They Had No Other Furniture Or Belongings, And Were
To Be Moved Either By Steam-Tugs Or By The Use Of The Long Oars
Which Were Sent With Them.
It was intended that one 13-inch mortar,
of enormous weight, should be put upon each; that these mortars
Should be fired with twenty-three pounds of powder; and that the
shell thrown should, at a distance of three miles, fall with
absolute precision into any devoted town which the rebels might hold
the river banks. The grandeur of the idea is almost sublime. So
large an amount of powder had, I imagine, never then been used for
the single charge in any instrument of war; and when we were told
that thirty-eight of them were to play at once on a city, and that
they could be used with absolute precision, it seemed as though the
fate of Sodom and Gomorrah could not be worse than the fate of that
city. Could any city be safe when such implements of war were about
upon the waters?
But when we came to inspect the mortar-boats, our misgivings as to
any future destination for this fleet were relieved; and our
admiration was given to the smartness of the contractor who had
secured to himself the job of building them. In the first place,
they had all leaked till the spaces between the bottoms and the
decks were filled with water. This space had been intended for
ammunition, but now seemed hardly to be fitted for that purpose.
The officer who was about to test them, by putting a mortar into one
and by firing it off with twenty-three pounds of powder, had the
water pumped out of a selected raft; and we were towed by a steam-
tug, from their moorings a mile up the river, down to the spot where
the mortar lay ready to be lifted in by a derrick.
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