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The effect of shot.

--A shot does not make a hole of its own size right through wood, but indents it, the fibres springing back after the shock. Generally, the course of shot can only be traced by a wire, sometimes by a hole as large as a man's finger. The damage most often happens in the inside of a vessel, in splintering and breaking the wood, after the main force of the shot was spent. Forts Hamilton and Richmond, which are about a mile apart, with a vessel lying between them, could not, with their guns, send shot through two feet of its timber. There is rarely an instance where a ship was sunk by a solid shot. Hot shot and shells do the mischief; the latter will sometimes make apertures of several feet in extent, through the sides of vessels.

The Daily Dispatch: April 5, 1861. Richmond Dispatch. 4 pages. by Cowardin & Hammersley. Richmond. April 5, 1861. microfilm. Ann Arbor, Mi : Proquest. 1 microfilm reel ; 35 mm.

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