rimitive craft was closed for diving there was only sufficient air
to support life for half an hour. Since the torpedo was attached to the
boat itself there was no chance of escape. The only hope was to reach
and destroy the enemy vessel before the crew were suffocated or drowned.

Five successive volunteer crews died without reaching their objectives.
But the sixth crew was successful in sinking the Federal blockading ship
"Housatonic," their own craft being caught and crushed beneath the
foundering vessel. These crews went to certain death in the night time,
in such secrecy that it was often months before their own families knew
the names of the men. And now, with the lapse of scarcely more than half
a century, it has been possible to find the names of only sixteen of
those who paid the price.

Because no nation of any time can point to a more inspiring example of
self-sacrifice, and because now, in a country reunited and indissoluble,
the traditions of both the North and the South are a common, glorious
heritage, the poem, which presents the final episode in the drama, is
written as a memorial to all who gave their lives in the venture.

D.H.

NOTE ON POE

TO ACCOMPANY "EDGAR ALLAN POE" AND "ALCHEMY"

In May, 1828, Poe enlisted in the army under the name of Edgar A. Perry,
and was assigned to Battery "H" of the First Artillery at Fort
Independence. In October his battery was ordered to Fort Moultrie,
Charleston, S.C. Poe spent a whole year on Sullivan's Island. Professor
C. Alphonso Smith, the well-known Poe authority, says, "So far as I
know, this was the only tropical background that Poe had ever seen."
That the susceptible nature of the young poet was vastly impressed by
the weirdness and melancholy scenery of the Carolina coast country,
there can be very little doubt. The dank tarns and funereal woodlands of
his landscapes, or at least the strong suggestion of them, may all be
found here, and the scene of _The Goldbug_ is definitely laid on
Sullivan's Island. Here are dim family vaults, and tracts of country in
which the House of Usher might well stand.

"Dim vales and shadowy floods
And cloudy-looking woods
Whose forms we can't discover,
From the tears that drip all over"

was written while Poe was in the army at Fort Moultrie, and appeared in
his second volume in 1829. There are later echoes.

"Around by lifting winds forgot
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy wa