The Read shell in the fight at Bethel.
--From late accounts of this spirited cembat, it appears that the rifle shells invented by our townsman,
Dr. Read, rendered efficient aid in discomfiting the invaders of the Old Dominion.
The Howitzer Battery, under
Col. Magruder, did good service; but the prominent place is assigned to a Parrott gun, firing the
Read shells, which were purchased last year by the
Military Commissioners of
Virginia.
These shells, it seems, were fired with much precision, and exploded with such fatal effects in the ranks of the enemy as to render the working of the hostile artillery almost impossible.
The
Parrott guns, prudently provided by
Virginia, were cast iron six-pounders, manufactured and rified expressly for firing the
Read shells.
We do not wonder that they should have made their mark at
Bethel, as we have just inspected a table of practice with one of these same guns at
West Point, last summer, showing that a shell weighing nine and a half pounds, fired with only one pound of powder, ranged two miles and a quarter at 15 deg. elevation, and at 35 deg. elevation struck three miles and a half from the gun.
If such results can be attained with the
Read shells from small field-pieces, weighing but nine hundred pounds, what may we not expect when our ten-inch Columbiads and heavy Dahlgren guns are rified and furnished with similar projectiles as they readily may be by our Southern foundries?--
Tuscaloosa Observer.