During the American Civil War, the Union Navy suffered heavy losses from the explosion of Confederate torpedoes.

Stromboli was designed by the Chief Engineer of the United States Navy, Captain William W. Wood, who supervised her construction at New Haven, CT, by Samuel M. Pook.

Late in November 1864, Commodore Charles Stewart Boggs was placed in charge of Spuyten Duyvil, Picket Boat No.

Upon arriving at Baltimore, Maryland, on 2 December, Boggs turned the vessels over to Commodore T. A. Dornin who placed them under First Assistant Engineer John L. Lay for the remainder of the trip to Hampton Roads.

The torpedo boat was ordered up the James River a week later to help assure Union control of that vital waterway during General Ulysses S. Grant's drive on Richmond, Virginia.

She arrived at Akin's Landing on 15 December, and she operated on the upper James slightly below the Confederate obstructions through most of the remaining months of the campaign.

After General Robert E. Lee evacuated Richmond, Spuyten Duyvil used her torpedoes to help clear the obstructions from the river.

Her work made it possible for President Abraham Lincoln to steam up in Malvern and, after Rear Admiral David Dixon Porter's flagship ran aground, to be rowed in a launch safely to the former Confederate capital.

The following segments are an in-depth analysis of the vessel and the torpedo mechanisms, heavily based on an article written by the British publication Engineering in 1866.

At this latter draft the water is about level with the gunwale, but, owing to the arched form of the deck, the vessel has still under such circumstances 207 tons of displacement.

The lower part of the bow of the vessel, instead of being made solid as usual, is composed of two iron flaps, each hinged at the top, as shown in Figs.

Within the spherical joint, the main tube is led through a kind of guide tube, which is capable of turning, in a vertical plane, upon side trunnions; These trunnions being supported by bearings which work in vertical guides, and are capable of being raised or lowered by the arrangement shown in Fig.

On this rocking-shaft there is also fixed another arm, and from this a chain proceeds aft to the piston rod of a horizontal steam cylinder, placed as shown in Fig.

This cylinder is provided with a slide valve, by which the steam can be admitted to or released from the forward end of the cylinder at pleasure; and, when the steam is so admitted, it drives back the piston, and, by means of the arrangement of chains and rocking-shaft already described, raised the guide tube, through which the main tube passes, and thus depresses that end of the latter which carries the torpedo.

The machinery for projecting and withdrawing the torpedo tube consists of a couple of chain drums worked by gearing which is driven by a rotary engine made by Root, New York, NY.

The transverse movement of the guiding block is given by a screwed spindle which has a pinion fixed on it gearing into a spur wheel on the chain drum.

When firing a torpedo, the two flaps forming the lower part of the bow would be opened, the sluice raised, and the tube projected by means of the chain leading from the inner end to the hauling-out drum.

The emptying of the tank can be effected by the centrifugal pump in about four seconds, and the whole of the operations which we have described can be performed at such a rate that a torpedo can be discharged every three minutes if required.

Within the torpedo case, on one side, is placed a tube, at the lower end of which is a percussion fuse in communication with the powder.

At the upper end of the tube is a ball, which is held from falling upon the percussion fuse by a sliding pin placed beneath it.