“It was a little before nine o’clock, on the evening of February 17, 1864, when Master J. K. Crosby, officer of the deck of the _Housatonic_, detected the torpedo-boat, a scant hundred yards away from the ship. It looked to him, he said, ‘like a plank moving along the water,’ and before he decided to give the alarm, he had lost the seconds in which he might have saved his vessel. When he did pass the word, her cable was slipped, her engine backed and all hands called to quarters; but Dixon had closed on her and fired his torpedo on the starboard side, just forward of her mainmast. A hole was knocked in her side extending below her water line and she went down in four minutes. Five of the _Housatonic’s_ people were killed by the shock or drowned; the remainder took refuge in the rigging, from which they were rescued by other vessels of the fleet. But the victory of the ‘fish’ was fatal to herself and her crew. Whether she was swamped by the column of water thrown up by the explosion, or was carried down by the suction of the sinking _Housatonic_, will never be known; but she went under never to rise again, and the lives of all on board were sacrificed.” All the current histories of the war say that this _David_ was found after the war on the bottom, within a hundred yards of the wreck of the _Housatonic_, but Johnson says the story is not confirmed. But that the men gave their lives to accomplish the work is certain. This chapter may very well close with the story of a brave colored man, a Charleston harbor pilot, named Robert Small, at that time a slave. He was employed on the Confederate transport steamer _Planter_. On the morning of May 13, 1862, Small made one of the most remarkable dashes for liberty known to history. The _Planter_ was lying at the pier, near army headquarters. The captain having gone on shore, Small, from the pilot-house, directed the lines holding her to the pier cast off, and it was done. He then headed out to sea, with the Confederate flag flying above her taffrail. As he passed Sumter and the other forts, he saluted them with three long blasts of the whistle in the usual fashion, and they dipped their flags in return. His boldness saved him from suspicion, and when beyond the line of fire he hauled down the Confederate flag, sent up a white one, and gave the ship to the Union forces. CHAPTER XVII CAPTURE OF FORT FISHER IT WAS ONE OF THE BEST WORKS IN THE SOUTH, THOUGH NOT WELL LOCATED--BUTLER’S POWDER-BOAT SCHEME, AND WHAT HE EXPECTED TO ACCOMPLISH BY IT--THROWING 15,000 SHELLS AT THE FORT DISABLED EIGHT GREAT GUNS OUT OF A TOTAL OF THIRTY-EIGHT--BUTLER THOUGHT THE FORT STILL TOO STRONG AND WOULD NOT TRY--HE DID NOT EVEN MAKE INTRENCHMENTS ACCORDING TO ORDERS--GEN. A. H. TERRY, WITH 6,000 SOLDIERS AND 2,000 FROM THE SHIPS, EASILY TOOK THE FORT THREE WEEKS LATER--THE NAVY’S LAST FIGHT IN THE CIVIL WAR.