Special Operations

• Horological Torpedo- The classic time bomb found a use in the Civil War.  In late July 1864, Capt. Zere McDaniel, Confederate Army Secret Service Company  commander near Richmond, provided a timebomb to John A. Maxwell, a well-known Confederate sabotuer and spy.  Maxwell traveled to teh vicinity of Isle of Wight County, Virginia, and sought suitable targets.  He was accompanied by a local guide, R.K. Dillard.  On August 9, 1864, they arrived at City Point, Virginia, at the confluence of the Appomattox and James Rivers.  This was the major Union depot in Virginia and General Grant's headquarter.

     Maxwell took the time bomb to the wharf on the river.  There, he gave the timebomb to a Negro workman and directed him to place it aboard a boat.  The time bomb was placed aboard the only ammunition barge at the wharf.  An hour or so later, the bomb exploded.  When the smoke cleared, over 55 people were dead and over $2 million in damage had been done to Union supplies.  A board of inquiry concluded that the explosion had been caused by negligent workman smoking near the boat.  Only after the war, were Maxwell's report to McDaniel discovered and the true nature of the explosion known.

     Maxwell's time bomb was a wooden box marked "Candles".  The box was filled with blackpowder except for a small corner which contained the detonating mechanism.  After the war, Lt. Mitchie, in his examination of Confederate infernal machines, drew a scale drawing of the device.  Of more importance, one of the timing mechanisms was found and is on display today at the City Point National Military Park.

     The timing device is an ordinary 8-day clock.  A lever is connected to the clock mechanism so that when a certain point in the clock gear is reached, the lever is released.  The leaver blocks a spring loaded plunger.  When the lever is moved the plunger activates and strikes a percussion cap or other sensitive primer.  This detonates the main charge of blackpowder.

     It is unknown whether McDaniel or some other person made the device.  It is interesting to not that a man, anmed William Moon, patented a horological torpedo with the Confederate Patent Office on July 11, 1864.  The only known use of this device was the attack at City Point.

 

• Floating Horological Torpedo- Another type of time bomb is found in the collection of the United States Military Academy.  It is a cylindrical metal container.  A clockwork timing device triggers a common percussion cap lock, which fires the charge.  The detonator assembly is in a small container within the main container.  It is accessed by a small over in the body of the main torpedo.

     King reports a second type of floating horological torpedo using an 8-day clock timing device similar to that used in the City Point torpedo. This torpedo uses a spring loaded mechanism to fire a Raines style sensitive primer instead of a percussion cap lock.

     Reports by Raines and others indicate that Confederate torpedo personnel would float pieces of wood down a waterway and time the course to an enemy boat(s).  They then set the clock timers appropriately and placed the devices in the waterway.  If the the devices layed up agaisnt the hull of a ship, they exploded and sank it.  Usually, however, they floated around until they self-detonated harmlessly.

     They were reportedly used in the James River Area.

 

• Coal Torpedo- Capt. Thomas E. Courtenay, CSA, invented the coal torpedo.  What Courtenay invented was a piece of hollow cast iron shaped like a lump of coal.  The device was filled with blackpowder and sealed with a threaded screw.  The small hole of the screw was filled with dirt.  When the device was placed in a firebox, the cast iron would heat to the point that the blackpowder ignited.  The resulting pressure burst the cast iron device and exploded the boilder above the firebox.

     The coal torpedoes are believed to have been used.  However there is no specific instance in which the coal torpedo was positively identified as the damage causing agent.  A coal torpedo was blamed for the sinking of the Greyhound, General Butlers command boat on the James River.  There is some belief that a coal torpedo caused the Sultana tragedy at the war's end.  A problem identifying such incidents is that boilers on occasion exploded from mishandling by engineers or by structural failure.

     In a variation on the theme, there is one report from the western theater that Confederate operators had taken wood, hollowed it and filled it with blackpowder.  The wood was intended to be used as fuel aboard ships when coal was not available.  These devices were apparently discovered before they could be used.  Wood would probably not contain the blackpowder deflagration sufficiently to explode.  The wood would probably crack and expose the blackpowder to the fire before any serious explosion could take place.

     A possible use of blackpowder filled wood was by the "boat burners" a group of Confederate operatives who set ifre to over 70 Union transports and other vessels using incendiary devices, including the Courtenay coal torpedo.

     However, there is life after death.  In WWII, the German Secret Service used coal torpedoes as sabotage devices.  The device was little more sophisticated only in the explosive and detonator used.

     The Japanese secret service in WWII was not to be outdone.  The Japanese coal torpedo device was an earthenware container of irregular shape and size, coated with black bitumen paint to give it the appearance of anthracite coal.  The explosive used was RDX (cyclonite), a modern explosive.  The ignitor was a copper tube with a blackpowder initiator, which, in turn, fired a detonator.

 

• Anti-lift device- The first attempt of neutralizing Confederate torpedoes involved Union naval personnel in open boats.  These men located the torpedoes and hauled them into the boats.  They then took the torpedoes ashore and broke them up.  This methodology resulted from a complete failure to understand the firing mechanism of the torpedoes then in use.  There wa some understanding that with galvanically detonated torpedoes or contact torpedoes, they could be removed by hand after the electric wires had been severed or if the detonating horns were not touched.

     Confederate operators soon developed a countermeasure for this.  In addition to the mine itself, the constructed a seperate explosive device containing 150 pounds of blackpowder, which was little more than a boiler torpedo on a smaller scale.  This seperate torpedo device (called at times the devil circumventor) had a simple pull line/friction primer detonator.  When the main torpedo was grasped and pulled, the concomitant pull on the line would detonate the the anti-lift device, hopefully killing or wounding the men in the boat.

    Research has shown that these anti-lift devices were only used in conjunction with the Brooke swaying torpedo in the Potomac and James Rivers.

 

• Railroad Torpedo- Torpedoes to destroy railroad trains, bridges, and railroads are known to have been used during the war.  McDaniel reported that he had used such a torpedo to destroy a Union supply train near Tullahoma, TN, during the middle Tennessee campaign of Braxton Bragg.  Unfortunately, McDaniel did not leave a description of his torpedo.

     Another torpedo was developed by a Union officer and was reported in King's book.  This device is a simple trigger release device for a percussion cap lock.  A train traveling on the track causes a lever to trip the sear of a percussion cap lock.  After firing the cap, the flame follows two seperate powder trails to two seperate rails and explodes, hopefully destroying the rails and the train.

     General Haupt reported on the use of what amounts to a modern pipe bomb to destroy railroad ties through explosion.  In his system, and augur or drill is used to drill a hole in the tie.  The pipe bomb is put in the hole and a cannon fuze lit.  The resulting explosion destroys the tie and makes it unusable.  The advantage of this system is that it is very quick to implemet. 

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