in rank, "that the Captain had died of his wound, what would you have done?" "I thought," said he, "of firing at it with a six-pounder at a safe distance, and thus knocking it to pieces." The occasion of the first submarine torpedo was as follows: Soon after the battle of Seven Pines (called in Northern prints "Fair Oaks") General R. E. Lee, commanding, sent for General Rains and said to him: "The enemy have upwards of one hundred vessels in the James river, and we think that they are about making an advance that way upon Richmond, and if there is a man in the whole Southern Confederacy that can stop them, you are the man. Will you undertake it?" "I will try," was the answer; and observing that ironclads were invulnerable to cannon of all calibre used and were really masters of rivers and harbors, it required submarine inventions to checkmate and conquer them. So an order was issued forthwith putting General Rains in charge of the submarine defences, and on the James river banks, opposite Drewry's Bluff, was the first submarine torpedo made—the primo-genitor and predecessor of all such inventions, now world renowned, as civilized nations have each a torpedo corps. And if, as has been asserted, that "naval warfare has been substantially revolutionized" by them, there is no doubt but that is the case on land, and the tactics of the world has been changed, perhaps, under the providence of God, making a vast stride to arbitration of nations and universal peace.
NOTE.—Having read the MS. of General Rains' valuable paper, I desire to say that the total number of vessels sunk by torpedoes in Mobile bay was twelve, instead of three, viz: three ironclads, two tinclads and seven transports.
D. H. Maury,
