Benjamnin F. Butler, Butler's Book: Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin Butler

[1024] surface of the iron in the crack until it was given the appearance shown in the axle; and that the crack went on opening and closing and operating as a hammer would operate until it got so far enough down in the axle that the iron that was left was not strong enough to sustain the weight of the tender on the axle. He supposed that it broke at the moment that it did because of some shock given in turning the curve.

He was asked how far the wheel would have to run in order to have the broken face worn down as much as it was. He said he had never seen any experiment from which to judge, but as it must have started at first very slowly, he should think it must have taken a very great number of revolutions of the wheel. He thought that it might have run for three months to make the axle look as it was; how much more he could not say, and it might be considerably less, but he thought not much.

Upon cross-examination I presented him my fac-simile of the axle and asked him what difference, if any, he could see between it and the one broken in the accident. He looked at them very carefully and said that he saw no special difference. I asked him if my fac-simile could be made by ordinary blows with a riveting hammer of fourteen pounds weight. He said he thought it might.

“ Well,” said I, “would the weight of the tender, as the wheel revolved, make an impact as heavy as an ordinary blow of such a hammer?”

“ When the crack first started,” he said, “it might not, but subsequently and especially toward the last it would be very much heavier, because the crack then would have got so far open as to give an actual blow when it closed.”

“ Here,” I said, “is another piece of axle broken short off. Will you, if I will pay you for your time and trouble as I ought to, after you leave the stand take this to a neighboring machine shop and put it in a vise, and see how long it will take you to make this last piece of axle resemble as nearly as possible the broken one of the tender?”

“Yes, if it won't take me too long,” said he, very good-naturedly.

“I hope it won't keep you too long,” I said, “but I want you to keep an account of the blows that you strike, and also keep an account of the time, and in the morning I will finish your cross-examination.”