Tuesday Oct. 15 1861
BIG BRIDGE BURNT BY BELLIGERENTS

Merriwether Jeff Thompson wanted badly to have a military career. He applied to West Point and the Virginia Military Institute but, alas, was turned down by both. The beginning of the War found him in Missouri, so he rounded up a battalion of volunteers and offered them to the secessionist governor Claiborne Jackson, but even Jackson turned him down. Undeterred, Thompson simply promoted himself to General and took his men freelance. Yesterday he called for the people of southeast Missouri to rise up against the Yankees. Today he went out and burned the Big River Bridge, near Potosi, Mo. Thompson would become known in some circles as the “Swamp Fox of the Confederacy.”



Wednesday Oct. 15 1862
ACTIVE APALACHICOLA ACTION ACHIEVED

No big battles marred this day, but little ones popped up all over the landscape, from Fort Gibson in Indian Territory to the Apalachicola River in Florida, where a small flotilla of Union ships ran up the waterway to capture a blockade runner through a hail of gunfire from shore batteries. In between were actions, skirmishes, operations and general acts of violence in Tennessee near Neely’s Bend on the Cumberland River; Crab Orchard and Barren Mound, Kentucky, and near Carrsville, Virginia. Admiral David Farragut, USN, reported to his superiors that Galveston, Corpus Christi, and Sabine City, Texas were in Union possession, a statement which turned out to be somewhat premature.



Thursday Oct. 15 1863
HORRID HUNLEY HAPPENING HINDERS HEALTH

The CSS Hunley was a most ungainly vessel, not surprising in view of the fact that parts of it had started life as a steam boiler. Horace L. Hunley, financier and creative thinker, looked at this cylinder and saw a submarine, and after much tinkering, cutting, installation of a crank and a screw which the crank would turn, and other necessities, it was time for action. She sailed out into Charleston Harbor with Hunley himself at the helm. The official report stated “The boat...disappeared at 9:35 a.m. As soon as she sunk, air bubbles were seen to rise to the surface of the water, and from this fact it is supposed the hole in the top of the boat by which the men entered was not properly closed.” Despite the fact that she had already killed one other crew earlier, the Hunley was raised again, although with the intention that she be used as a ram rather than a submersible.

More:
The C.S.S. Hunley, the first successful submarine, sinks during a test run, killing its inventor and seven crewmembers.

Horace Lawson Hunley developed the submarine from a cylinder boiler. It was operated by a crew of eight--one person steered while the other seven turned a crank that drove the ship's propeller. The Hunley could dive, but it required calm seas for safe operations. It was tested successfully in Alabama's Mobile Bay in the summer of 1863, and Confederate commander General Pierre G.T. Beauregard recognized that the vessel might be useful to ram Union ships and break the blockade of Charleston Harbor. The Hunley was placed on a railcar and shipped to South Carolina.

The submarine experienced problems upon its arrival. During a test run, a crewmember became tangled in part of the craft's machinery and the craft dove with its hatch open; only two men survived the accident. The ship was raised and repaired, but it was difficult to find another crew that was willing to assume the risk of operating the submarine. Its inventor and namesake stepped forward to restore confidence in his creation. On October 15, he took the submarine into Charleston Harbor for another test. In front of a crowd of spectators, the Hunley slipped below the surface and did not reappear. Horace Hunley and his entire crew perished.

Surprisingly, another willing crew was assembled and the Hunley went back into the water. On February 17, 1864, the ship headed out of Charleston Harbor and approached the U.S.S. Housatanic. The Hunley stuck a torpedo into the Yankee ship and then backed away before the explosion. The Housatanic sank in shallow water, and the Hunley became the first submarine to sink a ship in battle. Unfortunately, its first successful mission was also its last--the Hunley sank before it returned to Charleston, taking yet another crew down with it. The vessel was raised on August 8, 2000, and will now reside in an exhibit at the Charleston History Museum.




Saturday Oct. 15 1864
SHELBY SACKS SEDALIA SERVICEMEN SOUNDLY

Gen. Jo Shelby, unlike M. Jeff Thompson, had a real commission in a real army, and was operating today under the overall command of Gen. Sterling Price’s campaign to take the state of Missouri into the Confederacy, or at any rate out of the Union. Today, Shelby, operating on a detached campaign, assaulted the garrison at Sedalia, Mo. The defending militiamen did not give a very outstanding account of themselves; in the words of one report they “seemed confused.” In the other arm of the campaign, Price’s men occupied the town of Paris, Mo., and some fighting occurred near Glasgow.