William Eugene Warner

Warships at the Battle of Riachuelo William Eugene Warner

The Battle of Riachuelo, which took place in June 1865, is almost completely forgotten by naval historians, who usually see naval history as a developmental path and look at this period in light of the introduction of the ironclad at Hampton Roads (1862) and Lissa (1866). However, these two battles, though important in the history of naval development, are mostly uninteresting and consist of cannon balls bouncing off the armored hulls off ships and large lumbering ironclads blundering into one another. The Battle of Riachuelo is the largest non-armored, steam power battle in naval history and pitted the professional modern Brazilian Navy against the improvised Paraguay squadron. Riachuelo consisted of many complex and improvised tactics and maneuvers; some have become controversial among the naval historians that analyze the battle.