The Read shell in the fight at Bethel.
--From late accounts of this spirited cembat, it appears that the rifle shells invented by our townsman, Dr. Read, rendered efficient aid in discomfiting the invaders of the Old Dominion.The Howitzer Battery, under Col. Magruder, did good service; but the prominent place is assigned to a Parrott gun, firing the Read shells, which were purchased last year by the Military Commissioners of Virginia.
These shells, it seems, were fired with much precision, and exploded with such fatal effects in the ranks of the enemy as to render the working of the hostile artillery almost impossible.
The Parrott guns, prudently provided by Virginia, were cast iron six-pounders, manufactured and rified expressly for firing the Read shells. We do not wonder that they should have made their mark at Bethel, as we have just inspected a table of practice with one of these same guns at West Point, last summer, showing that a shell weighing nine and a half pounds, fired with only one pound of powder, ranged two miles and a quarter at 15 deg. elevation, and at 35 deg. elevation struck three miles and a half from the gun.
If such results can be attained with the Read shells from small field-pieces, weighing but nine hundred pounds, what may we not expect when our ten-inch Columbiads and heavy Dahlgren guns are rified and furnished with similar projectiles as they readily may be by our Southern foundries?--Tuscaloosa Observer.
