May 22, 1861 – The Baltimore Steam-Gun

illustration of the Baltimore steam-gun

A gentleman direct from Baltimore, and who has seen the steam-gun (about which considerable has been said) operate, has furnished us with the following description of it:  

It is on four wheels; the boiler is like that of an ordinary steam fire engine, the cylinder being upright. There is but one barrel, which is of steel, on a pivot, and otherwise is like an ordinary musket barrel. It is fed or loaded through a hopper entering the barrel directly over the pivot. The barrel has a rotary motion, and performs the circumference, by machinery attached, at the rate of about sixteen hundred times a minute. The balls are let into the barrel through a valve at will, and every time the barrel comes round to a certain point, another valve, self-operated, lets out a ball, which is propelled solely by the velocity of the barrel in revolving.  

May 20, 1861 – Capture of a Submarine Boat

Brutus de Villeroi's first submarine boat seized by the government at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, May 16, 1861.

Brutus de Villeroi’s first submarine boat seized by the government at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, May 16, 1861.

Quite an excitement was created in Philadelphia on Friday morning by the seizure of a submarine boat, the invention of De Villeroi, a Frenchman. It was going down the river and struck on an island. Four men were found on board. Villeroi says he was about taking it to the Navy Yard to test ; but the others of the yard disclaim any knowledge of him. The boat was constructed some time since for raising wrecks and other submarine work, but was never put in active use. It is segar-shaped and made of iron, thirty feet long. It supplies its own air, and will be useful in running under a fleet.

May 13, 1861 – Spies Among the Federal Troops

Washington, May 12, 1861

There are plenty of spies In the very midst of the federal troops here and elsewhere, but there being no declaration of war made, they cannot be treated as spies, they must be proved to be traitors to their country and dealt with as such.  

At a battalion drill yesterday of the Fifth Massachusetts regiment, under command of Lieutenant Colonel Greene, a deep ditch was made in the suburbs of the City, over which the troops were exercised in charging, in order to accustom them to all the emergencies of actual service. Col. Greene and his command won much applause by their excellent and soldierly display.