EXTRAORDINARILY RARE AND IMPORTANT CONFEDERATE RAINS BARREL TORPEDO.

EXTRAORDINARILY RARE AND IMPORTANT CONFEDERATE RAINS BARREL TORPEDO. One of two known examples in existence and the only one in private hands. This is a Rains barrel torpedo that was recovered during the Civil War in Mobile Bay, AL. and was developed by Gabriel James Rains, Chief of the Confederate Torpedo Service. Gabriel James Rains was born in Craven County, NC in 1803. Rains entered West Point and graduated 13th in the class of 1827. He was a Lt. in the 5th U.S. Inf. serving in FL. and LA. He fought in the Second Seminole War and recruited troops for the Mexican War. In early 1861 Rains had risen to the rank of Lt. Col. and after NC seceded he resigned his commission and entered the Confederate army as a Col. by September of 1861 Gabriel Rains was promoted to Brig. Gen.

The authentic mushroom anchor was recovered from Charleston, SC. Accompanying are two reproduction Rains sensitive primer fuses that are exact copies made by Michael Kochan co-author of the book TORPEDOES Another Look at the Infernal Machines of the Civil War and this torpedo is pictured on page 42, bottom right, of this book. There are two iron fuse plates that held the Rains torpedo fuses. The Confederates made the torpedo from locally available materials with the main body consisting of a wooden barrel or keg. At each end is a solid pc of a pine log that was hand shaped into a cone and affixed to the ends of the bbl. At the end of each cone are loops that were used to secure the torpedo to the mushroom anchor. It was found that the bbl alone would roll in the current or tide and possibly dislodge from the anchor. Later the cones were added to streamline the bbl torpedo. Both the inside and outer surface of the bbl was coated with tar to make it watertight. After the bbl was watertight, it was filled with black powder with a small air pocket left for buoyancy.

The first warship sank by a torpedo (we call them mines today) was the U.S.S. Cairo at 11:55 AM on December 12, 1862 in the Yazoo River, Mississippi. George Yost, a fifteen year old crew member of the U.S.S. Cairo, wrote “…just as we were training on the battery we were struck by a torpedo, which exploded under our starboard bow, a few feet from the center and some 35 or 40 feet from the bow proper just under our provision store room, which crushed in the bottom of the boat so that the water rushed in like the roar of Niagara. In five minutes, the hold was full of water and the forward part of the gunboat was flooded…One of our heaviest bow guns had been dismounted by the force of the explosion injuring three men…” “…Executive Officer Hiram K. Hazlett and the writer were the last two persons to leave the sinking vessel which we did by jumping into the “dingey” which was manned by two sailors, and awaited us at the stern…We moved off just in time to escape being swallowed up in the seething caldron of foaming water… Nothing of the CAIRO could be seen 12 minutes after the first explosion, expecting the smoke stacks, and the flag staff from which still floated the flag above the troubled waters…”.

In 1877 General Rains wrote in the Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. III. Richmond, VA., Nos. 5 and 6, that “…Ironclads are said to master the world, but torpedoes master the ironclads, and must so continue on account of the almost total incompressibility of water and the developed gasses of the fired gunpowder of the torpedo under the vessel’s bottom passing through it, as the direction of least resistance….” “…During the war with the Confederacy, there were 123 torpedoes planted in Charleston harbor and Stono River, which prevented the capture of that city and its conflagration. There were 101 torpedoes planted in Roanoke River, NC, by which, of twelve vessels sent with troops and means to capture Fort Branch, but five returned. One was sunk by the fire from the fort, and the rest by torpedoes. Of the five ironclads sent with other vessels to take Mobile, AL (one was tin clad), three were destroyed by torpedoes. There were fifty-eight vessels sunk by torpedoes in the war, and some of them of no small celebrity, as Admiral Farragut’s flagship the Harvest Moon, the Thorn, the Commodore Jones, the Monitor Patapsco, Ram Osage, Monitor Milwaukee, Housatonic and others. (Cairo in Yazoo River). Peace societies we must acknowledge a failure in settling national differences by arbitration, since enlightened nations go to war for a mere political abstraction, and vast armies in Europe are kept ready for action, to be frustrated, however, by this torpedo system of mining, carried out according to views…”.

The destruction of Union ships during the Mobile Bay campaign was severe. On August 5, 1864 the U.S.S. Tecumseh led the 18-ship Union squadron into the Mobile Bay, which included the monitors U.S.S. Chickasaw, U.S.S. Manhattan, and U.S.S. Winnebago. Just after 7 A.M., Tecumseh opened fire on Fort Morgan. When the U.S.S. Tecumseh veered left to engage the Confederate ram C.S.S. Tennessee, the Union monitor hit a torpedo. A tremendous explosion occurred sinking the U.S.S. Tecumseh rapidly with its captain and 92 crewmen. Rear Admiral David Farragut is famous for shouting the order “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!” after the sinking of the U.S.S. Tecumseh. After the naval attack of August 5, 1864, at total of nine U.S. warships and a launch were sunk as a result of these infernal machines with around 200 seamen killed or wounded. These devices may seem to be crude but they played a prominent role in the Civil War damaging or destroying more U.S. Navy ships than all of the other Confederate weapons or ships combined.

The photograph is a wartime image of the Charleston Arsenal in South Carolina (courtesy Library of Congress). Several Rains bbl torpedoes can be seen in the center of the photograph. The torpedo drawings are from the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion.

DIMENSIONS: Overall length 43-1/2”, Diameter 44”. Accompanying this lot is a photocopied letter from Jack Tripp to Cdr. Owens of the naval base in Charleston, SC in which Mr. Tripp confirms his desire to have the mine transferred to the Fleet Mine Warfare Training Center to be placed on display as part of the Charleston Harbor Exhibit at Patriots Point. Anchor chain display created by Historical Ordnance Works, Woodstock, GA. CONDITION: Fine condition with most of the tar remaining on the outer surface and most of the bands intact with a few loose but secure bands. Wood has some shrinkage. Bbl has most of the orig coating and is the only one with most of the orig coating that exists. 4-55991 (25,000-100,000)

Auction: Firearms - Fall 2005

Please Note: All prices include the hammer price plus the buyer’s premium, which is paid by the buyer as part of the purchase price. The prices noted here after the auction are considered unofficial and do not become official until after the 46th day.

Image	Lot	Price	Description
	2037	$51,750.00	EXTRAORDINARILY RARE AND IMPORTANT CONFEDERATE RAINS BARREL TORPEDO. One of two known examples in existence and the only one in private hands. This is a Rains barrel torpedo that was recovered during the Civil War in Mobile Bay, AL. and was developed by Gabriel James Rains, Chief of the Confederate Torpedo Service. Gabriel James Rains was born in Craven County, NC in 1803. Rains entered West Point and graduated 13th in the class of 1827. He was a Lt. in the 5th U.S. Inf. serving in FL. and LA. He fought in the Second Seminole War and recruited troops for the Mexican War. In early 1861 Rains had risen to the rank of Lt. Col. and after NC seceded he resigned his commission and entered the Confederate army as a Col. by September of 1861 Gabriel Rains was promoted to Brig. Gen. The authentic mushroom anchor was recovered from Charleston, SC. Accompanying are two reproduction Rains sensitive primer fuses that are exact copies made by Michael Kochan co-author of the book TORPEDOES Another Look at the Infernal Machines of the Civil War and this torpedo is pictured on page 42, bottom right, of this book. There are two iron fuse plates that held the Rains torpedo fuses. The Confederates made the torpedo from locally available materials with the main body consisting of a wooden barrel or keg. At each end is a solid pc of a pine log that was hand shaped into a cone and affixed to the ends of the bbl. At the end of each cone are loops that were used to secure the torpedo to the mushroom anchor. It was found that the bbl alone would roll in the current or tide and possibly dislodge from the anchor. Later the cones were added to streamline the bbl torpedo. Both the inside and outer surface of the bbl was coated with tar to make it watertight. After the bbl was watertight, it was filled with black powder with a small air pocket left for buoyancy. The first warship sank by a torpedo (we call them mines today) was the U.S.S. Cairo at 11:55 AM on December 12, 1862 in the Yazoo River, Mississippi. George Yost, a fifteen year old crew member of the U.S.S. Cairo, wrote “…just as we were training on the battery we were struck by a torpedo, which exploded under our starboard bow, a few feet from the center and some 35 or 40 feet from the bow proper just under our provision store room, which crushed in the bottom of the boat so that the water rushed in like the roar of Niagara. In five minutes, the hold was full of water and the forward part of the gunboat was flooded…One of our heaviest bow guns had been dismounted by the force of the explosion injuring three men…” “…Executive Officer Hiram K. Hazlett and the writer were the last two persons to leave the sinking vessel which we did by jumping into the “dingey” which was manned by two sailors, and awaited us at the stern…We moved off just in time to escape being swallowed up in the seething caldron of foaming water… Nothing of the CAIRO could be seen 12 minutes after the first explosion, expecting the smoke stacks, and the flag staff from which still floated the flag above the troubled waters…”. In 1877 General Rains wrote in the Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. III. Richmond, VA., Nos. 5 and 6, that “…Ironclads are said to master the world, but torpedoes master the ironclads, and must so continue on account of the almost total incompressibility of water and the developed gasses of the fired gunpowder of the torpedo under the vessel’s bottom passing through it, as the direction of least resistance….” “…During the war with the Confederacy, there were 123 torpedoes planted in Charleston harbor and Stono River, which prevented the capture of that city and its conflagration. There were 101 torpedoes planted in Roanoke River, NC, by which, of twelve vessels sent with troops and means to capture Fort Branch, but five returned. One was sunk by the fire from the fort, and the rest by torpedoes. Of the five ironclads sent with other vessels to take Mobile, AL (one was tin clad), three were destroyed by torpedoes. There were fifty-eight vessels sunk by torpedoes in the war, and some of them of no small celebrity, as Admiral Farragut’s flagship the Harvest Moon, the Thorn, the Commodore Jones, the Monitor Patapsco, Ram Osage, Monitor Milwaukee, Housatonic and others. (Cairo in Yazoo River). Peace societies we must acknowledge a failure in settling national differences by arbitration, since enlightened nations go to war for a mere political abstraction, and vast armies in Europe are kept ready for action, to be frustrated, however, by this torpedo system of mining, carried out according to views…”. The destruction of Union ships during the Mobile Bay campaign was severe. On August 5, 1864 the U.S.S. Tecumseh led the 18-ship Union squadron into the Mobile Bay, which included the monitors U.S.S. Chickasaw, U.S.S. Manhattan, and U.S.S. Winnebago. Just after 7 A.M., Tecumseh opened fire on Fort Morgan. When the U.S.S. Tecumseh veered left to engage the Confederate ram C.S.S. Tennessee, the Union monitor hit a torpedo. A tremendous explosion occurred sinking the U.S.S. Tecumseh rapidly with its captain and 92 crewmen. Rear Admiral David Farragut is famous for shouting the order “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!” after the sinking of the U.S.S. Tecumseh. After the naval attack of August 5, 1864, at total of nine U.S. warships and a launch were sunk as a result of these infernal machines with around 200 seamen killed or wounded. These devices may seem to be crude but they played a prominent role in the Civil War damaging or destroying more U.S. Navy ships than all of the other Confederate weapons or ships combined. The photograph is a wartime image of the Charleston Arsenal in South Carolina (courtesy Library of Congress). Several Rains bbl torpedoes can be seen in the center of the photograph. The torpedo drawings are from the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion. DIMENSIONS: Overall length 43-1/2”, Diameter 44”. Accompanying this lot is a photocopied letter from Jack Tripp to Cdr. Owens of the naval base in Charleston, SC in which Mr. Tripp confirms his desire to have the mine transferred to the Fleet Mine Warfare Training Center to be placed on display as part of the Charleston Harbor Exhibit at Patriots Point. Anchor chain display created by Historical Ordnance Works, Woodstock, GA. CONDITION: Fine condition with most of the tar remaining on the outer surface and most of the bands intact with a few loose but secure bands. Wood has some shrinkage. Bbl has most of the orig coating and is the only one with most of the orig coating that exists. 4-55991 (25,000-100,000) Auction: Firearms - Fall 2005 Please Note: All prices include the hammer price plus the buyer’s premium, which is paid by the buyer as part of the purchase price. The prices noted here after the auction are considered unofficial and do not become official until after the 46th day.

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