CHAPTER XIV.

SOME INVENTIONS AND DEVICES OF THE WAR.

A TORPEDO.

new class of materials

HAT "necessity is the mother of invention" nothing can more clearly and fully demonstrate than war. I will devote this chapter to presenting some facts from the last war which illustrate this maxim. As soon as the tocsin of war had sounded, and men were summoned to take the field, a demand was at once made, on both sides of Mason and Dixon's line, for a the materials of war, for which there had been no demand of consequence for nearly fifty years. The arms, such as they were, had been largely sent South before the outbreak. But they were somewhat old-fashioned, and, now that there was a demand for new arms, inventive genius was stimulated to produce better ones. It always has been true, and always will be, that the manufactured products for which there is an extensive demand are the articles which invention will improve upon until they arrive as near perfection as it is possible for the work of human hands to be. Such was the case with the materials of warfare. Invention was stimulated in various directions, but its products appeared most numerous, perhaps, in the changes which the arms, ammunition, and ordnance underwent in their better adaptation to the needs of the hour.

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The few muskets remaining in the hands of the govern ment in 1861 were used to equip the troops who left first for the seat of war. Then manufacturing began on an immense scale. The government workshops could not produce a tithe of what were wanted, even though running night and day; and so private enterprise was called in to supplement the need. As one illustration, Grover & Baker of Roxbury turned their extensive sewing-machine workshop into a rifle-manufactory, which employed several hundred hands, and this was only one of a large number in that section. Alger, of South Boston, poured the immense molten masses of his cupolas into the moulds of cannon, and his massive steam-hammers pounded out and welded the ponderous shafts of gunboats and monitors. The descendants of Paul Revere diverted a part of their yellow metal from the mills which rolled it into sheathing for government ships, to the founding of brass twelve-pounders, or Napoleons, as they were called; and many a Rebel was laid low by shrapnel or canister hurled through the muzzle of guns on which was plainly stamped "Revere Copper Co., Canton, Mass." Plain smooth-bore Springfield muskets soon became Springfield rifles, and directly the process of rifling was applied to cannon of various calibres. Then, muzzle-loading rifles became breech-loading; and from a breech-loader for a single cartridge the capacity was increased, until some of the cavalry regiments that took the field in 1864 went equipped with Henry's sixteen-shooters, a breech-loading rifle, which the Rebels said the Yanks loaded in the morning and fired all day.

I met at Chattanooga, Tenn., recently, Captain Fort, of the old First Georgia Regulars, a Confederate regiment of distinguished service. In referring to these repeating rifles, he said that his first encounter with them was near Olustee, Fla. While he was skirmishing with a Massachusetts regiment (the Fortieth), he found them hard to move, as they seemed to load with marvellous speed, and never to have their

fire drawn. Determined to see what sort of fire-arms were opposed to him, he ordered his men to concentrate their fire on a single skirmisher. They did so and laid him low, and afterwards secured his repeating rifle - I think a Spencer's seven or eight shooter-which they carried along, as a great curiosity, for some time afterward.

In the navy Invention made equally rapid strides. When the war broke out, the available vessels were mainly a few ships-of-the-line, frigates and screw steamers; but these could be of little service in such a warfare as was evidently on hand, a warfare which must be carried on in rivers, and

bays, and coastwise generally, where such clumsy and deepdraught vessels could not be used. So sloops-of-war, gunboats, mortar-boats, double-enders, and iron-clads came to the front, and the larger old-fashioned craft were used mainly as receiving ships. But with the increase in range and calibre of naval armament came a seeking by Invention for something less vulnerable to their power, and after the encounter of the little "Yankee Cheese Box," so called, and the Rebel Ram "Virginia," the question of what should constitute the main reliance of the navy was definitely settled, and monitors became the idols of the hour. These facts are all matters of well written history, and I refer to them now only to illustrate the truth of the maxim with which I began the chapter.

I wish now to give it still further emphasis by citing some illustrations which the historian has neglected for "nobler game." Some of the inventions which I shall refer to were impractical, and had only a brief existence. Of course your small inventor and would-be benefactor to his kind clearly foresaw that men who were about to cut loose from the amenities of civil life would be likely to spend money freely in providing themselves before their departure with every

thing portable that might have a tendency to ameliorate the condition of soldier life. With an eye single to this idea these inventors took the field.

One of the first products of their genius which I recall was a combination knife-fork-and-spoon arrangement, which was peddled through the state camping-grounds in great numbers and variety. Of course every man must have one. So much convenience in so small a compass must be taken advantage of. It was a sort of soldier's trinity, which they all thought that they understood and appreciated. But I doubt

whether this invention, on the average, ever got beyond the first camp in active service.

I still have in my possession the remnants of a waterfilterer in which I invested after enlistment. There was a metallic mouth-piece at one end of a small gutta-percha tube, which latter was about fifteen inches long. At the other end of the tube was a suction-chamber, an inch long by a half-inch in diameter, with the end perforated, and containing a piece of bocking as a filter. Midway of the tubing was an air-chamber. The tubing long since dried

A DOUBLE-TURRETED MONITOR.

and crumbled away from the metal. It is possible that I used this instrument half a dozen times, though I do not recall a single instance, and on breaking camp just before the Gettysburg Campaign, I sent it, with some other effects, northward.

I remember another filterer, somewhat simpler. It consisted of the same kind of mouth-piece, with rubber tubing attached to a small conical piece of pumice-stone, through which the water was filtered. Neither of these was ever of any practical value.

I have spoken of the rapid improvements made in arms. This improvement extended to all classes of fire-arms alike. Revolvers were no exception, and Colt's revolver, which monopolized the field for some time, was soon crowded in the race by Smith and Wesson, Remington, and others. Thousands of them were sold monthly, and the newly