The many attempts to gain possession of Charleston Harbor, that were animated as much by sentimental reasons as they were dictated by military necessity, were crowned by at least one success. Part of Morris Island was evacuated by the Confederates on September 7th. The enfilading and breaching batteries in the swamps, together with the combined efforts of the ironclads and other vessels, had not succeeded in the reduction of Fort Sumter. Every kind of invention was tried by the inhabitants of Charleston to raise the blockade. Floating mines were sent out on the receding tides by the score; many were anchored at night in places where the day before the Federal \'essels had occupied vantage spots in the bombardment.
On September 6th it was that the New Ironsides, directly off Fort Wagner, lay over a huge mine whose two thousand pounds of powder would have been sufficient to have torn her in two. On shore, the engineering officer who had placed the mine and laid the wires, sin-rounded by a large body of officers, was making every effort to produce the contact that would destroy the hostile ironclad. It was all in vain. By the most miraculous circumstances the wagons that had been driven along the beach to gather sand for the reenforcement of the parapet had rubbed off the insulation of the wires, and they would not work.
It was now that the invention of the torpedo-boat and the submergible came to be enforced on the attention of the public. In all the history of any war there will be found no such record of continuous daring and almost certain death as is to be found in the story of the H. L. Ilunleij, the first submarine boat. This vessel, a cylindrical, cigar-shaped craft only thirty-five feet in length, could actually dive and be propelled under water and rise to the surface. The motive power was furnished by the crew, who, sitting vis-a-vis on benclics, turned a crank
From the time General Grant e.stablished his headquarters at City Point, there wa.s no rest for the gunboats in the James Kiver. There was an active and determined foe to eontend with, and alertness was the watchword for every officer and man in the Federal flotilla. Underneath, one of the huge 100-pounder Parrott guns is being brought into position on the gunboat Mendota" in July, 186-t, ready to be trained upon the Confederates whenever they attempted to plant batteries along the shores. The work of the "Mendota's" gunners on July 28th at Four Mile Creek spoke eloquently of their coolness and accuracy of aim. With equal smartness, and scarcely more excitement than is apparent in the picture above, they served their gims under fire of shot and shell.
connecting with the propeller-shaft. The torpedo was attached to the end of a spar which could be ]irojected in front of the craft. H. Ij. Hunley, of Mobile, was the designer, and the vessel Mas built in his native city.
After several unsuccessful and fatal attempts at Mobile and Charleston. Hunley went to the latter city to take command of his invention in person. Volunteers seemed easy to find, for he picked six men, and starting out in the harbor made several spectacular dives. She was gone overlong on one of these. It was a week before she was brought to the surface. Her inventor and all of his crew were huddled together under one f)f the manholes. Nothing daunted. Lieutenant George E. Dixon, a friend of the boat's inventor, got together another crew, and on the 17th of February, 1864, silently they moved out to where the fine sloop-of-war Housatonic was lying at anchor. The torpedo i)lunged against her side and exploded, blew her almost out of the water and she sank immediately. But the little Ilimlcij never retiu'ued. She found a resting-place on the ocean bed beside her gigantic victim.