A heavy shell of cast-iron, about the average size of a twenty-four-pound round shot, is
perforated with two holes. One of these serves simply to admit or draw out the powder, and is
usually secured by a screw cap. Through the other hole runs down a compound substance that
communicates the fire to the powder that fills the shell. At the upper part of the substance is a
material which will ignite under a sudden pressure of about four pounds. Over this, when the
torpedo 1s in the arsenal, 1s screwed a thick and solid safety-cap; but for actual use, this heavy cap
is taken off, and an inner one exposed, consisting of copper so thin that a pressure of four pounds
will force it down suddenly upon the explostve compound beneath. The torpedo so prepared, is
set in the ground just enough to let the thin cap appear above the surface. Any ordinary foot-step
will now cause the explosion, which will in all probability shatter to fragments every thing near it.

... Men... would examine the ground minutely for the little sticks which served to mark
the place where a torpedo was buried. At Spanish Fort, as afterward at Blakely, several men were
killed by the explosion of torpedoes, after the grounds came into our possession. At Blakely,
after the rebel works were captured, squads of the rebel prisoners were set at work, taking up the
torpedoes which encircled their lines;...**°

They [27th Regiment] were thenceforward [from March 27] occupied in picket and fatigue duty,
until the termination of the siege, during which the regiment sustained a loss of three killed and
nine wounded.... The enemy... evacuated the fort during the night of the 8th of April...°®’

Here [at Spanish Fort] they were occupied in picket and fatigue duty, until the termination of the
siege, during which the regiment sustained a loss of four killed.

The killed, and those who died of wounds, at Spanish Fort, as officially reported, were:

Killed or Died of Wounds. Company A - Private Frank Truedell. Company B - Private
John Johnson. Company E - Private August Ziebreth. Company I - Privates Edward S. Radley
and August Bruss -- 5.

Wounded. Company C - Privates John H. Rosebaum, John H. Questloff and John
Beinbaum. Company D - Private F. H. Steele. Company K - Private Wm. Robinson -- 5.

The enemy evacuated the Fort on the night of the 8th of April. On the next morning, the
regiment proceeded five miles, to Fort Blakely, before which they arrived in time to witness its
capture by the forces under General Steele.***

Alabama 27 March - April, 1865 (Mobile Campaign). On 17 March, 1865 Canby led 32,000
troops to attack Mobile from the east. (Frederick Steele was moving with 13,000 from Pensacola
to link up with him.) The XVI Corps moved by water from Fort Gaines and the XIII Corps
marched from Fort Morgan; the two forces united at Danley's Ferry and on 27 March laid siege to
the Confederate bridgehead at Spanish Fort. Maury reinforced the brigade here and brought its

 

*8° A. F. Sperry, History of the 33rd Iowa, p. 145.
*8” Annual Report of the Adjutant General... 1865, p. 300.

*° E. B. Quiner, Military History of Wisconsin, p. 765.
152