Although naval warfare has a long history, the earliest known usage of the naval mine dates to the Ming dynasty.[2] Dedicated minesweepers, however, only appear in the historical record, several centuries later, of the Crimean War, where they were deployed by the British. In the Crimean War, minesweepers consisted of British rowboats trailing grapnels to snag the mines. Despite the use of mines in the American Civil War, there are no records of effective minesweeping being used.[2] Officials in the Union Army attempted to create the first minesweeper but were plagued by flawed designs and abandoned the project.[4] Minesweeping technology picked up in the Russo-Japanese War, using aging torpedo boats as minesweepers.