“At about 8.45 p.m. the officer of the deck on board the unfortunate vessel discovered something about 100 yards away, moving along the water. It came directly towards the ship, and within two minutes of the time it was first sighted was alongside. The cable was slipped, the engines backed, and all hands called to quarters. But it was too late—the torpedo struck the _Housatonic_ just forward of the mainmast, on the starboard side, in a line with the magazine. The man who steered her knew where the vulnerable spots of the steamer were, and he did his work well. When the explosion took place the ship trembled all over as if by the shock of an earthquake, and seemed to be lifted out of the water, and then sunk stern foremost, heeling to port as she went down. Her captain, Pickering, was stunned and somewhat bruised by the concussion, and the order of the day was ‘_Sauve qui peut_.’ A boat was despatched to the _Canandaigua_, not far off, and that vessel at once responded to the request for help, and succeeded in rescuing the greater part of the crew. Strange to say, the _David_ was not seen after the explosion, and was supposed to have slipped away in the confusion; but when the _Housatonic_ was inspected by divers, the torpedo boat was found sticking in the hole she had made, and all her crew were dead in her. It was a reckless adventure these men had engaged in, and one in which they could scarcely have hoped to succeed. They had tried it once before inside the harbour, and some of the crew had been blown overboard. How could they hope to succeed on the outside, where the sea might be rough, when the speed of the _David_ was not over five knots, and when they might be driven out to sea! Reckless as it might be, it was the most sublime patriotism, and showed the length to which men could be urged on behalf of a cause for which they were willing to give up their lives and all they held most dear.” It was by deeds such as these that North and South are to-day united, as they never were before. When Lieutenant Hobson, during the Spanish-American war, offered to sink the _Merrimac_ at the entrance of Santiago harbour, half the American sailors were wild to join in the hazardous task, and if volunteers for submarines had been requested it is certain that men would have come forward in 1898 as they did so nobly in 1864. [Illustration: THE SINKING OF THE “HOUSATONIC.” ]