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Show A TORPEDO EO AT TRAGEDY. A Ssul Illustration of the Dtwiirer of Tliis Service. The Union squadron investing Charleston during the civil war was drawing closer and closer to the doomed doom-ed place. One of the warships that lay closest inshore was the Housatonic, and that vessel was selected as the torpedo boat's victim. The Portland Transcript tells the tragic story: The evening of Feb. 17, 1S65, closed in raw and foggy. At 8 o'clock Capt. Corisou gave the command and the boat dropped drop-ped down the river. As the clocks were striking the half hour in the city the little craft pulled over the bar. Noiselessly she glided through the water, guided by the lights on tho Housatonic, for which she headed. So heavy was the fog that she escaped the notice of the sentries. At a quarter quar-ter to nine she lay directly In front of the Housatonic, at a distance of fivo hundred yards. She was running faster now, and a little farther on she began to submerge. Two hundred yards more aud she disappeared. Five minutes later there was a dull roar, and the wafer around the Housatonic boiled like a caldron. The noble ship gave a mighty upward heave and then began be-gan to settle. Fnaign Ilazielon and four sailor3 who were below perished, but fortunately for the rest of the crew the water was shallow and they saved themselves by climbing into the rigging. rig-ging. The vessel was a total loss, hut the subniar'ne torpedo boat was nowhere no-where to be found. Two years after t'ae war, when the wreckage was being removed from Charleston harl or, the Ho'tsatonic was railed. In her hull there was a ghastly wound, inflicted by the torpedo, and in that hole was the torpedo beat with every man on board still at, his port, where he had di'd years V fore. The little boat had torn a Ids hole In the cruiser, through which the water had poured in such a volume that the torpedo boat was drawn into it. And th'-re its crew died of suffoea'ion, in the grasp of the enemy en-emy whi'.h they had destroyed. |