Confederate Submarine H. L. Hunley First in History to Sink an Enemy Ship in Wartime by Mark K
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Confederate Submarine H. L. Hunley First in History to Sink an Enemy Ship in Wartime by Mark K. Ragan american civil war museum Submarine Torpedo Boat H. L. Hunley, December 6, 1863. Painting by Conrad Wise Chapman (1842–1910). f you knew anything about the Con- James McClintock comes the following: on described simply as a “magazine of pow- federate submarine H. L. Hunley— “In the years 1861, ’62, and ’63, I, in con- der,” the three inventors applied for, and prior to its discovery by adventure nection with others, was engaged in invent- were granted, a letter of marque (privateer’s novelist Clive Cussler’s National Un- ing and constructing a submarine boat or commission) from the Confederate govern- derwater and Marine Agency boat for running under the water at any ment on 31 March 1862. Unfortunately, (NUMA) in 1995—chances are you required depth from the surface. At New little is known regarding the testing of the had been informed that the vessel was Orleans in 1862 we built the first boat, she Pioneer, other than the fact that the three little more than a crude monstrosity, fab- was made of iron 1/4 inch thick. The boat partners are reported to have “made sev- Iricated from a discarded steam boiler by was of a cigar shape 30 feet long and 4 feet eral descents…and succeeded in destroying desperate rebels in the closing months of in diameter.” With her only offensive weap- a small schooner and several rafts.” the Civil War. As has been proven from the vessel’s intact recovery, nothing could The Confederate privateer submarinePioneer, as drawn by fleet engineer William Shock. be further from the truth. In fact this first The scuttled vessel was discovered soon after the collapse of New Orleans and was dragged submarine to sink an enemy ship in war- ashore by Union sailors. time was the third such vessel fabricated in just two years by a group of dedicated southern engineers. Members of the Sing- er Secret Service Corps—one of the names the organization that fabricated the Hunley went by—took advantage of newly acquired knowledge, gained through trial and error with the first prototypes, and incorporated it into design and building of the Hunley. The group’s first vessel, christened the Pioneer, was fabricated in New Orleans in 1861–62 by steam gauge manufacturers James McClintock and his partner Baxter Watson. During the early days of the ven- ture, they were joined by wealthy attorney and fellow New Orleans native Horace Hunley. From a postwar letter written by administration and records archives national 16 SEA HISTORY 158, SPRING 2017 In mid-April 1862 Admiral Farragut’s assisting McClintock, Hunley, and Watson federal fleet steamed up the Mississippi in Mobile: “It [the submarine] was towed River past two Confederate strongholds, off Fort Morgan, intended to man it there and after several days of heated negotiations and attack the blockading fleet outside, but with city officials, New Orleans surrendered the weather was rough, and with a heavy on 29 April. With the Confederate army sea the boat became unmanageable and in retreat, the submarine partners Mc- finally sank, but no lives were lost.” Clintock, Hunley, and Watson hastily Fortunately for the disappointed, out- scuttled their invention in the New Basin of-work submarine designers, a small group Canal and fled to Mobile, Alabama, to of underwater explosives engineers was just continue their experiments. then setting up shop in Mobile. Headed With a privateering commission from by Texan Edgar Singer, these new arrivals the Confederate government in hand, the and staff were manufacturing what would trio approached the military authorities of become the most successful underwater Mobile and was immediately granted fa- mine developed during the Civil War. From cilities at the Park and Lyon Machine Shop contemporary documents, it is known that on Water Street. Among the many soldiers the three inventors were soon approached placed on detached duty at Park and Lyon command and heritage history naval by the recently arrived Texans and offered was Lieutenant William Alexander, a young membership in Singer’s unique torpedo English mechanical engineer. With the New Orleans Masons Horace L. Hunley organization, which would become known arrival of Watson, Hunley, and Mc- (above) and James McClintock (below) joined as Singer’s Secret Service Corps. While the Singer Secret Service Corps in late March, american civil war museum Clintock, Alexander’s superiors ordered Mobile Bay was being surveyed and tor- him and his men to give their full attention 1863. They were accomplished submariners pedo materials gathered, the three displaced to the unique project. From a letter written who had built and tested two experimental Louisiana inventors discussed their past in September of 1863, we know that Hor- submarines prior to joining the group. submarine operations with their new Tex- ace Hunley financed the submarine’s con- an colleagues in an effort to gain support struction from his personal accounts. for fabrication of yet a third vessel. With As evidenced in the following pas- the Singer organization’s primary focus on sages from McClintock’s postwar letter, it the manufacture and deployment of un- would appear that the group may have been derwater weaponry, it’s easy to see why the attempting to fabricate a vessel far too tech- group enthusiastically backed the proposed nologically advanced for the times. “We venture. built a second boat at Mobile…she was With funding in place, construction made 36 feet long, three feet wide and four on the daring project began immediately feet high. Twelve feet of each end was built at the Park & Lyon machine shop. From tapering or molded, to make her easy to the postwar article written by William Al- pass through the water.” McClintock then exander, we get an invaluable firsthand went on to write the following incredible description of this innovative diving ma- passage: “There was much time and mon- chine soon to be christened the H. L. Hun- ey lost in efforts to build an electro-mag- ley, named after Hunley, in recognition of netic engine for propelling the boat.” Mc- his financial support and advocacy in mak- Clintock went on to state that the electric ing the project happen. motor designed and fabricated for propel- ling their second submarine “was unable proved to be a failure. With the removal of We decided to build another boat, to get sufficient power to be useful.” -Un the failed steam engine, the partners reluc- and for this purpose took a cylin- fortunately, McClintock remained silent tantly resorted to installing a propeller shaft der boiler, which we had on hand, as to how the group tested the electric mo- designed to be turned by four men. By 48 inches in diameter and twenty- tor, and it must therefore remain a mystery mid-January of 1863, the American Diver five feet long. We cut this boiler in as to how close the partners actually came (as a Confederate deserter referred to her two, longitudinally, and inserted to producing the world’s first electrically in his testimony) was ready for sea trials in two 12-inch boiler iron strips in powered submarine. Mobile Bay. her sides; lengthened her by one With the failure of the vessel’s electric All we really know about the final fate tapering course fore and aft, to motor, the undaunted inventors turned to of the American Diver comes from a post- which were attached bow and stern a more practical means of propulsion—a war news article written by Lieutenant castings, making the boat about small custom-built steam engine. This also William Alexander, the engineering officer 30 feet long, 4 feet wide and 5 feet SEA HISTORY 158, SPRING 2017 17 deep. A longitudinal strip 12 inch- old worm-eaten barge was towed to the On the morning of 12 August 1863, es wide was riveted the full length middle of the river and anchored in front the soot-covered locomotive that had on top. At each end a bulkhead was of numerous military officers, who had hauled the small submarine and her crew riveted across to form water-ballast assembled to witness the destructive capa- from Alabama, slowly steamed into the tanks, they were used in raising bilities of the Singer group’s new diving busy Charleston railroad station. With the and sinking the boat…In opera- machine. submarine now in the city, General Beau- tion, one half of the crew had to By a stroke of fantastic luck, several regard ordered the army’s engineering de- pass through the fore hatch; the eyewitness accounts that discuss this first partment to unload the vessel and transfer other through the after hatchway. demonstration have come to light in recent it to a mooring in the harbor without delay. The propeller revolved in a wrought years. Confederate General James Slaugh- Although information is sketchy, it would iron ring or band, to guard against ter wrote after the war: “In company with appear that by mid-August the Hunley was a line being thrown in to foul it. Admiral Buchanan and many officers of venturing past Fort Sumter in nightly ex- the CS Navy and Army, I witnessed her cursions against the blockading fleet an- It was sometime during the construc- [the Hunley’s] operations in the river and chored outside the harbor. tion of this third submarine that Lieutenant harbor of Mobile. I saw her pass under a Towing an explosive charge at the end George Dixon, a pre-war steam engineer large raft of lumber towing a torpedo be- of a long line trailing behind them, the and officer in the 21st Alabama (William hind her which destroyed the raft.