On the night of October 5, 1863, “Little David”, commanded by Lieutenant William T. Glassell, CSN, left Charleston Harbor to attack the casemated ironclad steamer USS New Ironsides. The torpedo boat approached undetected until she was within 50 yards of the blockader. Hailed by the watch on board New Ironsides, Glassell replied with a blast from a shotgun and David plunged ahead to strike. Her spar torpedo detonated under the starboard quarter of the ironclad, throwing high a column of water which rained back upon the Confederate vessel and put out her boiler fires. The “Little David” was designed and built along with others of her class in secret at the Old Santee State Park and was instrumental in the rescue of CSS Hunley (N4HLH) in her earlier sea trials prior to Hunley’s historic attack on the “Housatonic”
Since the club’s inception, TARC has operated a Special Event Station every year at Old Santee State Park in commemoration of this event. On October 7, we had over a dozen club members set up and operate two HF stations using our new HHI Intercom Console that allows the operators and the loggers of each station to communicate together without disturbing the adjacent station.
