HIS PART IN THE CIVIL WAR 155 



Government", makes no mention of Maury's name in 

 connection with the electric mines, but gives all the 

 honor to General Gabriel J. Rains, who did not become 

 head of the Torpedo Bureau until October, 1862. 

 Scharf's "History of the Confederate States Navy" 

 names not only Rains but also Hunter Davidson and 

 Beverly Kennon as rivals for priority in the invention 

 and practical use of the electric mine. The claim^s of the 

 first two are so extravagant and so unjust to Maury as 

 to merit no consideration ; while those of Kennon cannot 

 'be successfully sustained in comparison with the well- 

 established priority of Maury's "electrical torpedoes". 



These electric mines were not the only new naval 

 weapons that Maury advocated and had a hand in 

 devising. In the autumn of 1861, he wrote a series of 

 articles for the Richmond Enquirer under the pseudonym 

 of "Ben Bow", in which he urged the necessity of building 

 a strong navy for the South without delay, and of pro- 

 viding, at least, for the protection of bays and rivers 

 by the construction of small ships armed with big guns. 

 Maury had had in mind such a fighting craft for years, 

 and as early as 1841 he had urged the building of ships 

 of this sort in his "Scraps from the Lucky Bag". 



In these "Ben Bow" articles he called attention to the 

 fact that the Confederate government had not as yet 

 realized the need for a navy. "The sums appropriated 

 by the Government", he wrote, "for building and increase 

 will indicate its policy touching a navy, and show what, 

 for the present, is proposed to be done. Two Navy Bills 

 have passed since Virginia seceded and joined the Con- 

 federacy. One was passed in May at Montgomery, 

 and the other in Richmond in August. In the Mont- 

 gomery Bill there is not one dime for construction or 



