Coal Torpedo
The coal torpedo was a hollow iron casting filled with explosives and covered in coal dust, deployed by the Confederate Secret Service during the American Civil War, and intended for doing harm to Union steam transportation. When it was shoveled into the firebox amongst the coal, the resulting explosion would at the very least damage the boiler and render the engines inoperable. At worst, a catastrophic boiler explosion would kill crewmen and passengers, start a fire, or even sink the vessel. Development The coal torpedo was invented by Captain Thomas Edgeworth Courtenay of the Confederate Secret Service.Milton F. Perry, ''Infernal Machines.'' New Orleans: Louisiana State University Press, 1963, pp. 135–138. During the Civil War, the term torpedo was used to indicate a wide range of explosive devices including what are now called land mines, naval mines, improvised explosive devices, and booby traps. Northern newspapers referred to Courtenay's coal bombs as torpedoes, or som ...
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