The Confederate Navy: Too Little, Too Late

by John W. Krausser

©1996 The Cincinnati Civil War Round Table

I would first like to say that there should be no misunderstanding about my knowledge of the Navy of the Confederacy. My interest in the Civil War stems from a childhood background -- when my maternal grandmother and great grandfather steeped me in stories of their firsthand experience, all of which were of land and army events and all of which were Union and very biased at that.

So, I suppose it is by some law of opposites that within recent years I have become most interested in the naval affairs of the Civil War and particularly those of the Confederate side. So it is rather that I have an avid curiosity about this phase of the struggle rather than any complete knowledge of it.

It is regrettable in my estimation, that we must rely at this late date on the written word -- the books -- the archives -- the records for the tremendous emotional reactions that our ancestors experienced in that era when the individual was such an important factor in the day to day action that led to the solution of such a crisis in our country.

I only wish I had the power to present to you a living account of the subject I have chosen for my talk to you tonight.

It is not my intention to relate in detail any particular naval action or series of action but rather I wish to speak about the Confederate navy from the standpoint of --
1. Imagination and Invention
2. Administration and Management

Undoubtedly these will be intermingled as we proceed, but I hope to keep things sufficiently in order for you to identify my points.

Just last year we heard a very imaginative paper that dwelt on Sir Winston Churchill's revision to history which described history as he conjectured it would be had Pickett's charge at Gettysburg been successful. I am sure that all of us can pick out various critical times in the history of the struggle where just a slight twist in the turn of events would have caused the pages of history to be entirely reversed. One such point has always fascinated me. This point concerns a ship -- not of the Confederacy -- but one of the Union. Perhaps the most famous of the war -- the Monitor. I shall read a portion of a letter written march 14, '62 by Lt. S. Dana Greene to his family. He starts by describing the departure of the "Monitor" from New York.
We went out passed the Narrows with a light wind from the West, and very smooth water. The weather continued the same all Thursday night. I turned out at six o'clock on Friday morning and from that time until Monday at 7:00 p.m., I think I lived quite rough. In the afternoon it was breaking over our decks, at a great rate, and coming in our house pipe forward in perfect floods. Our berth deck hatch leaked in spite of all we could do, and the water came down under the tower like a waterfall. It would strike the Pilot House and go over the Tower in beautiful curves. The water came through the narrow eye holes in the Pilot House with such force as to knock the helmsman completely round from this wheel.

At 4:00 p.m. the water had gone down our smokestacks and blowers to such an extent that the blowers gave out and the engine room was filled with gas.

I will not go on with the letter. Sufficient to say that all of the conditions and circumstances were there to cause the foundering of the ship. In fact, as you all know, she suffered that fate some time later in similar rough weather off the Carolina Coast. Suppose she had gone down that early date in March of 1862. What a difference there would have been in history. The Confederacy most likely could have brought an end to the hostilities because of the results of an imaginative approach to naval warfare was just beginning to pay off. That imagination creation was the ironclad typified by the first and most noted -- the Virginia. I should like to talk about this tremendously important vessel.

Imagination not only is an attribute to create new ideas and things, but it is a characteristic that also allows to pioneer in the use of new creations. The South was not the birthplace of the use of armor plating a war vessel, but it was the first of the two antagonists to embrace the idea, and just by one day placed its entry into the arena on March 8, 1862 at 1:00 p.m.

Historically, the first proposal for a modern employment for armor on ship stems back to the Englishman Sir Wm. Congreve in 1805. In America, John Stevens, of Hoboken, New Jersey, submitted plans for an armored vessel in 1812 to Congress, and by 1841 had determined by actual experiment and thickness of wrought iron armor which was proof against projectiles then in use.

In the Crimean War the French used three iron-cased floating batteries. They followed this up by completing in 1859 the warship Gloire, a wooden frigate protected by a complete belt of iron armor 4 3/4 inches in thickness. There is some evidence that the Confederacy wanted to purchase this vessel. The British followed with the Warrior in 1861, an entirely iron vessel with a 4 1/2 inch armor. So the idea of an ironclad was not original with the South, but the concept was different.

According to the Southern Historical Society Papers,, Com. John M. Brooke and J.L. Porter, Naval Constructor, first originated the plans for the building of the ironclad. You recall that in the spring of 1861 the Federals set fire to several war vessels in the Gospost Navy Yard on the Elizabeth River, and abandoned the place. June of that year saw the Confederates raising the frigate Merrimac -- 3,500 and 40 guns. Then the metamorphosis began.

Stephen R. Mallory was Secretary of the Navy for the Confederacy (I shall have a lot to say about him later). Whatever his shortcomings may have been, he must be praised for his imagination and courage in instituting and pushing the construction of ironclads. These ships were his "ace in the hole." At this time -- summer of 1861 -- he had four powerful ironclads under way -- the two under construction at New Orleans were the largest of the type in the world -- while the Virginia was smaller but of awesome potentialities. With these ships Mallory believed the Confederacy would not only be able to defend its own shores effectively, and break the blockage; it could also strike mortal blows at Northern ports and northern war vessels.

The Virginia was Mallory's pet. Frequently, during the early winter of 1861, the experts in charge of the building of the ironclad came to Richmond to report the work was progressing. The ship, they promised would be ready for action by March. Mallory called her a "novelty in naval construction, untried and her powers unknown." Com. John M. Brooke says, "The novelty of the hull consisted in submerging the ends, but no experiment could be made to determine how it would succeed. Everything connected with the ship, except the old hull, was novel, so far as practical application was concerned, and the difficulties were overcome as they presented themselves by consultation, reflection, and study."

The reconstruction of the vessel was completed on March 5, 1862. She drew 22 ft. of water. From an engineering appraisal she had an unforgivable design feature -- poor engines. So poor in fact that she could not make more than five knots. And she was deplorably unwieldy so much so that she could not be turned in less than 30 minutes.

On her hull was built a rectangular casemate of heavy timber 23" thick and rising from the water on each side at an angle of about 35 degrees. This was covered with 4" of bar iron -- 2 -- 2" layers. The underlayer was placed horizontal and the upper laid up and down -- both were bolted through the woodwork and clinched inside. She was armed with 10 guns -- 2 rifled 7 inch, 2 rifled 6 inch, and 6 smooth bore 9 inch Dalhlgrens. But her most powerful equipment was her 19 inch cast iron ram. The iron plating extended 2 feet below the waterline and beyond the casemate toward the bow, was a cast iron pilot house extending 3 feet above the deck.

Into the strategic balance, Secretary Mallory was confident this new ironclad would throw a heavy and decisive weight. He sent long instructions to Flag Officer Buchanan who was to command the vessel, actually giving no specific instructions but pointing out all the possibilities this new creation offered. If Buchanan could pass Old Point Comfort and make a dashing cruise on the Potomac as far as Washington, the effect upon the public mind would be immense. The depressed morals of the South caused by recent military reverses called for a sudden and bold blow by the Navy. "Action, prompt and successful action" was the need of the hour.

On March 6 Buchanan was getting ready to move the "Virginia" out into the river. On the seventh he received the following message from the Navy Secretary:

I submit for your consideration the attack of New York by the "Virginia". Can the "Virginia" steam to New York and attack and burn the city? She can, I doubt not, pass Old Point safely, and, in good weather and a smooth sea, could doubtless go to New York. Once in the bay she could shell and burn the city and the shipping. Such an event would eclipse all the glories of the combats of the sea, would place every man in it preeminently high, and would strike a blow from which the enemy could never recover. Peace would inevitably follow. Bankers would withdraw their capital from the city. The Navy Yard and its magazines and all the lower part of the city would be destroyed, and such an event, by a single ship, would do more to achieve our immediate independence than would the results of many campaigns.

What an imagination! -- what conjecture by Stephen Mallory, but how naive. Naive in so many ways. From a practical standpoint such a sea trip would have been impossible -- the vessel would have foundered in the open sea. but the biggest bar to this dream of naval supremacy was again the result of imagination -- this time that of the North in the creation of the Monitor.

The Federals started months later, October 61, than the Confederacy in the ironclad race, but their superior resource in engineering and construction allowed them to fill the gap and to produce their protagonist in the field of battle just one day after the active advent of the "Virginia."

One day of glory -- March 8, 1862 -- in which for five hours she had stood up under the combined fire of the Federal floating and shore batteries,. She had sunk or completely disabled the two largest ships of the Federal fleet. That night the Navy Department and all of Richmond were jubilant -- this was the end of the blockade -- the beginning of the end of the Federal navy -- the ports of the South once more open to trade -- and all of the backing of Europe open again. No matter how these hopes failed, the one sure thing that came out of that day's fighting was that the wooden battleship had reached its end. Steam and steel had put an end to ships of sail and wood. The Navies of the world were made obsolete in that day's fighting.

Richmond, I said, was overjoyed, but it is of interest to observe an ungracious note in the chorus of praise from the newspaper Examiner. "The success of the "Merrimac"," said the journal, "however gratifying it may be, is in fact a severe reflection upon our sloth and inactivity in naval preparation. It proves what we could have done in this department of our operations if we had employed the proper energy. There are several other hulks in the Portsmouth Navy Yard that may be rendered just as formidable to the enemy as the "Merrimac" herself,; and fifty gunboats could have been also constructed to give these large war vessels aid and comfort."

This type of criticism later on became rampant -- I shall develop the theme a little later along in my talk.

But back to the "Virginia" and the advent of March 9, 1862. I have no intentions of recounting the events of that day -- I am sure most of you know them as well or better than I do. Suffice to say, that the encounter with the "Monitor" was an inconclusive battle. The "Virginia" was checkmated you might say, but certainly she was not damaged and it really was her adversary that withdrew. She had waited a short while for her adversary to return and then steamed back to Norfolk never to fight again and doomed to a futile fate.

The "Monitor", the Confederates were forced to admit, was a powerful vessel, scarcely inferior to the "Virginia"; and the Confederates knew there would be many others of the same model built in the North. The South had led the way in the new type of naval warfare; but the North, with her vastly superior shipbuilding facilities, would enjoy immense advantages in a race to construct the greatest possible number of ironclads.

Let's pass the ironclads and go on to an adventure in imagination which was unique in the Navies of the world and was not shared outside of the Confederacy. The use of the torpedo was unique to the South. When Farragut issued his "Damn the Torpedoes,", etc., at Mobile it took real courage -- for the torpedo had been developed into a real defensive weapon. The name torpedo as used in the War Between the States is quite deceiving. Most torpedoes were mines -- some contact -- but many of them actually electric controlled.

I hope to come back to that later on -- but just now I want to talk about its use in connection with submarine action. We have lived through two wars where the submarine has played an important part and today the "Nautilus" and its sister ships nuclear propelled, are even more important in our naval potential. However, the first successful action of a submarine belongs to the South, "Confederate Sub Sinks 'Housatonic'." I doubt if there were any headlines like that on the 18th of February 1864, but there should have been. Actually, it is one of the most fantastic tales in naval history.

Although the final action took place in February '64, in Charleston Harbor, it all started back in New Orleans in 1861.

At that time the incentive for action against Union shipping was promoted by a decree of Jefferson Davis. This decree was the invitation by him for applications for letters of marque authorizing private citizens to wage war against Union vessels. This was a very controversial declaration. Some time prior to the Civil War the nations of Europe, particularly France, England and Spain, had banded together and drawn up a mutual agreement eliminating this type of warfare. The United States had been invited to join into the agreement but never got around to doing it. Jefferson Davis reasoned that if the United States did not make itself a party to such an agreement, then it was perfectly legitimate to resort to a form of naval warfare that had been frowned upon, and which really bordered on piracy in many respects. In fact, this latter interpretation was taken by the Union Courts and there were several trials of privateersmen resulting even in condemnation of the captured crews to prison and death. The Confederate government in 1861 was ready to pay handsome financial prizes for the destruction of enemy men of war. When the ports became blockaded the idea originated in the mind of James R. McClintock and Baxter Watson, of New Orleans, that a submarine operated out of a blockade port might pay its way and show a return on the investment without ever going to sea. McClintock and Watson were marine engineers and machinists, and they determined to build a submarine at private expense and operated it against the Federal blockade at the mouth of the Mississippi River. Work began on the boat in late '61. Expenses mounted, but others joined the adventure including Horace L. Hunley, a man whose enthusiasm for submarines was to grow with every setback. In the spring of '62, the submarine called the "Pioneer" was ready for trial at Lake Pontchartrain. In her trials she destroyed a target barge, which indicated to her backers the success of such a vessel. A letter of marque was obtained and plans were laid for action against the blockade. But, alas, the "Pioneer" never saw action. Farragut sailed up the river in April of '62 and captured New Orleans. The "Pioneer" disappeared, sunk either by action or design, and was entirely forgotten until many years later when she was raised. I believe she is still in a park at New Orleans.

This did not disturb the backers of the scheme. The three of them went on to Mobile. Here there were plenty of enemy vessels for their type of craft to operate against. There were ships and much more mat,riel. The City was under the command of an imaginative officer, Major General Dabney H. Maury, who was sympathetic toward projects involving underwater torpedoes. He welcomed the three men heartily, approved their plans for private financing of the project, and ordered the boat to be built in the machine shops of Park & Lyons. He extended technical assistance in the form of two young engineers from the Alabama Infantry -- Dixon and Alexander.

A submarine was built and towed off Fort Morgan to be manned for an attack on the blockading fleet. It promptly sank and the job had to be done all over again. I would like to go into some detail about this third effort. An iron boiler was found about 25' long and 4' in diameter and the builders went to work to make a submarine out of it. They cut it in two longitudinally, tapered it fore and aft, inserted boiler-iron strips in the sides, and attached bow and stern castings. Inside the castings, bulkheads were built to form water-ballast tanks for use in raising and lowering the boat. Of the tanks, Alexander, one of the young engineers, noted later that "unfortunately these were left open on top" -- a colossal understatement.

A strip twelve inches wide was riveted the full length on top and flat castings were fitted to the outside bottom for ballast, fastened by bolts which passed through stuffing boxes inside the boat so they might be loosened to drop the ballast if necessary. Sea cocks were installed in the water-ballast tanks, and force pumps to eject the water.

Propulsion was the big problem. Coal could not be burned below water, both because of the limited air supply and for lack of a smokestack. A storage battery adequate to operate even the smallest submarine had not yet been invented. It is of interest to note that the builders spent weeks trying to devise some kind of electromagnetic engine but finally gave it up and settled for manual power. A propeller shaft was installed almost the length of the boat, supported on the starboard side by brackets, with eight cranks spaced so that the crew could sit on the port side and turn the cranks. The arrangement left no room to pass fore and aft, but at least it assured some motion in the water.

For depth control another shaft was installed, passing laterally through the boat just forward of the end of the propeller shaft. This controlled lateral fins, five feet long and eight inches wide, on the outside. A lever amidships allowed the fins to be raised or lowered. For the pilot's guidance, a mercury gauge was attached to the shell near the forward ballast tank to indicate the depth of the boat when submerged, and a compass was installed nearby. A wheel, acting on rods that ran the length of the boat, operated the rudder.

Fore and aft on the boat's flat deck, hatchways were installed with coamings eight inches high. Glass panes installed in these provided the only means of seeing out of the boat when the hatches were closed. There was no periscope. An air box was set between the hatchways and equipped with a pipe so that fresh air could be taken in on the surface without opening the hatches. Quite a primitive affair.

The boat was boarded from both ends, part of the crew passing through the forward hatch with the skipper entering last, and the rest entering through the after hatch with the second officer in the rear. The seven crew members took their seats facing the propeller shaft, the two officers fastened down the hatch covers, and the skipper lit a candle which would provide illumination under and also give warning when the oxygen supply ran low.

This craft was named the H.L. Hunley to honor her chief financial backer. She could go four knots in smooth water, then she could stay submerged as long as the air lasted.

The weapon she was supposed to use was a torpedo made of a copper cylinder containing charges of ninety pounds of explosive powder, with percussion and friction primer mechanisms that could be set off by triggers. The idea was that the torpedo would be attached to the submarine by a line 200 to 300 feet long. It would float behind the boat -- as the submarine approached its prey -- it would dive under it, then the torpedo would be dragged against its target and then explode. All and all, a very risky business. The first runs were made in the Mobile Harbor, and again a successful effort was made in sinking a barge. The waters of the bay were a different story and she was constantly in danger of swamping, and the trailing torpedo was never a success. General Maury realized that her use in Mobile Bay was very unlikely.

It was decided that, perhaps, a better place to operate would be in Charleston, South Carolina. Here a situation had developed which was very serious for the Confederacy. A combined sea and land attack was under way and the Federals had brought up a new and magnificent ironclad called the New Ironsides. An offer was made to General Beauregard to try the privately owned boat. Beauregard at the time was very much disgusted with Mallory and the Navy Department's brass because they were not in accord with his ideas of the use of torpedo boats. He accepted the offer of the Hunley, and the submarine was loaded on two flatcars and sent to Charleston.

Beauregard manned the ship with naval volunteers under Lt. Payne, and the real troubles of the submarine began. The ship was towed to Fort Johnson for trial runs, and things began to happen right away. She was lying at the wharf ready to go out for a dive. The crew members had taken their places, and Payne was standing forward ready to close the hatchway, when the swell from a passing steamer poured over the deck. The Hunley swamped and went down like a rock. Payne was able to escape, but not a man came out of the boat alive. However, Payne asked for permission to raise the boat, collect a crew, and try again. Beauregard probably would not have given this permission, but at the very time another event took place that was very encouraging to this type of action. This was the action of the torpedo boat David. It is some time questioned and misnamed a submarine. However, it was a small iron boat, steam driven, that lay very low in the water, and had a long pole extending from the bow. At the end of this pole was a torpedo. This type of arrangement is known as a spar torpedo. The pole could be raised or lowered from the boat, with a torpedo fitted into a socket at the end of it. The David was operated by a crew of four men. On the night of October 5, '63, she boldly steamed out into the harbor and headed right for the New Ironsides. She rammed her with the torpedo, and did so much damage to the New Ironsides that she was out of action for the rest of the siege of Charleston. The David at first was abandoned but fortunately the Pilot Cannon could not swim and he hung on to the boat. Engineer J.H. Tomb, while he was floating around, noted that the ship was not sinking, so he boarded it and the two of them brought the ship back into port.

This was another first, if you will. It was the first time that a warship had been damaged by a torpedo boat. The enthusiasm from this event led to the raising of the Hunley. Repairs were made, and practice runs were resumed. Strangely enough, Lt. Payne had no difficulty getting another crew. But history repeated itself. This time the little boat was swamped along-side the wharf at Fort Sumpter, but again Payne escaped and, fortunately, two members of her crew.

Beauregard began to wonder as to the use of the Hunley when Horace Hunley himself arrived from Mobile with a new volunteer crew. He asked permission to operate the boat himself with the crew whom he claimed had learned her eccentricities at Mobile. This new crew took out the Hunley, dived successfully, and returned safely. Then, on the rainy morning of October 15, '63, Hunley took his boat into the harbor, submerged and failed to come up.

When the word reached Mobile, the two young engineers, Dixon and Alexander, who had been associated with the ship formerly, determined to offer their services for yet another try. There was a great reluctance on everyone's part to do anything about the ship, but finally the submarine was brought up, and Beauregard was so disturbed by the tragedy revealed inside the boat that he called a halt to the experiments. The two young engineers were still not to be daunted. They pleaded with Beauregard to use the vessel not as a submarine but as a torpedo boat as a sister ship to the David, and finally the General reluctantly consented. This meant that the Hunley would be fit with a spar torpedo. Dixon and Alexander studied the reason for the failure of Hunley and his crew. They analyzed that basically the fault lay in the clumsy arrangement for dropping the iron keel ballast; the bolts had been partly turned, but not enough to release it. They further studied the situation and decided that the human element involved in the tragedy really caused the failure. Hunley himself, according to their reasoning, had let himself go down without lighting his candle, and when the craft was plunged in darkness, could not operate things properly. On the basis of their studies they refitted the boat. Again, another volunteer crew was obtained over Beauregard protests. The attitude of the Confederate Navy officers on the scene was downright hostile. However, the two engineers made a successful series of dives in Charleston and immediate vicinity. These spurred everyone on to thoughts of success and it was decided to seek a victim among the blockade vessels outside the bar. The real problem became apparent and that was the matter of distance out to the warships. The nearest ship was about twelve miles away. The Hunley could reach a speed of four knots an hour but in rather smooth water and light current. The ideal attack plan, Dixon and Alexander agreed, would be to go out with the ebb tide on a dark, calm night, strike, and come in with the flood tide. Conditions didn't offer themselves and weeks went by. In all of this time, the Hunley showed only one structural fault. The air box, which was supposed to provide fresh air through a pipe while the Hunley lay just below the surface, had not worked out well. When ventilation was needed it was necessary to come up high enough for the after-hatch to be opened. Several times when they did this they could hear conversation and song from Federal picket boats, and they realized how vitally important it was to choose a dark night for their expeditions.

One of the most startling tests they made was to determine how long they could stay down without coming up for air. One afternoon, in the presence of a crowd of soldiers, the Hunley was sunk to the bottom of the bay where she lay motionless. It had been agreed that when any one man had reached his limit of endurance and must go up for air, that simply by saying "up", the experiment would be over and then the ship raised. At last this moment was reached -- a man gasped "Up!" and, in the instant he spoke, every other man aboard echoed the word. Again, there was almost failure, sea weed stuck in the valve, but through the quick action of Alexander the pump valve was released and the Hunley slowly raised to the surface. It had been two hours and 35 minutes since the submarine had dived.

Time wore on. About the end of January, 1864, Alexander was detached, and ordered back to Mobile to build a breech-loading repeating gun. Dixon was in command. On the night of February 17th, the wind turned to fair, and the sea grew calm. Dixon decided that he could wait no longer, even though the moon was bright. After making arrangement for a return light on Fort Johnson, the crew filed aboard. The hatches were closed, and the Hunley was on her way for her moment of destiny.

Outside in the harbor was the S.S. Housatonic. She was a sloop, a screw steamer of 1,240 tons, and carried thirteen guns. Master Crosby was on deck that night when he saw what he supposed was a plank floating in the water abeam of the Housatonic. His alarm brought the Captain, officers, and men piling on the deck. They saw the moving phorescent light clearly marked the path of the strange object below them. It changed directions. The call to quarters was sounded. Then Captain Pickering and several others on deck began firing with revolvers and rifles. The chain had been slipped, and now the engines began backing. At the time the order was given it was the right thing to do, for the submarine was abeam. But now it was approaching from the starboard quarter, and the engines of the Housatonic sent the sloop closer toward its enemy. It was too late now. Before any one knew what was happening, the vessel was shaken by a tremendous explosion between the mainmast and mizzenmast. Timbers and splinters flew through the air; men fell stunned or injured to the deck; the entire stern of the vessel seemed to disintegrate. There was a great rushing of water, an immense cloud of black smoke rose from the stack, and the Housatonic went down. In less than an hour the survivors of the Housatonic were being rescued. Only five of her crew were lost.

History had witnessed the first sinking of a warship by a submarine. No more was heard from the Hunley or her crew, and only speculation can be made as to what happened. Captain M.M. Gray, torpedo officer in the Office of Submarine Defenses, expressed the opinion that the submarine had gone into the hole made in the Housatonic by the explosion and had been unable to muster sufficient power to back out.

Charleston did not fall until February 17, 1865 - one year later. When divers went down to look at the wreck of the Housatonic

, they saw no trace of the Hunley. But yea5rs later she was found, lying on the boom of the harbor, still pointing toward the vessel she had sunk.

Just a bit more about torpedoes. Here again is an idea that the South grasped first and employed to their advantage. Matthew F. Maury and Hunter Davidson were the pioneers in the development of the torpedo program. Maury and Davidson had begun experiments in the spring of 1862. They had sent representatives over to Europe to find out more about this type of warfare, and to be sure their experiments were following along known lines. In October of that year (1862), the Torpedo Bureau was established at Richmond under the charge of Brigadier General G.J. Raines, C.S.A., and the Naval Submarine Battery Service was headed by Captain M.F. Maury. This combination is just one of the many organizational features that developed in the Confederacy. The first governmental grant of money was made by Congress in May, 1863 - a modest $20,000. By February of '64, $100,000 was appropriated for the construction of submarine batteries, and by June of that year $250,000 more was assigned, but again, it was a case of too little and too late. Eventually, after three years, a bill passed both houses and $6,000,000 was appropriated, but this, of course, was to no avail.

Various types of torpedoes were developed at the stations such as Richmond, Wilmington, Charleston, Savannah, and Mobile. There was the spar torpedo which we have mentioned before. There were several kinds of river and harbor mines, some of them connected by electric wires from which they were detonated from shore positions.

Evidence from the Union side of these torpedoes existence is clearly presented in a report, in the James River area, spring of 1864, written by Lt. R.H. Lamson to Rear Admiral S.P. Lee.
These torpedoes have a board float and are suspended some 6 or 8 feet below the surface. Cylindrical tanks with conical ends, made of half-inch boiler iron and securely riveted. These are anchored at the bottom of the deepest water, and each has two insulated copper wires running from the center of the torpedo through a composition plug screwed into one end and connecting with a galvanic battery on shore, by means of which they are exploded. In the center of the torpedo these copper wires are connected by a thread-like platinum wire, running through a short quill filled with phosphorous and fulminating powder. The largest one of this kind found contained about 1,950 pounds of powder, and the smallest about 1,040 pounds. These torpedoes are constructed with great ingenuity and scientific skill, and when taken from the water were in as good a state of preservation as when first put down.

There were many other kinds of floating mines which were lashed to buoys or strung between two boats and floated against enemy vessels. Some of these were devised with chimney in which a piece of slow match extended down to the magazine. They contained from 50 to 100 pounds of powder and were evidently intended to float down the stream and blow up when they came in contact with any vessel. Some of these were devised so that they would be discharged when getting foul of a vessel's wheel or propeller.

Mine fields were successfully laid in the James River, in Charleston Harbor, in front of Fort Fisher, and Mobile Harbor, and were a constant source of trouble to the Federal side. Many of both sides claimed that torpedoes were the chief factor in the successful defense of Charleston,. Several northern historians have stated that for the most part it appeared that torpedoes at Charleston Harbor were more dreaded by the Federal Navy than the land batteries.

What I have been saying up to this time can easily be read in the written record. These incidents only show that the South had a creative and a good imagination in recognizing new advanced scientific approaches, if you will, for prosecuting the war. They not only recognized them, but they had the ability to make practical use of such developments, and furthermore, they were the first of the two antagonists that were ready to take advantage of these new weapons. Why then could they not have been more successful in this type of warfare?

It is my opinion, and only my opinion that the fault does not rest with the Navy organization of the Confederacy per se. I am not one who would advocate that Stephen R. Mallory was a great man, but certainly he was equal to his counterpart in the Federal government, and to his abilities it must be recognized that only he and Reagan were the two members of the Confederacy cabinet that lasted through the whole war in the same cabinet positions.

It is understandable that the South lacked the industrial facilities for building ironclads, gun boats, submarines or torpedoes, but with the eagerness which these new ideas were absorbed, had there been a supporting general policy from the Confederate government, the answer may have been different.

Mallory's administration was not free of criticism. In fact, it was one of the first to suffer and come under fire in the Confederate Congress. In mid August, 1962, a group moved a resolution for an investigation of Mallory's administration. Bitter things were said about the Secretary, and the Southern press began to take sides. During September and October of that year, the Naval investigating Committee held its sessions at Richmond. The composition of this committee was made up of pro and anti Mallory men. Of these, Henry S. Foote, of Tennessee, was an inveterate enemy of Mallory's. One of the most interesting focal points of the investigation turned upon the then recent misfortune at New Orleans. The committee desired to know the answer to the following questions:

1. Had the Navy Department done everything possible to defend the Gulf cities?

2. Had the department expressed itself to complete the Louisiana and the Mississippi at the earliest possible time?

3. Could the department be blamed for the loss of these two ships?

4. Had the department erred greatly in refusing to allow Hollins to bring his squad down to New Orleans?

These are interesting questions particularly if any of you have ever studied the events of the fall of New Orleans from the Navy side. There seems to be no point made in any investigation of the miserable command situation in the area at the time of Farragut's attack. No one the South seemed to be too disturbed over the fact that there was a Navy's Navy, a State's Navy, and an Army's Navy, each of them jealous of the other and all of them acting on their own free will and accord. This situation at New Orleans, of course, was not just typical of that area. The same thing occurred in the Carolinas and in Mobile. I might just add a further point that as in the case of the Hunley, private people made war, too. Just for the interest to you gentlemen, I would like to point out that Congressional investigation has always been the same, and for the record I would like to present a portion of the hearing which clearly indicates how in any political area an effort is always made to belittle one's adversary for no particular good reason. So much for the Mallory side of the administration.

I would like to finish up my thoughts on the Confederate Navy by saying that the South's mistake was that it did not recognize what a navy could mean to it. I probably will offer myself to criticism, but perhaps I could further refine this by saying the South's mistake was in having an Army man for President. It is my opinion that Jefferson Davis, through his training and background, could have nothing but bias in favor of the Army. This was a natural situation because, he, like most Southerners engaged in the gentlemen's art of war belonged to the Army. The people of New England and New York were the sailors of America. The South was the home of the flower of the Army. Unfortunately, because of this background, Davis could not see that only by having the Navy - by only having the organization that would persuade men to go into the Navy - and to build and to divert materials to those ships that could break the blockade - was there any possibility for the Confederacy to exist. It probably never could have been possible for the South to conquer the North, but had the South been able to keep key ports open to European countries, her chances of victory would have been very great. This victory would have come not only through the material that she could receive through her ports, but was through the fact that countries such as England and France could have readily recognized her as a nation. So it is my hypothesis that the South lost the cause purely because it had an inadequate naval approach.

Besides the few incidents I have covered tonight, there is a tremendous romance in the stories of those daring Cruisers - the Sumter, the Alabama, and the Shenandoah. The books written concerning their adventures and then, of course, of the blockade runners, certainly warrant some of your attention in pursuing your reading on the War Between the States.

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