HIS TART IN THE CIVIL WAR 179 



may be asked why I do not hasten home with this 

 information and knowledge? Who — for Davis and 

 Mallory are bitter enemies — will believe my report? 

 The importance of a navy and the value of submarine 

 mining were urged upon them by me from the beginning. 

 Moreover, I have written both the Secretary of War and 

 the Secretary of the Navy urging these things, and here I 

 am ordered to lie. Another thing, since the whole field is 

 so new I can be of more service here in traversing and 

 exhausting it with experiments where mechanical facili- 

 ties and appliances are so abundant. I report results 

 as fast as I obtain them and in a manner, as to circum- 

 stances and details, so minute that they may be brought 

 into play as well as though I were there. Finally, I 

 think it best since so it must be". 



The results of Maury's experiments in the electric 

 mine while in England are embodied in the following 

 agreement, made April 11, 1865 with an English electrical 

 engineer as agent: "My dear Sir, — My own experiments 

 show that the electrical torpedo or mine has not hitherto 

 been properly appreciated as a means of defense in war. 

 It is as effective for the defense as ironclads and rifled 

 guns are for the attack. Indeed, such is the progress 

 made in what may be called the new department of mili- 

 tary engineering that I feel justified in the opinion that 

 hereafter in all plans for coast, harbor, and river defenses 

 and in all works for the protection of cities and places 

 whether against the attack by armies on land or ships 

 afloat, the electrical torpedo is to play an important 

 part. It will not only modify and strengthen existing 

 plans but greatly reduce the expense of future systems. 

 These experiments have resulted in some important 

 improvements and contrivances, not to say inventions 



