JANUARY 19, 1864:
An
Anti-Conscription rally is held in Little Rock, Arkansas. Confederate flags are
torn down.
On this day, a Confederate inventor creates the “coal torpedo.” A rough-hewn piece of hollowed-out iron painted black, a coal torpedo was loaded with gunpowder and dropped into the coal bin of a building or a ship where it was indistinguishable from real coal. When shoveled into a boiler, the coal torpedo would turn red-hot, igniting the gunpowder and causing a damaging---sometimes devastating---explosion. Coal torpedoes were not much used in the war, but the few that were were extremely destructive.
On this day, a Confederate inventor creates the “coal torpedo.” A rough-hewn piece of hollowed-out iron painted black, a coal torpedo was loaded with gunpowder and dropped into the coal bin of a building or a ship where it was indistinguishable from real coal. When shoveled into a boiler, the coal torpedo would turn red-hot, igniting the gunpowder and causing a damaging---sometimes devastating---explosion. Coal torpedoes were not much used in the war, but the few that were were extremely destructive.
