C W. Johnson, Jr.

162 years ago tonight one of the most audacious commando raids in American history unfolded in the dark waters of a North Carolina river. A 21-year-old Union lieutenant drove a tiny open launch straight at a monstrous Confederate ironclad, under a storm of gunfire, and sank her with a bomb on the end of a pole. His name was William Cushing, and the feat made him a legend. The problem was the CSS Albemarle, a powerful Confederate ironclad ram that had been terrorizing the North Carolina sounds. She had sunk Union ships, driven off the wooden blockading fleet, and helped the Confederates hold the town of Plymouth. The Union navy had no good answer for her. So Lieutenant William Cushing, a daring young officer with a reputation for reckless courage, proposed a plan that bordered on suicidal: sneak up the Roanoke River at night in a small steam launch and destroy the ironclad with a spar torpedo, an explosive charge mounted on a long pole that had to be jammed against the enemy hull from point-blank range. On the night of October 27, 1864, Cushing and a crew of volunteers made their run. They chugged some eight miles up the dark river, deep into Confederate territory, toward where the Albemarle lay moored at Plymouth. Astonishingly, they got close before being discovered. Then the alarm went up, and a bonfire was lit on the bank, throwing light across the water as Confederate riflemen and the ironclad's guns opened fire on the little launch. Cushing drove straight into it. The Albemarle was ringed by a protective boom of floating logs meant to keep attackers away, but Cushing drove his launch right up onto the logs, swung the long spar over, and lowered the torpedo beneath the ironclad's hull. At the very instant the Albemarle fired a cannon that could have blown the launch to splinters, the torpedo was detonated. The explosion tore a hole in the ironclad's hull, by one account big enough to drive a wagon through, and the great ram settled to the bottom of the river. The blast and the gunfire destroyed Cushing's launch too, throwing the men into the cold water under enemy fire. Most were killed or captured. But Cushing himself dove into the river, swam away through the darkness amid the chaos, and spent a harrowing day and night evading the enemy through the swamps before finally reaching the Union fleet and reporting, in effect, mission accomplished. The destruction of the Albemarle was a stunning success. It removed the ironclad threat, reopened the sounds to the Union navy, and directly led to the recapture of Plymouth days later. Cushing became one of the great heroes of the war, receiving the Thanks of Congress, while several of his crew, like Daniel George who pulled the firing lanyard, received the Medal of Honor. It remains one of the boldest single feats in the history of the United States Navy, a handful of men in a rowboat-sized launch who paddled into the enemy's lair and killed a warship.