CHAPTER XIII SUBMARINES DURING THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR From the death of Robert Fulton down to the commencement of the American Civil War no very startling developments in under-water warfare are to be chronicled. During the Schleswig-Holstein War of 1848–50 the modern subaqueous explosive mine first came into use in actual warfare, and mines were also employed during the Crimean War; in 1859 by the Austrians at the time of the threatened attack on Venice by the French, and by the Chinese in 1857–58 to defend the streams in the neighbourhood of Canton. The mine and the torpedo both played their part in the American Civil War, and since then both these weapons have been adopted as valuable factors of offence and defence by all the great Powers. When the Southern Confederacy seceded from the United States in 1861, one of the first steps of its naval department was to form a torpedo section to protect approaches to places liable to attack by the Northern fleet. It was during the war that the idea was applied of taking the mine to the hostile ship by means of a boat, for the mine, besides being immovable, was liable to be picked up or cut adrift by the enemy. A charge of powder was placed at the end of a long pole carried in the bows of the boat; when darkness came on the boat crept up to the enemy, the pole and charge were run under water until in contact with the hull of the enemy, and the explosive was then ignited by means of electricity. Thus came into being the “spar” or “outrigger” torpedo, a weapon which still finds a place in the armament of the British fleet. The Confederates affixed the spar torpedo to at least one ironclad ship and many small steam vessels, and much damage was inflicted on the enemy by its employment. It must be remembered that automobile or fish torpedoes had not been invented at this time, and that the only under-water weapons used on both sides were fixed mines and spar torpedoes. It was in order to use the spar torpedo to the greatest advantage that the diving torpedo-boat was employed, and in this chapter we shall have to deal with a very famous incident in the history of submarine navigation, namely, the sinking of the Federal frigate _Housatonic_ by a submarine boat manned by the Confederates and armed with a spar torpedo.