03-05-21 It's Gonna Blow!

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Irish-born, I immigrated to America in the 1840s. At the beginning of the Civil War, I wrote to the Confederate Secretary of War offering to
become a purchasing agent for Confederate supplies in the Trans-Mississippi Department. Later, while serving on the staff of General Price,
I invented an unusual explosive device.

Who am I?
What was the explosive device?

credit: @sarladaise
 
The inventive fellow was: Thomas Edgeworth Courtenay (1822–1875)
His inventive explosive device was: liquify iron and pour in a mold that is shaped to mimic coal, except the interior is hollow and filled with explosives, mix with “regular” coal and get it loaded to your target (mostly Union transportation vehicles) and when it’s thrown in with the rest of the “regular” coal - it explodes. This was also known as a coal torpedo.
 
Irish-born, I immigrated to America in the 1840s. At the beginning of the Civil War, I wrote to the Confederate Secretary of War offering to
become a purchasing agent for Confederate supplies in the Trans-Mississippi Department. Later, while serving on the staff of General Price,
I invented an unusual explosive device.

Who am I?
What was the explosive device?

credit: @sarladaise
Thomas E. Courtenay
the coal torpedo
 
Irish-born, I immigrated to America in the 1840s. At the beginning of the Civil War, I wrote to the Confederate Secretary of War offering to
become a purchasing agent for Confederate supplies in the Trans-Mississippi Department. Later, while serving on the staff of General Price,
I invented an unusual explosive device.

Who am I?
What was the explosive device?

credit: @sarladaise
Thomas Edgeworth Courtenay (1822-1875), inventor of the Coal Torpedo, a hollow iron casting filled with explosives and covered in coal dust to look like a lump of coal to destroy coal-fired U. S. Navy steamships.
In 1888, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat claimed a coal torpedo may have been responsible for the sinking of the “Sultana” in the Mississippi River outside Memphis on April 27, 1865.
Source: "The Courtenay Coal Torpedo: The Confederacy’s Secret Civil War Weapon", World History. https://worldhistory.us/american-hi...-the-confederacys-secret-civil-war-weapon.php
Source: "
The Coal Torpedo- The Confederacy's Own Improvised Explosive Device", Military History Now. https://militaryhistorynow.com/2014/01/13/dirty-trick-the-confederacys-top-secret-coal-torpedo/

 
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