Virginia Military Institute - Bomb Yearbook (Lexington, VA)

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10 THE BOMB. granted by the Confederate States a a time when all cognizant of the facts were alive and competent to testify. In 1863, as chief of ordnance and hydrography of Confederate States, he proposed that a thirteen-inch Blakely should be fired with the powder charge placed wholly in front of the chamber in order to diminish the initial tension of the gases, a sister gun having burst at the first discharge. This was done successfully with heavy charges, overthrowing the then universal belief that a considerable space unoc- cupied by powder would cause a gun to burst. A series of experi- ments by direction of the chief of ordnance in the army of the Confede- rate States was subsequently made, which fully confirmed the theory thus advanced, and the emplo} ' ment of an air space is now, as is well known, general. Brooke ' s career in the United States Navy was brilliant for a young man. Even as a midshipman he was noted among his fellows for his physical strength, activity and skill in athletic sports. He was a skilful oarsman, a good rifle- and pistol-shot, and a noted swimmer. Among the Americans, he was one of the few who seemed at all equal to the Sandwich Islanders in their feats of diving and swimming near their island home. Besides his inventive genius, he had a mechanical turn of a high order. There used to be in the house now occupied by our accom- plished Commandant of Cadets, Colonel Price, a model in wood of a schooner in which was reproduced every timber, block, spar, mast, rope, pulley or piece of tackle in a real schooner. Even the planks in the deck were imitated and the sails made of his wife ' s best linen hand- kerchief were not lacking — all made by Captain Brooke, to please a lad who had never been out o ' sight of land. The lines of this miniature vessel were so fine that she easily beat all her tiny competi- tors in a trial race on a pond not far from the site of the old ' irginia Military Institute. As a passed-midshipman he early became distinguished by his deep-sea sounding apparatus which revolutionized communication between Europe and America. By this was made possible the laying

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THE BOMB. g The accuracy of his deep-sea soundings have been verified by Captain George Belknap, who ran a line of soundings across the Pacific using Sir William Thomson ' s machine, with piano wire, and Brooke ' s detaching apparatus. A cyclone on August 22d, 1859, while Brooke was in Yedo (Tokio) conferring with the American minister, caused the officer left in charge, very properly, to beach the Fennimore Cooper, to save the lives of her crew. Her timbers were found so decayed that it was useless to repair her. Brooke remained at Yokohama with the crew till the tenth of February, i860, for passage to the United States in the ffagship Pow- hatan of the Asiatic Squadron. The Japanese freely consulted with Captain Brooke and as he had no mercantile interests, they relied implicitly on his statements. When the Japanese determined to send an embassy to the United States, they wished to send a war vessel to avoid the supposition that they were unable to send their embassy in a vessel of their own. The Tycoon wouldn ' t consent to send a Japanese ship to the United States unless Brooke would go with their vessel. Brooke vol- unteered to do this and was directed by Flag Officer Tatnall to take passage in the Japanese corvette, Candimarroo, and to assist the cap- tain in the navigation of his ship. The corvette reached San Francisco thirteen days ahead of the Powhatan, which had been forced by heavy weather to take a more southerly course, touching at Honolulu. This service was highly appreciated by the Japanese authorities, who invited Brooke to take from a chest containing $60,000, what he considered a proper consideration for his assistance. Brooke refused to take anything. On the reception of the embassy in Washington, the ambassador asked as his first request, that the services rendered Japan by Captain Brooke should be recorded in the archives of the United States. In 1861, Captain Brooke applied in the construction of the Vir- ginia (the Merrimac) the principle of extended and submerged ends, which has been adopted in the most powerful of foreign ships of war, as the Inflexible and the Italia. This invention is attested by a patent

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THE BOMB. IT of the first inter-continental telegraph line in the world. This instru- ment verifiecl the prophecy of the great Maury, that there was a sub- marine plateau between America and Europe, suitable, by its freedom from sea-disturbance, for the location of a cable for telegraphic use. Brooke was complimented by Maury in government publications of the day, and received distinguished consideration from scientific men of England, on the Continent and in Japan. Brooke ' s adventures would read like romances of Jules ' erne. Men now living were, as boys, as much absorbed at the recital of his adventures, shortly after they occurred, as were the traditional listeners to the Arabian Nights ' entertainments of oriental fame. Captain Brooke was the author of improvements in guns, shot, shell and munitions of war at the Tredegar Works in Richmond. His gun and his steel-pointed shot were highly thought of by military and naval authorities in the fiery days of actual use in real war. S. R. Mallory, secretary of the Confederate States Navy, thus v.rites of him in 1867, from Pensacola : The extraordinary efifects of the Virginia ' s (Merrimac ' s) battery, in her combat in Hampton Roads, were in a great measure due to the Brooke gun, etc, etc. Franklin Buchanan, admiral and commander of the Merrimac, wounded in the first day ' s fight of that vessel, thus writes from Fair View, near Easton, Maryland, in January, 1867 : Captain Brooke, the inventor of the Brooke ' gun, is an officer of high scientific attainments, combined with great practical skill and is much respected and esteemed. As chief of ordnance and hydro- graphy, he was constantly consulted by the Secretary of the Navy and other high officials on very important naval matters and inventions. To him we were indebted for iron-clad vessels — the ' irginia (Merri- mac) was his suggestion. He is the inventor of the admirable deep- jea sounding apparatus, used in sounding the track for the Atlantic cable, for which he was complimented, etc., etc. Near the close of the war, Brooke served with the naval brigade on the march from Richmond, under the command of General G. W. C. Lee, afterwards professor of engineering at the Mrginia Military