Many brave deeds have been done in war by combatants and non-combatants alike, but the cool courage of the pilot or steersman of the first _David_ will take some beating. Her initial attack was directed against the ironclad ship _Ironsides_, named in commemoration of the “Old Ironsides,” and whether failure or success attended the attempted destruction of the ship, those on the _David_ knew they were engaged in a forlorn hope. Only the funnel and pilot-house of the little vessel were discernible above the sea level, and even they were not very conspicuous. The _David_ was hailed, and replied with a volley of musketry, and an instant later a torpedo exploded against the sides of the warship. It lifted her and shook her, but inflicted no material damage worth speaking of, but the moral effect was considerable, as the Federals knew the Confederates had now devised a new means of attacking them. At the moment of the explosion the four or five men composing the crew of the _David_ jumped overboard, as it was thought she would be swamped by the backwash of the explosion. She did not sink, however, and the pilot held on to her for his life, for he was the only man on board who could not swim. The engineer swam to her, and together they took her back to Charleston. On the Mississippi and the other American rivers both sides improvised as gunboats anything that had an engine in it and a platform upon which a gun could be carried. Small tug-boats were given turtle-back armour, too thin to be of use, whence some of them got the name of tin-clads in contradistinction to the ironclads; big side-wheel steamers were protected with anything that could be utilised for the purpose, from logs to bags of ashes, and ordinary river cargo steamers and barges were also found very adaptable. It may, indeed, be doubted if in any war there has been such an assemblage of opposing warships improvised from the most unpromising materials as in the American Civil War. The majority of them were not of great use as combatants, notwithstanding that their crews usually handled them with reckless bravery, and after the passage of the Mississippi mouth had been forced and the northern warships were able to ascend the river, the fighting value of these makeshifts became almost a negative quantity. In the absence of superior force, however, there was no telling what they might attempt, for their crews were as reckless as they were daring.