[3] E. C. Singer, a private engineer who worked on secret projects for the benefit of the Confederate States of America, constructed a spar torpedo during the American Civil War.
[5][6] At night on October 27–28, 1864, Lieutenant Cushing employed a spar torpedo to sink the Confederate ironclad ram CSS Albemarle.
The semi-submersible 1864 Union craft USS Spuyten Duyvil employed a spar torpedo, but not with a barbed attachment to the target.
Owing to an innovative directable and extensible spar, this craft could release a slightly buoyant mine underneath the target, which would be exploded by the means described above.
[7] French admiral Courbet made good use of two spar torpedo boats at the Battle of Fuzhou on August 23, 1884, which sank the flagship of the Chinese Fujian Fleet - corvette Yangwu and a gunboat Fuxing.