e, as well upon the enemy as upon our own naval force."

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.

She was built in 1863-4 at Mobile by Mr. Horace L. Hundley, at his own
expense. She was made of boiler plate, was shaped like a fish
twenty-four feet long, five feet deep, three feet wide; she had fins on
each side, raised or depressed from the interior; her motive power was a
small propeller worked by manual power of her crew seated on each side
of the shaft; she was provided with tanks which could be filled or
empitied of water to increase or dimish her displacement; but had no
provision for air storage. The captain stood in a circular hatchway well
forward and steered the boat, and regulated the depth at which she
should proceed. When she dived all was made tight until she rose again.
She had no ventilation. She was designed to tow a torpedo astern, dive
under the vessel attacked, dragging the torpedo after; she would then
rise to the surface on the other side, when the torpedo would explode by
contact with the bottom of the vessel, and the torpedo boat make off in
the darkness and confusion. General Maury states that on her trial trip,
which he saw, she towed a floating torpedo, dived under a ship, dragging
the torpedo, which fairly exploded under the ship's bottom, and blew the
fragments one hundred feet into the air; and that not being able to use
her in Mobile, he sent her, and her crew to Charleston. It is said that
during another trial in Mobile she sank and all on board perished before
she was raised.

Lieutenant Payne, of the Navy, volunteers to take her out, and secured a
volunteer crew of sailors. She was named the "H. L. Hundley." While tied
to the wharf at Fort Johnston, whence it was to start at night to make
the attack, a steamer passing close by, filled and sank it, drowning all
hands save Payne, who was at the time standing in one of the manholes.
She was promptly raised, but was again sunk, this time at Fort Sumter
wharf, when six men were drowned, Payne and two others esca