planted line within line and one row above another, and so arranged that volcanoes can be sprung at will under the feet of assaulting columns. And these improvements and discoveries enable the engineer at small cost, and short notice effectually to defend any roadstead, 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.

To this admirable state of efficiency was the new and terrible science of war perfected, chiefly by the Confederate Navy, and mainly through the instrumentality of its faithful, and devoted officer Captain Matthew F. Maury, and his brave and daring young assistants, Minor, Davidson, Kennon, Dixon, Glassel, and many others, and those crews of the "Hundley," who moved by the lofty faith that with them died, volunteered for enterprise of extremest peril in the defense of Charleston Harbour, in which they all perished, in this desperate service, of whom the names of but the following are known: Horace L. Hundley, George E. Dixon, Robert Brookland, Jos. Patterson, Thomas W. Park, Chas. McHugh, Henry Beard, John Marshall, C. L. Sprague, C. F. Carlson, Arnold Beeker, Jos. A. Wicks, C. Simpkins, F. Collins, Ridgway, Miller, whose monument erected by the ladies of Charleston, stands upon the battery there in perpetual memory and honour.

RICHARD L. MAURY,

Army Northern Virginia.