imported>Hussier1: /* After the Civil War */

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After the Civil War

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{{Short description|Bomb intended to sabotage steam engines}}
[[File:CoalTorpedo.jpg|right|thumb|200px|A coal torpedo. This example was prepared as a model, with a partial coal dust coating and the plug left out. It was found in [[Jefferson Davis]]' office by Union General [[Edward H. Ripley|Edward Ripley]] when Union forces captured [[Richmond, Virginia|Richmond]] in April 1865.]]

The '''coal torpedo''' was a hollow iron casting filled with explosives and covered in coal dust, deployed by the [[Confederate Secret Service]] during the [[American Civil War]], and intended for doing harm to [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]] steam transportation. When it was shoveled into the [[Firebox (steam engine)|firebox]] amongst the coal, the resulting explosion would at the very least damage the [[boiler]] and render the engines inoperable. At worst, a catastrophic [[boiler explosion]] would kill crewmen and passengers, start a fire, or even sink the vessel.

==Development==
[[File:Courtenay CSA.jpg|left|thumb|upright|Thomas Courtenay in the uniform of a Confederate Army captain.]]

The coal torpedo was invented by Captain [[Thomas Edgeworth Courtenay]] of the [[Confederate Secret Service]].<ref name=Perry>Milton F. Perry, ''Infernal Machines.'' New Orleans: Louisiana State University Press, 1963, pp. 135–138.</ref><ref>''The Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion,'' Washington, DC, 1888. Series I, Vol. 22 part 2, pg. 970. Available [http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?frames=1&coll=moa&view=50&root=%2Fmoa%2Fwaro%2Fwaro0033%2F&tif=00972.TIF online] at Cornell University Library's Making of America collection, link verified October 31, 2006.</ref>
During the Civil War, the term [[torpedo]] was used to indicate a wide range of explosive devices including what are now called [[land mine]]s, [[naval mine]]s, [[improvised explosive devices]], and [[booby trap]]s. Northern newspapers referred to Courtenay's coal bombs as torpedoes, or sometimes "infernal machines"; Courtenay himself called it his "coal shell".<ref name=Signal>''The Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion,'' Washington, DC, 1897. Series I, Vol. 26, pp. 184–187. Available [http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?frames=1&coll=moa&view=50&root=%2Fmoa%2Fofre%2Fofre0026%2F&tif=00226.TIF online] at Cornell University Library's Making of America collection, link verified October 31, 2006.</ref>

The torpedoes were manufactured at the 7th Avenue Artillery shop (across the street from [[Tredegar Iron Works]]) in [[Richmond, Virginia]], in January 1864.<ref>'' The Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion,'' Washington, DC, 1897. Series I, Vol. 5, pg. 395. Available [http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?frames=1&coll=moa&view=50&root=%2Fmoa%2Fofre%2Fofre0005%2F&tif=00423.TIF online] at Cornell University Library's Making of America collection, link verified October 31, 2006.</ref>
The manufacturing process was similar to that used for [[Shell (projectile)|artillery shells]], except that actual pieces of coal were used as patterns for iron castings. The walls of the coal shell were about {{convert|0.75|in|cm}} thick, creating a hollow space inside sufficient to hold {{convert|3|–|4|oz}} of [[gunpowder]]. After filling, the shell was closed with a threaded plug, then dipped in melted beeswax and rolled in coal dust, creating the appearance of a lump of coal.<ref>"Coal Torpedoes", ''The Times'' (London), 30 December 1875, page 4.</ref> Finished coal torpedoes were about {{convert|4|in|cm}} on a side and weighed {{convert|3|to|4|lb|kg}}.

The size and powder charge of the coal torpedo was similar to a {{convert|6|lb|adj=on}} [[shrapnel shell]] or the equivalent of three Civil War-era hand grenades. The explosion of a coal torpedo under a ship's boiler would not by itself be sufficient to sink the vessel. The purpose of the coal torpedo was to burst the pressurized steam [[boiler]], which had the potential to trigger an extremely destructive [[boiler explosion]]. Accidental boiler explosions were not uncommon in the early years of steam transportation and could result in the complete destruction of the vessel by fire. In use, the coal torpedo would leave little evidence that a boiler explosion was due to sabotage.

==Deployment==
[[File:Greyhound steamer.jpg|right|thumb|300px|The sidewheeler ''Greyhound.'']]
Courtenay was authorized to form a company of men to infiltrate enemy lines and place coal torpedoes in the coal piles used to fuel Union steam ships.<ref name=Tidwell>William A. Tidwell, ''April '65.'' Kent, Ohio: The Kent State University Press, 1995, pg. 52.</ref> It was especially intended to be used against ships of the [[Union blockade]], although Courtenay was authorized to act against any Union military or commercial shipping in [[Confederate States of America|Confederate]] waters.<ref>Raimondo Luraghi, ''A History of the Confederate Navy.'' Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1996, pp. 243-244.</ref><ref>''The War of the Rebellion. The Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies.'' Washington, DC, 1900. Series IV, Vol. 3, pg. 202. Available [http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?frames=1&coll=moa&view=50&root=%2Fmoa%2Fwaro%2Fwaro0129%2F&tif=00214.TIF online] at Cornell University Library's Making of America collection, link verified October 31, 2006</ref>
Although the [[Union blockade]] and other forms of military shipping were Courtenay's primary targets, he also had plans to use the coal torpedo to attack steam [[locomotive]]s, although no confirmed attacks are known to have been made.

On 19 March 1864, a Union gunboat captured a rebel courier crossing the Mississippi, carrying a letter from Courtenay describing the coal torpedo. The correspondence was forwarded to Admiral [[David Dixon Porter|David Porter]], who immediately issued his General Order 184, which began

<blockquote>
The enemy have adopted new inventions to destroy human life
and vessels in the shape of torpedoes, and an article resembling coal,
which is to be placed in our coal piles for the purpose of blowing
the vessels up, or injuring them. Officers will have to be careful
in overlooking coal barges. Guards will be placed over them at all
times, and anyone found attempting to place any of these things
amongst the coal will be shot on the spot.<ref name=Signal/>
</blockquote>

In April 1865, most of the official papers of the Confederate Secret Service were burned by Secretary of State [[Judah P. Benjamin]] just before the government evacuated [[Richmond, Virginia|Richmond]], making it impossible to determine with any certainty how many ships were destroyed by Courtenay's shell. Union Admiral [[David Dixon Porter|Porter]] credited the coal torpedo with sinking the ''Greyhound'', a private steamboat that had been commandeered by General [[Benjamin Butler (politician)|Benjamin F. Butler]] for use as a floating headquarters on the [[James River (Virginia)|James River]].<ref name=Perry/><ref>David D. Porter, "Torpedo Warfare." The North American Review, Vol. 127, No. 264, 1878, pp. 225–227. Available [http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/moa-cgi?notisid=ABQ7578-0127-23 online] at Cornell University Library's Making of America collection, link verified October 31, 2006.</ref> Courtenay also took credit for the boiler explosion on the gunboat [[USS Chenango (1863)|USS ''Chenango'']] that scalded 33 men (28 fatally), though the vessel itself survived and was repaired and returned to duty.<ref name=Perry/><ref name=MCH>Thatcher, Joseph M, "The Courtenay Coal Torpedo," in ''Military Collector and Historian'', Vol. XI, Spring 1959.</ref> In the spring of 1865, Canadian customs raided a house in [[Toronto]] that had been rented by [[Jacob Thompson]], one of the commissioners of the [[Confederate Secret Service]] stationed in Canada. They found coal torpedoes and other incendiary devices hidden under the floorboards.<ref>Adam Mayers, "Spies across the border," in ''Civil War Times Illustrated.'' June 2001, pg. 31.</ref>

On April 27, 1865, the sidewheel steamboat [[Sultana (steamboat)|''Sultana'']] exploded her boilers just above Memphis, TN while carrying almost 2,000 Union prisoners of war home to the North. 1,196 people died. Within a few days, the first mate, who had failed to redistribute the weight on the top-heavy boat once a large load of supplies was removed from the hold, claimed that the [[Sultana (steamboat)|''Sultana'']] was exploded by a coal torpedo. Three investigative bodies looked into the possibility and refuted it. In 1888, a former Union prison guard claimed that a Confederate mail-carrier named [[Robert Louden]] had told him years before that he had used a coal torpedo to sink the steamboat. The mail carrier was long dead and unable to answer questions. Many [[Sultana (steamboat)|''Sultana'']] survivors and other experts immediately refuted the idea. Captain [[Thomas Edgeworth Courtenay]] never claimed the sinking of the [[Sultana (steamboat)|''Sultana'']] by a coal torpedo. Although the coal torpedo sabotage theory remains popular, it is refuted by most experts.<ref name=Tidwell/><ref>G.E. and Deb Rule, "The Sultana: A case for sabotage," in ''North and South Magazine'', Vol. 5, issue 1, December 2001.</ref>

==After the Civil War==
Courtenay had traveled to England in 1864 and remained there until 1867, trying to sell the "secret" of the coal torpedo to foreign governments. He approached the British [[War Office]], but they turned him down after he would not agree to allow them to examine his invention before purchasing it.<ref name=MCH/>
When Courtenay returned to the United States, one or more business partners to whom he had entrusted the secret remained in England. ''[[The Times]]'' in 1873 reported rumors that disreputable ship owners were purchasing coal torpedoes to put in their own ships as a form of insurance fraud, so that over-insured ships and cargo would sink while far out at sea, leaving no evidence.<ref>"Infernal Machines," ''The Times'' (London), 13 June 1873.</ref><ref>"Sayings and doings at home and abroad," Appleton's Journal. Vol. 10, No. 226, 19 July 1873, pg. 95.</ref> Other reports scoffed at the rumors, suggesting they were false stories planted by supporters of [[Samuel Plimsoll]], a Member of [[Parliament of the United Kingdom|Parliament]] who was trying to pass a bill reforming the shipping industry.<ref>"An infernal engine," ''The Times'' (London), 9 June 1873.</ref> Nothing was ever proven, but the reports stirred up popular interest in various supposed methods of sabotaging ships, and the coal torpedo even made an appearance in the short story, "[[wikisource:That Little Square Box|That Little Square Box]]", by [[Arthur Conan Doyle]], published in the collection ''The Captain of the Polestar and Other Tales'' in 1890.

Various forms of exploding coal, whether directly descended from Courtenay's original idea or independently developed, have surfaced multiple times throughout history.

The [[Fenian Brotherhood]], an Irish nationalist organization operating in the United States in the late 1860s–1870s, reportedly considered placing coal torpedoes in the furnaces of New York City hotels as well as English transatlantic steamships.<ref>Foreign Office archives from the Public Records Office, London. Volume F.O. 5, 1777, March to May 1881. Letters from Clipperton, British Consul in Philadelphia, to the Foreign Office.</ref> They were a strong suspect in the destruction of the warship {{HMS|Doterel|1880|6}} at [[Punta Arenas]] in 1881, but later evidence proved the explosion was accidental.<ref name=Hansard16May1881>{{cite hansard | house=House of Commons | url=https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1881/may/16/navy-destruction-of-hms-doterel#S3V0261P0_18810516_HOC_118 | title = Navy—Destruction of H.M.S. "Doterel." | date = 16 May 1881 | column = 584 }}</ref> During the [[Russo-Japanese War]], Russia's French naval attaché came into possession of coals that been hollowed out with the appearance that they could have been filled with explosives and used to attack the Russian fleet.<ref name=Pleshakov81>{{cite book |last=Pleshakov |first=Constantine |title=The Tsar's Last Armada |publisher=Basic Books |publication-place=Oxford |date=2002 |isbn=1-903985-31-5 |page=81}}</ref>

Both the American [[Office of Strategic Services|OSS]] and the British [[Special Operations Executive|SOE]]<ref>{{cite web | url=https://armourersbench.com/2020/06/28/soe-sabotage-explosive-coal/ | title=SOE Sabotage – Explosive Coal | date=28 June 2020 }}</ref> used forms of exploding coal in [[World War II]].<ref>H. Keith Melton. ''The Ultimate Spy Book.'' New York:DK Publishing, 1996, pg. 97.</ref><ref>{{harvnb|HS 7/28}}; {{harvnb|Seaman|2001|pp=192–193}}</ref> The German commandos who came ashore on Long Island in 1942 as part of [[Operation Pastorius]] carried plastic explosives disguised as coal for use against coal-fired electric generating plants.<ref>Joel Samaha, Sam Root, and Paul Sexton, eds. ''Transcript of Proceedings before the Military Commission to Try Persons Charged with Offenses against the Law of War and the Articles of War, Washington D.C., July 8 to July 31, 1942.'' Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2004, [http://www.soc.umn.edu/~samaha/nazi_saboteurs/nazi02.htm page 210].</ref> Such a German coal torpedo was given to the British double agent [[Eddie Chapman]] (also known as "Agent Zig-Zag") to sabotage the merchant ship ''City of Lancaster'', but he passed it on to his MI5 handler instead.<ref name="Macintyre, Zigzag" >{{cite book
|author=Ben Macintyre
|title=Agent Zigzag: The True Wartime Story of Eddie Chapman, Lover, Betrayer, Hero, Spy
|publisher=Bloomsbury |location=London
|year=2007
|isbn=978-0-7475-8794-1
|ref=Macintyre, Zigzag
|pages=204–211
}}</ref> Similar devices were also made by the Japanese during World War II.<ref>{{cite book |last= Rottman |first= Gordon |title= World War II Axis Booby Traps and Sabotage Tactics |publisher= Osprey Publishing |year= 2009 |page= 47 |isbn=978-1-84603-450-3}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=Japanese Explosive Ordnance, TM 9-1985-4|publisher=Departments of the Army and the Air Force|year=1953|page=259| asin= B000H7NCDS |oclc=506057724}}</ref>

[[Stanley Karnow]] hints in his book ''Vietnam: A History'' that the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]] prepared explosive coal for use against North Vietnamese railways during the [[Vietnam War]].<ref>Stanley Karnow, ''Vietnam: A History.'' New York:The Viking Press, 1983, pg 221.</ref>

==See also==

{{portal|American Civil War}}
*[[Bat bomb]]
*[[Explosive rat]]
*[[Improvised explosive device]]
*[[Project Eldest Son]]

==Notes==
{{reflist|2}}

==References==
{{refbegin}}

*Ann Larabee, ''The Dynamite Fiend: The Chilling Tale of a Confederate Spy, Con Artist, and Mass Murderer.'' New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. {{ISBN|1-4039-6794-6}}
*Raimondo Luraghi, ''A History of the Confederate Navy.'' Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1996. {{ISBN|1-55750-527-6}}
*Milton F. Perry, ''Infernal Machines; the story of Confederate submarine and mine warfare.'' New Orleans: Louisiana State University Press, 1963.
*G.E. and Deb Rule, "The Sultana: A case for sabotage." ''North and South Magazine'', Vol. 5, issue 1, December 2001.
*{{cite book
| last = Seaman
| year = 2001
| first = Mark
| title = Secret Agent's Handbook
| publisher = First Lyons Press
| series =
| isbn = 1-58574-286-4
}} - The bulk of this book is a reprint of National Archives documents HS 7/28 and HS 7/28.
*Joseph M. and Thomas H. Thatcher, ''Confederate Coal Torpedo: Thomas Courtenay's Infernal Sabotage Weapon'': Keith Kennerly Press 2011
*{{cite web
| title = HS 7/28: Descriptive catalogue of special devices and supplies
| url = http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/displaycataloguedetails.asp?CATLN=6&CATID=7791167&SearchInit=4&SearchType=6&CATREF=HS+7%2F28
| work = The Catalogue
| publisher = [[The National Archives (United Kingdom)|The National Archives]]
| ref = {{harvid|HS 7/28}}
}}
*{{cite web
| title = HS 7/30: Information on weapons, portable transmitting and receiving equipment; With diagrams and booklet.
| url = http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/displaycataloguedetails.asp?CATLN=6&CATID=7791169&SearchInit=4&SearchType=6&CATREF=HS+7%2F30
| work = The Catalogue
| publisher = [[The National Archives (United Kingdom)|The National Archives]]
| ref = {{harvid|HS 7/30}}
}}

{{refend}}

==External links==
*[http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/pageviewer?frames=1&cite=&coll=moa&root=%2Fmoa%2Fofre%2Fofre0026%2F&tif=00224.TIF&view=50 General Order 184]

[[Category:American Civil War weapons]]
[[Category:Bombs]]
[[Category:Explosive weapons]]
[[Category:Improvised explosive devices]]
[[Category:Terrorism tactics]]
[[Category:Sabotage]]

Coal torpedo - Revision history

imported>Hussier1: /* After the Civil War */