i88o.J 
Submarine War. 
173 
of destruction and damage caused by the Confederate tor- 
pedoes, but almost all by defensive mines, whereas nearly 
all the offensive attacks by means of torpedo-boats failed. 
Thus there was a total of thirteen iron-clads, monitors, 
and gun-boats,* besides the aforenamed Cairo, all belonging 
to the Federals, which were sunk by stationary defensive 
submarine mines, without counting others! severely da- 
maged. The only successful offensive torpedo attack was 
fatal to both sides, the Confederate submarine boat being 
sunk, together with the Federal antagonist, by running into 
the hole caused by the explosion of her own torpedo. 
“ ’T is sport to have the engineer 
Hoist with his own petard.’' 
(Hamlet, A<5t iii., Scene 4 .) 
As our immortal Shakspeare has it. 
On the other hand, the failures of offensive attack were 
conspicuous,! and three Confederate vessels were destroyed 
by their own mines, owing to the shifting of the position of 
the barrel torpedoes. 
The only Federal torpedo success during the war was that 
of a boat armed with the Wood and Lay disconneCting-spar 
torpedo, by which the Confederate iron-clad Albemarle was 
sunk. 
Later the Paraguayans, in 1866, completely destroyed the 
Brazilian war-steamer Rio Janeiro, by a stationary torpedo, 
one of the Brazilian fleet which was bombarding Curru- 
paity. This was the end of the second epoch of aCtive 
warfare in which torpedoes had been engaged, and an inter- 
val of over ten years elapsed before submarine warfare was 
again employed by belligerents; but this time was not idly 
employed by the submarine engineer, for in 1864 Captain 
Lupuis, an Austrian, in association with Mr. Robert White- 
head, the Superintendent of Iron-worksat Fiume, constructed 
the “fish torpedo,” with which such highly successful experi- 
ments were made, that various nations were justified in 
purchasing the patent on certain conditions advantageous 
to the patentee ; the English Government paying .£17,500 
for the secret, on the recommendation of a committee of 
* Sunk: — Iron-clad, Cairo ; gunboat, Baron de Kalb; transport, Maple 
Leaf; iron ship, Commodore Jones; monitor, Tecumseh; steamer, Otsego; 
steamer, Bazeby ; monitor, Patapsco ; steamer, Harvest Moon ; and two moni- 
tors and three gunboats unnamed. 
f Severely damaged : — Monitor, Montauk ; gunboat, Commodore Barney . 
J Boat-torpedo attacks failed : — Ship, Ironsides ; ship, Memphis ; ship, Min~ 
nesota ; frigate, Wabash . 
