APRIL 1ST, 1865: Despite all the losses, the Confederacy did have another piece of good news. The USS Rodolph, temporarily commanded by her executive officer, Acting Ensign James F. Thompson, struck a torpedo in the Blakely River, Alabama, and rapidly sank in 12 feet of water."
The tinclad was towing a barge containing apparatus for raising the USS Milwaukee, a torpedo victim on 28 March. Acting Master N. Mayo Dyer, Rodolph's commanding officer, reported that "from the effects of the explosion that can be seen, I should judge there was hole through the bow at least ten feet in diameter...."
Four men were killed and eleven others wounded.
The Rodolph was the third warship lost to torpedoes in five days in the same area. Confederate torpedo warfare had played an important part in the continuing combined operations in Mobile Bay, ever sincethe passing of Farragut's fleet on August 5, 1864.
--Old B-Runner
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