onfederate ram
Albemarle. The ram had been built for the purpose of destroying the
Union blockading forces. Steaming down river, she had twice attacked the
Federal gunboats, and in each case had sunk or disabled one or more of
them, with little injury to herself. She had retired up the river again
to lie at her wharf and refit. The gunboats had suffered so severely as
to make it a certainty that when she came out again, thoroughly fitted
to renew the attack, the wooden vessels would be destroyed; and while
she was in existence, the Union vessels could not reduce the forts and
coast towns. Just at this time Cushing came down from the North with
his swift little torpedo-boat, an open launch, with a spar-rigged out
in front, the torpedo being placed at the end. The crew of the launch
consisted of fifteen men, Cushing being in command. He not only guided
his craft, but himself handled the torpedo by means of two small ropes,
one of which put it in place, while the other exploded it. The action
of the torpedo was complicated, and it could not have been operated in
a time of tremendous excitement save by a man of the utmost nerve
and self-command; but Cushing had both. He possessed precisely that
combination of reckless courage, presence of mind, and high mental
capacity necessary to the man who leads a forlorn hope under peculiarly
difficult circumstances.

On the night of October 27, 1864, Cushing slipped away from the
blockading fleet, and steamed up river toward the wharf, a dozen miles
distant, where the great ram lay. The Confederates were watchful to
guard against surprise, for they feared lest their foes should try to
destroy the ram before she got a chance to come down and attack them
again in the Sound. She lay under the guns of a fort, with a regiment
of troops ready at a moment's notice to turn out and defend her. Her own
guns were kept always clear for action, and she was protected by a
great boom of logs thrown out roundabout; of which last defense the
Northerners knew nothing.

Cushing went up-stream with the utmost caution, and by good luck passed,
unnoticed, a Confederate lookout below the ram.

About midnight he made his assault. Steaming quietly on through the
black water, and feeling his way cautiously toward where he knew the
town to be, he finally made out the loom of the Albemarle through the
night, and at once drove at her. He was almost upon her before he was
discovered; then the crew and the soldi