Torpedoes    
The type of torpedo that sank the U.S.S. Cairo (From a sketch in the “Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies.”)—Excerpted from the Journal of Cairo’s youngest crewman, George R. Yost, “ …just as we were training on the battery we were struck by a torpedo, which exploded under our starboard bow, a few feet from the center and some 35 or 40 feet from the bow proper just under our provision store room, which crushed in the bottom of the boat so that the water rushed in like the roar of Niagara. In five minutes the Hold was full of water and the forward part of the gunboat was flooded…One of our heaviest bow guns had been dismounted by the force of the explosion injuring three men.”….Nothing of the Cairo could be seen 12 minutes after the first explosion, excepting the smoke stacks, and the flag staff from which still floated the flag above the troubled waters.”
Vicksburg National Military Park