Alligator (1862
- American)
from Wikipedia
The USS Alligator, the fourth United States Navy
ship of that name, is the first known U.S. Navy submarine, and was active
during the American Civil War. The first American submarine, built in the
Revolutionary War era, was the Turtle; however, the U. S. Navy did not
exist when this craft was operational.
Construction
In the autumn of 1861, the Navy asked the firm
of Neafie & Levy to construct a small submersible ship designed by
the French engineer Brutus de Villeroi, who also acted as a supervisor
during the first phase of the construction.
The ship was about 30 ft (9 m) long and 6 ft (1.8
m) or 8 ft (2.4 m) in diameter. "It was made of iron, with the upper part
pierced for small circular plates of glass, for light, and in it were several
water tight compartments." For propulsion, she was equipped with sixteen
hand-powered paddles protruding from the sides, but on 3 July 1862, the
Washington Navy Yard had the paddles replaced by a hand-cranked propeller,
which improved its speed up to seven knots. Air was to be supplied from
the surface by two tubes with floats, connected to an air pump inside the
submarine.
The Navy wanted such a vessel to counter the threat
posed to its wooden-hulled blockaders by the former screw frigate Merrimack
which, according to intelligence reports, the Norfolk Navy Yard was rebuilding
as an ironclad ram for the Confederacy (the CSS Virginia). The Navy's agreement
with the Philadelphia shipbuilder specified that the submarine was to be
finished in not more than 40 days, its keel was laid |
Artist rendering of the Alligator
Name: |
USS Alligator |
In Service: |
13 June 1861 |
Displacement: |
275 tons surface
350 tons submerged |
Length: |
47 ft |
Beam: |
4.5 ft |
Propulsion: |
1862: 16 x hand oars
1863 Hand Cranked propeller |
Speed: |
1863: 4 knots |
Compliment: |
12 |
Armament: |
2 x limpet mines |
Status: |
2 April 1863.. Lost |
|
down almost immediately following the signing on
1 November 1861 of the contract for her construction. Nevertheless, the
work proceeded so slowly that more than 180 days had elapsed when the novel
craft finally was launched on 1 May 1862.
Operational history
Soon after being launched, she was towed to the
Philadelphia Navy Yard to be fitted out and manned. A fortnight later,
she was placed under command of a civilian, Mr. Samuel Eakins. On 13 June,
the Navy formally accepted this small, unique ship.
Samual Eakins, first commander of Alligator |
Next, the steam tug Fred Kopp was engaged to tow the submarine to Hampton
Roads, Virginia. The two vessels got underway on 19 June and proceeded
down the Delaware River to the Delaware and Chesapeake Canal through which
they entered the Chesapeake Bay for the last leg of the voyage. At Norfolk,
the submarine was moored alongside the sidewheel steamer Satellite which
was to act as her tender during her service with the North Atlantic Blockading
Squadron. A short while after reaching Hampton Roads on the 23rd, the submarine
acquired the name Alligator, a moniker which soon appeared in official
correspondence.
Several tasks were considered for the strange vessel: destroying a bridge
across Swift Creek, a tributary of the Appomattox River; clearing away
the obstructions in the James River at Fort Darling which had prevented
Union gunboats from steaming upstream to support General McClellan's drive
up the peninsula toward Richmond; and blowing up Virginia II if that ironclad
were completed on time and sent downstream to attack Union forces. Consequently,
the submarine was sent up the James to City Point where she arrived on
the 25th. Commander John Rodgers, the senior naval officer in that |
area, examined Alligator and reported that neither the James off Fort Darling
nor the Appomattox near the bridge was deep enough to permit the submarine
to submerge completely. Moreover, he feared that while his theater of operation
contained no targets accessible to the submarine, the Union gunboats under
his command would be highly vulnerable to her attacks should Alligator
fall into enemy hands. He therefore requested permission to send the submarine
back to Hampton Roads.
The ship headed downriver on the 29th and then was ordered to proceed
to the Washington Navy Yard for more experimentation and testing. In August,
Lt. Thomas O. Selfridge, Jr. was given command of Alligator and she was
assigned a naval crew. The tests proved unsatisfactory, and Selfridge pronounced
"the enterprise… a failure."
The Navy Yard on 3 July 1862 replaced Alligator's oars with a hand cranked
screw propeller, thereby increasing her speed to about 4 knots (7.4 km/h).
On 18 March 1863, President Lincoln observed the submarine in operation.
About this time, Rear Admiral Samuel Francis du Pont-who had become
interested in the submarine while in command of the Philadelphia Navy Yard
early in the war-decided that Alligator might be useful in carrying out
his plans to take Charleston, South Carolina, the birthplace of secession.
Acting Master John F. Winchester, who then commanded the Sumpter, was ordered
to tow the submarine to Port Royal, South Carolina. The odd pair got underway
on 31 March.
The next day, the two ships encountered bad weather which, on 2 April,
forced Sumpter to cut Alligator adrift off Cape Hatteras. She either immediately
sank or drifted for a while before sinking, ending the career of the United
States Navy's first submarine.
|