At about this time Engineer John L. Lay, U. S. N., had devised a torpedo boat that consisted of a light steam launch rigged to carry a torpedo at the end of a long spar--a torpedo that might be placed against a ship’s side and fired by means of a string that led from the trigger of the torpedo to the launch’s bow. It would be considered a crude affair now, for the man operating the torpedo had to stand erect in the bow of the launch, wholly unprotected even from musketry. Two of these little boats were built in New York, and Cushing carried one of them through inland waters to Albemarle Sound, Norfolk being then in Federal hands. Admiral Ammen, in his history, complains that “the newspapers had gratuitously furnished the enemy with information” about all the movements of Cushing, “as well as the avowed object of destroying the _Albemarle_.” The writer hereof was not a reporter in those days, but he imagines that some naval officer told the reporters where Cushing was going before the destination was announced in any newspaper; though the matter is important only as a warning to naval officers not to tell vital secrets to reporters. As to the effect of this publicity, the Confederates put double lines of pickets along the river below Plymouth, stationed 1,000 soldiers about the wharf, built a boom of cypress logs around the _Albemarle_ at such a distance that no torpedo spar could reach over it to the hull, and kept the sentries on board, pacing to and fro at night, constantly on the lookout, while an outpost was established in the river on the wreck of the sunken _Southfield_, one mile down-stream. It was in the month of October, 1864, that Cushing brought his boat to the waters below Plymouth, and on the night of the 26th the gunboat _Otsego_ towed the launch to the mouth of the river, where Cushing cast off, and with a ship’s cutter loaded with armed men in tow of his launch, he started up the river. The cutter’s men were to land at the outpost, on the old wreck, if necessary, and care for the Confederates there, while the steam launch was to be driven at full speed to the _Albemarle_, a mile away. But luck was against the expedition. The launch grounded, and before she could be gotten afloat day was at hand, and Cushing returned to the _Otsego_. And then came the night of the 27th. There were thirteen officers and men in the launch with Cushing, besides the cutter load in tow. It was a dark night, and with no light and with his machinery working in perfect silence, Cushing steamed up the river. Cushing himself stood in the bow, steering-wheel in hand, with a loaded howitzer on one side ready for firing, and with the gear for working the torpedo on the other. There were two schooners beside the old wreck; but the sentinels failed to see Cushing, and wholly unobserved, he arrived opposite the well-guarded ironclad, and then for the first time learned that the boom was so far out from the ship that the torpedo could not reach her.