These abundant precautions, and the telegram from General Lee, found in Fort Fisher, stating that unless that stronghold and Fort Caswell were held he could not hold Richmond, give some idea of the importance of the place to the Rebels.
We passed groups of hundreds of sailors fishing for torpedos, and saw many of these dangerous monsters, which they had hauled up out of the water.

We caught up with the "Thorn," when about half way to the sea, passed her, to our great delight, and soon left a gap between us of nearly half-a-mile.

We ran through an opening in the piling, holding up close to the left side, and she apparently followed our course exactly.
Suddenly there was a dull roar; a column of water, bearing with it fragments of timbers, planking and human bodies, rose up through one side of the vessel, and, as it fell, she lurched forward and sank.

She had struck a torpedo.

I never learned the number lost, but it must have been very great.
Some little time after this happened we approached Fort Anderson, the most powerful of the works between Wilmington and the forts at the mouth of the sea.