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eighty shells an hour, with perfect impunity, and at this rate, for one night of ten hours, eight hundred of these terrific missiles may be thrown into the rebel camp and fortifications. Can they endure it?
Pandemonium would be a Paradise to the place it would make of Columbus.
The trial of to-day demonstrated that the recoil of the boat was altogether lateral, and not perpendicular, as it was feared it would be. It also shows that the iron bulwarks render the concussion more severe, than it would be without them; and that, if they are permitted to remain, some plan will have to be devised by which the gunners at each discharge, may get outside of them.
Illustrating the effects of the concussion, is the circumstance that the cap of the gunner, who discharged the fifteen-pound charge, was carried away from his head, and he almost taken off his feet.
Another objection to the boat, discovered to-day, was its construction at the bow and stern.
Unless towed very slowly, both up and down stream, it dipped the water considerably.
These, however, are all minor objections, and easily got rid of. The boats will admirably serve the purpose for which they were designed, and prove the most terrible engines of destruction the enemy have yet had to encounter.
Yours, etc.,
G. W. F.
