esults were passed on to officers in
charge for their instruction and guidance and shipping continuously to
the department supplies of insulated wire, exploders, and other
inventions and devices whose object was to increase the destructiveness
of the torpedo and to test it continually without removing it. In the
spring of 1865, he sailed for Galveston with the most powerful and
perfect equipment of electric torpedo material ever assembled. Great
results were confidently expected from this armament, but before he
reached Havana news arrived of General Lee's surrender.

But his experience and study and his scientific renown had now made him
the leading authority in this new weapon of war mainly perfected by him.
He was also now relieved from the seal of secrecy hitherto imposed upon
him, so that when a year afterwards he returned to Europe he felt
himself at liberty to impart to the sovereign there the secret of his
discoveries concerning his new made science. Most of the European powers
sent representatives to his school of instruction--and all of them have
built upon his beginnings, the most powerful branch of their naval
armaments.

To France he first imparted his secret and the Emperor witnessed the
experiment and himself closed the circuit and exploded a torpedo placed
in the Seine, near St. Cloud, to the perfect satisfaction of all.
Russia, Sweden, Holland, England and others soon also received his
instructions and they, too, have since built up a new method of defence
second to none.

My own experiments, Captain Maury says, show that the electrical
torpedo, or mine has not hitherto been properly appreciated as a means
of defence in war. It is as effective for the defence as ironclads and
rifled guns are for the attack. Indeed, such is the progress made in
what may be called this new Department of Military Engineering that I
feel justified in the opinion that hereafter in all plans for coast,
harbour and river defences and in all works for the protection of cities
and places whether against attacks 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 and discoveries which as yet have
been made known only to the Confederate Government. They are chiefly as
follows:

First