Produced by Chris Curnow, Charlie Howard, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) THE STORY OF THE SUBMARINE [Illustration: Courtesy of the Electric Boat Company. U. S. Submarine _M-1_.] THE STORY OF THE SUBMARINE BY FARNHAM BISHOP Author of âPanama, Past and Present,â etc. _ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS AND DRAWINGS_ [Illustration] NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1916 Copyright, 1916, by THE CENTURY CO. _Published, February, 1916_ To MY MOTHER PREFACE This book has been written for the nontechnical reader--for the man or boy who is interested in submarines and torpedoes, and would like to know something about the men who invented these things and how they came to do it. Much has been omitted that I should have liked to have put in, for this is a small book and the story of the submarine is much longer than most people realize. It is perhaps astonishing to think of the launching of an underseaboat in the year the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, or George Washington watching his submarine attack the British fleet in 1776. But are these things as astonishing as the thought of European soldiers wearing steel helmets and fighting with crossbows and catapults in 1916? The chapter on âA Trip in a Modern Submarineâ is purely imaginative. There is no such boat in our submarine flotilla as the _X-4_. We ought to have plenty of big, fast, sea-going submarines, with plenty of big, fast sea-planes and battle-cruisers, so that if an invading army ever starts for this country we can meet it and smash it while it is cooped up on transports somewhere in mid-ocean. There, and not in shallow, off-shore waters, cumbered with nets and mines, is the true battlefield of the submarine. The last part of this book has a broken-off and fragmentary appearance. This is almost unavoidable at a time when writing history is like trying to make a statue of a moving-picture. I have tried to do justice to both sides in the present war. I wish to express my thanks to those whose kindness and courtesy have made it possible for me to write this book. To Mr. Kelby, Librarian of the New York Historical Society, I am indebted for much information about Bushnellâs _Turtle_, and to Mrs. Daniel Whitney, of Germantown, Pa., a descendant of Ezra Lee, for the portrait of her intrepid ancestor. Both the Electric Boat Company and Mr. Simon Lake have supplied me most generously with information and pictures. The Bureau of Construction, United States Navy, E.Â P. Dutton & Company, publishers of Mr. Alan H. Burgoyneâs âSubmarine Navigation Past and Presentâ; the American Magazine, Flying, International Marine Engineering, the _Scientific American_, and the _New York Sun_ have cheerfully given permission for the reproduction of many pictures of which they hold the copyright. Albert Frank & Company have given the cut of the advertisement of the last sailing of the _Lusitania_. Special thanks are due to Mr. A. Russell Bond, Associate Editor of the _Scientific American_, for expert advice and suggestion. Some well-known pictures of submarines are herein credited for the first time to the man who made them: Captain Francis M. Barber, U.Â S.Â N. (retired). This officer published a little pink-backed pamphlet on submarine boats--the first book devoted exclusively to this subject--in 1875. âThe last time I heard of that pink pamphlet,â writes Captain Barber from Washington, âwas when I was Naval Attache at Berlin in 1898. Admiral von Tirpitz was then head of the Torpedo Bureau in the Navy Department, and he was good enough to say that it was the foundation of his studies--and look what we have now in the terrible German production.â FARNHAM BISHOP. New York, January, 1916. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I IN THE BEGINNING 3 II DAVID BUSHNELLâS âTURTLEâ 12 III ROBERT FULTONâS âNAUTILUSâ 26 IV SUBMARINES IN THE CIVIL WAR 36 V THE WHITEHEAD TORPEDO 43 VI FREAKS AND FAILURES 56 VII JOHN P. HOLLAND 69 VIII THE LAKE SUBMARINES 82 IX A TRIP IN A MODERN SUBMARINE 100 X ACCIDENTS AND SAFETY DEVICES 124 XI MINES 139 XII THE SUBMARINE IN ACTION 156 XIII THE SUBMARINE BLOCKADE 177 XIV THE SUBMARINE AND NEUTRALS 189 INDEX 207 List of Illustrations PAGE U. S. Submarine _M-1_ _Frontispiece_ Cornelius Van Drebel 5 The _Rotterdam Boat_ 8 Symonsâs Submarine 10 The Submarine of 1776 13 The Best-known Picture of Bushnellâs _Turtle_ 16 Another Idea of Bushnellâs _Turtle_ 19 Ezra Lee 21 The _Nautilus_ Invented by Robert Fulton 28 Destruction of the _Dorothea_ 33 Views of a Confederate _David_ 37 C.Â S.Â S. _Hundley_ 38 Cross-section of a Whitehead Torpedo 51 Davis Gun-torpedo After Discharge, Showing Eight-inch Gun Forward of Air-flask 53 Effect of Davis Gun-torpedo on a Specially-constructed Target 54 The _Intelligent Whale_ 58 _Le Plongeur_ 59 Steam Submarine _Nordenfeldt II_, at Constantinople, 1887 62 Bauerâs Submarine Concert, Cronstadt Harbor, 1855 65 Apostoloffâs Proposed Submarine 67 The _Holland No. 1_ 70 The _Fenian Ram_ 73 U.Â S.Â S. _Holland_, in Drydock with the Russian Battleship _Retvizan_ 77 John P. Holland 80 Lake 1893 Design as Submitted to the U.Â S. Navy Department 83 The _Argonaut Junior_ 84 _Argonaut_ as Originally Built 87 _Argonaut_ as Rebuilt 90 The Rebuilt _Argonaut_, Showing Pipe-masts and Ship-shaped Superstructure 93 Cross-section of Diving-compartment on a Lake Submarine 94 Cross-section of the _Protector_ 97 Mr. Simon Lake 98 U. S. Submarine _E-2_ 101 A Submarine Cruiser, or Fleet Submarine (Lake Type) 105 Auxiliary Switchboard and Electric Cook-stove, in a U.Â S. Submarine 107 Forward Deck of a U. S. Submarine, in Cruising Trim 109 Same, Preparing to Submerge 110 Depth-control Station, U. S. Submarine 113 Cross-section of a Periscope 114 Forward Torpedo-compartment, U.Â S. Submarine 117 Fessenden Oscillator Outside the Hull of a Ship 120 Professor Fessenden Receiving a Message Sent Through Several Miles of Sea-water by His âOscillatorâ 121 Side-elevation of a Modern Submarine 127 One Type of Safety-jacket 131 The _Vulcan_ Salvaging the _U-3_ 134 Fultonâs Anchored Torpedoes 140 Sinking of the U.Â S.Â S. _Tecumseh_, by a Confederate Mine, in Mobile Bay 143 A Confederate âKeg-torpedoâ 144 First Warship Destroyed by a Mine 145 A Confederate âBuoyant Torpedoâ or Contact-mine 146 Modern Contact-mine 150 U. S. Mine-planter _San Francisco_ 153 English Submarine Rescuing English Sailors 157 Engagement Between the _Birmingham_ and the _U-15_ 159 Sinking of the _Aboukir_, _Cressy_, and _Hogue_ 163 Tiny Target Afforded by Periscopes in Rough Weather 167 Photograph of a Submarine, Twenty Feet Below the Surface, Taken from the Aeroplane, Whose Shadow Is Shown in the Picture 173 German Submarine Pursuing English Merchantman 182 British Submarine, Showing One Type of Disappearing Deck-gun Now in Use 190 THE STORY OF THE SUBMARINE CHAPTER I IN THE BEGINNING If you had been in London in the year 1624, and had gone to the theater to see âThe Staple of News,â a new and very dull comedy by Shakespeareâs friend Ben Jonson, you would have heard, in act III, scene i, the following dialogue about submarines: THOMAS They write hear one Corneliusâ son Hath made the Hollanders an invisible eel To swim the haven at Dunkirk and sink all The shipping there. PENNYBOY But how isât done? GRABAL Iâll show you, sir, It is an automa, runs under water With a snug nose, and has a nimble tail Made like an auger, with which tail she wriggles Betwixt the costs of a ship and sinks it straight. PENNYBOY Whence have you this news? FITTON From a right hand I assure you. The eel-boats here, that lie before Queen-hythe Came out of Holland. PENNYBOY A most brave device To murder their flat bottoms. The idea of submarine navigation is much older than 1624. Crude diving bells, and primitive leather diving helmets, with bladders to keep the upper end of the air tube afloat on the surface of the water, were used as early as the fourteenth century. William Bourne, an Englishman who published a book on âInventions or Devicesâ in 1578, suggested the military value of a boat that could be sailed just below the surface of the water, with a hollow mast for a ventilator. John Napier, Laird of Merchiston, the great Scotch mathematician who invented logarithms, wrote in 1596 about his proposed âDevices of sailing under the water, with divers other devices and stratagems for the burning of enemies.â But the first man actually to build and navigate a submarine was a Dutchman: the learned Doctor Cornelius Van Drebel.[1] He was âa native of Alkmaar, a very fair and handsome man, and of very gentle manners.â Both his pleasing personality and his knowledge of science--which caused many to suspect him of being a magician--made the Netherlander an honored guest at the court of his most pedantic Majesty, King James I of England. Van Drebel was walking along the banks of the Thames, one pleasant evening in the year 1620, when he ânoticed some sailors dragging behind their barques baskets full of fish; he saw that the barques were weighed down in the water, but that they rose a little when the baskets allowed the ropes which held them to slacken a little. The idea occurred to him that a ship could be held under water by a somewhat similar method and could be propelled by oars and poles.â[2] [Illustration: Cornelius Van Drebel. Reproduced from âSubmarine Navigation, Past and Presentâ by Alan H. Burgoyne, by permission of E.Â P. Dutton & Company. ] Lodged by the king in Eltham Palace, and supplied with funds from the royal treasury, Van Drebel designed and built three submarine boats, between 1620 and 1624. They were simply large wooden rowboats, decked over and made water-tight by a covering of thick, well-greased leather. Harsdoffer, a chronicler of the period, declared that âKing James himself journeyed in one of them on the Thames. There were on this occasion twelve rowers besides the passengers, and the vessel during several hours was kept at a depth of twelve to fifteen feet below the surface.â Another contemporary historian, Cornelius Van der Wonde, of Van Drebelâs home town, said of him: âHe built a ship in which one could row and navigate under water from Westminster to Greenwich, the distance of two Dutch miles; even five or six miles or as far as one pleased. In this boat a person could see under the surface of the water and without candle-light, as much as he needed to read in the Bible or any other book. Not long ago this remarkable ship was yet to be seen lying in the Thames or London river.â The glow of phosphorescent bodies, suggested by the monk Mersenne for illuminating the interior of a submarine, later in the seventeenth century and actually so used by Bushnell in the eighteenth, might have furnished sufficient light for Bible-Â and compass-reading on this voyage. But how did King James--the first and last monarch to venture on an underwater voyage--the other passengers, and the twelve rowers get enough air? âThat deservedly Famous Mechanician and Chymist, Cornelius Drebell ... conceived, that âtis not only the whole body of the air but a certain Quintessence (as Chymists speake) or spirituous part that makes it fit for respiration ... so that (for aught I could gather) besides the Mechanicall contrivance of his vessel he had a Chymicall liquor, which he accounted the chief secret of his Submarine Navigation. For when from time to time he perceived that the finer and purer part of the air was consumed or over-clogged by the respiration and steames of those that went in his ship, he would, by unstopping a vessel full of liquor speedily restore to the troubled air such a proportion of vital parts as would make it again for a good while fit for Respiration.â[3] Did Van Drebel anticipate by one hundred and fifty years the discovery of oxygen: the life-giving âQuintessenceâ of air? Even if he did, it is incredible that he should have found a liquid, utterly unknown to modern chemistry, capable of giving off that gas so freely that a few gallons would restore the oxygen to a confined body of air as fast as fifteen or twenty men could consume it by breathing. Perhaps his âChymicall liquorâ instead of producing oxygen directly, increased the proportion of it in the atmosphere by absorbing the carbonic acid gas. The AbbÃ© de Hautefeullie, who wrote in 1680 on âMethods of breathing under water,â made the following shrewd guess at the nature of the apparatus: âDrebelâs secret was probably the machine which I had imagined, consisting of a bellows with two valves and two tubes resting on the surface of the water, the one bringing down air and the other sending it back. By speaking of a volatile essence which restored the nitrous parts consumed by respiration, Drebel evidently wished to disguise his invention and prevent others from finding out its real nature.â [Illustration: Courtesy of the Scientific American. The _Rotterdam Boat_.] It is a very great pity that we know no more about these earliest submarines. Cornelius Van Drebel died in 1634, at the age of sixty-two, without leaving any written notes or oral descriptions. We must not think too hardly of this inventor of three centuries ago, unguarded by patent laws, for making a mystery of his discoveries. He had to be a showman as well as a scientist, or his noble patrons would have lost all interest in his âingenious machines,â and mystery is half of the showmanâs game. Besides his âeel-boats,â Van Drebel is said to have invented a wonderful globe with which he imitated perpetual motion and illustrated the course of the sun, moon, and stars; an incubator, a refrigerator, âVirginals that played of themselves,â and other marvels too numerous to mention. Half scientist, half charlatan, wholly medieval in appearance, with his long furred gown and long, fair beard, Cornelius Van Drebel marches picturesquely at the head of the procession of inventors who have made possible the modern submarine. Eighteen years after Van Drebelâs death, a Frenchman named Le Son built a submarine at Rotterdam. This craft, which is usually referred to as the _Rotterdam Boat_, was 72 feet long, 12 feet high, and of 8 foot beam. It was built of wood, with sharply tapering ends, and had a superstructure whose sloping sides were designed to deflect cannon balls that might be fired at the boat while traveling on the surface, while iron-shod legs protected the hull when resting on the sea bottom. A single paddle-wheel amidships was to propel the boat,--just how, the inventor never revealed. Like so many other submarines, the _Rotterdam Boat_ was built primarily to be used against the British fleet. But it failed to interest either the Dutch or French minister of marine, and never went into action. The earliest known contemporary picture of a submarine vessel appeared in the âGentlemanâs Magazine,â in 1747. It showed a cross section of an underwater boat built and navigated on the Thames by one Symons. This was a decked-over row-boat, propelled by four pairs of oars working in water-tight joints of greased leather. To submerge his vessel, Symons admitted water into a number of large leather bottles, placed inside the hull with their open mouth passing through holes in the bottom. When he wished to rise, he would squeeze out the water with a lever and bind up the neck of each emptied bottle with string. This ingenious device was not original with Mr. Symons, but was invented by a Frenchman named Borelli in 1680. Submarine navigation was a century and a half old before it claimed its first victim. J. Day, an English mechanic, rebuilt a small boat so that he was able to submerge it in thirty feet of water, with himself on board, and remain there for twenty-four hours with no ill effect. At the end of this time, Day rose to the surface, absolutely certain of his ability to repeat the experiment at any depth. But how could he turn this to practical account? [Illustration: Symonsâs Submarine.] It was an age of betting, when gentlemen could always be found to risk money on any wager, however fantastic. Day found a financial backer in a Mr. Blake, who advanced him the money to buy a fifty-ton sloop and fit it with a strong water-tight compartment amidships. Ten tons of ballast were placed in the hold and twenty more hung outside the hull by four iron rods passing through the passengerâs compartment. When the rest of the boat was filled with water, it would sink to the bottom, to rise again when the man inside released the twenty tons of outer ballast. Shut in the water-tight compartment of this boat, Day sank to the bottom of Plymouth Harbor, at 2 P.M., Tuesday, June 28, 1774, to decide a bet that he could remain twelve hours at a depth of twenty-two fathoms (132 feet). When, at the expiration of this time, the submarine failed to reappear, Mr. Blake called on the captain of a near-by frigate for help. Bluejackets from the warship and workmen from the dockyard were set to work immediately to grapple for the sunken craft and raise her to the surface, but to no avail. The great pressure of water at that depth--150 feet is the limit of safety for many modern submarines--must have crushed in the walls of the water-tight compartment without giving Day time enough to release the outer ballast and rise to safety. CHAPTER II DAVID BUSHNELLâS âTURTLEâ In the first week of September, 1776, the American army defending New York still held Manhattan Island, but nothing more. Hastily improvised, badly equipped, and worse disciplined, it had been easily defeated by a superior invading force of British regulars and German mercenaries in the battle of Long Island. Brooklyn had fallen; from Montauk Point to the East River, all was the enemyâs country. Staten Island, too, was an armed and hostile land. After the fall of the forts on both sides of the Narrows, the British fleet had entered the Upper Bay, and even landed marines and infantry on Governorâs Island. Grimly guarding the crowded transports, the ship-of-the-line _Asia_ and the frigate _Eagle_ lay a little above Staten Island, with their broadsides trained on the doomed city. In the mouth of the North River, not a biscuit-toss from the Battery, floated the brass conning-tower of an American submarine. It was the only submarine in the world and its inventor called it the _Turtle_. He called it that because it looked like one: a turtle floating with its tail down and a conning-tower for a head. It has also been compared to a modern soldierâs canteen with an extra-large mouthpiece, or a hardshell clam wearing a silk hat. It was deeper than it was long and not much longer than it was broad. It had no periscope, torpedo tubes, or cage of white mice. But the _Turtle_ was a submarine, for all that. Its inventor was a Connecticut Yankee, Mr. David Bushnell, later Captain Bushnell of the corps of sappers and miners and in the opinion of his Excellency General Washington âa man of great mechanical powers, fertile in invention and master of execution.â Bushnell was born in Saybrook and educated at Yale, where he graduated with the class of 1775. During his four years as an undergraduate, he spent most of his spare time solving the problem of exploding gunpowder under water. A water-tight case would keep his powder dry, but how could he get a spark inside to explode it? Percussion caps had not yet been invented, but Bushnell took the flintlock from a musket and had it snapped by clockwork that could be wound up and set for any desired length of time. [Illustration: The Submarine of 1776. (As described by its operator.)] âThe first experiment I made,â wrote Bushnell in a letter to Thomas Jefferson when the latter was American minister to France in 1789, âwas with about 2 ounces of powder, which I exploded 4 feet under water, to prove to some of the first personages in Connecticut that powder would take fire under water. âThe second experiment was made with 2 lb. of powder enclosed in a wooden bottle and fixed under a hogshead, with a 2-inch oak plank between the hogshead and the powder. The hogshead was loaded with stones as deep as it could swim; a wooden pipe, descending through the lower head of the hogshead and through the plank into the bottle, was primed with powder. A match put to the priming exploded the powder, which produced a very great effect, rending the plank into pieces, demolishing the hogshead, and casting the stones and the ruins of the hogshead, with a body of water, many feet into the air, to the astonishment of the spectators. This experiment was likewise made for the satisfaction of the gentlemen above mentioned.â Governor Trumbull of Connecticut was among the âfirst personagesâ present at these experiments, which so impressed him and his council that they appropriated enough money for Bushnell to build the _Turtle_. The Nutmeg State was thus the first âworld-powerâ to have a submarine in its navy.[4] The hull of the _Turtle_ was not made of copper, as is sometimes stated, but was âbuilt of oak, in the strongest manner possible, corked and tarred.â[5] The conning-tower was of brass and also served as a hatch-cover. The hatchway was barely big enough for the one man who made up the entire crew to squeeze through. Once inside, the operator could screw the cover down tight, and look out through âthree round doors, one directly in front and one on each side, large enough to put the hand through. When open they admitted fresh air.â On top of the conning-tower were two air-pipes âso constructed that they shut themselves whenever the water rose near their tops, so that no water could enter through them and opened themselves immediately after they rose above the water. âThe vessel was chiefly ballasted with lead fixed to its bottom; when this was not sufficient a quantity was placed within, more or less according to the weight of the operator; its ballast made it so stiff that there was no danger of oversetting. The vessel, with all its appendages and the operator, was of sufficient weight to settle it very low in the water. About 200 lb. of lead at the bottom for ballast could be let down 40 or 50 feet below the vessel; this enabled the operator to rise instantly to the surface of the water in case of accident.â The operator sat on an oaken brace that kept the two sides of the boat from being crushed in by the water-pressure, and did things with his hands and feet. He must have been as busy as a cathedral organist on Easter morning. With one foot he opened a brass valve that let water into the ballast tanks, with the other he worked a force pump to drive it out. When he had reached an approximate equilibrium, he could move the submarine up or down, or hold it at any desired depth, by cranking a small vertical-acting propellor placed just forward of the conning-tower on the deck above. Before him was the crank of another propellor, or rather tractor, for it drew, not pushed, the vessel forward. Behind him was the rudder, which the operator controlled with a long curved tiller stuck under one arm. [Illustration: The Best-known Picture of Bushnellâs _Turtle_. Drawn by Lieutenant F. M. Barber, U.Â S.Â N., in 1875.] Bushnell, in his letter to Jefferson, calls each of these propellors âan oar, formed upon the principle of the screw,â and the best-known picture of the _Turtle_ shows a bearded gentleman in nineteenth-century clothes boring his way through the water with two big gimlets. But Sergeant Ezra Lee of the Connecticut Line, who did the actual operating, described the submarineâs forward propellor (he makes no mention of the other) as having two wooden blades or âoars, of about 12 inches in length and 4 or 5 in width, shaped like the arms of a windmill.â Except in size, this device must have looked very much like the wooden-bladed tractor of a modern aeroplane. âThese oars,â noted Judge Griswold on the letter before forwarding it to General Humphrey, âwere fixed on the end of a shaft like windmill arms projected out forward, and turned at right angles with the course of the machine; and upon the same principles that wind-mill arms are turned by the wind, these oars, when put in motion as the writer describes, draw the machine slowly after it. This moving power is small, and every attendant circumstance must coÃ¶perate with it to answer the purpose--calm waters and no current.â âWith hard labor,â said Lee, âthe machine might be impelled at the rate of â3 notsâ an hour for a short time.â Sergeant Lee volunteered âto learn the ways and mystery of this new machineâ because the original operator, Bushnellâs brother, âwas taken sick in the campaign of 1776 at New York before he had an opportunity to make use of his skill, and never recovered his health sufficiently afterwards.â While Lee was still struggling with the âmysteryâ in practice trips on Long Island Sound, the British fleet entered New York Harbor. The submarine was at once hurried to New Rochelle, carted overland to the Hudson, and towed down to the city. At slack tide on the first calm night after his arrival, Lee screwed down the conning-tower of the _Turtle_ above his head and set out to attack the British fleet.[6] Two whaleboats towed him as near as they dared and then cast off. Running awash, with not more than six or seven inches of the conning-tower exposed, the submarine crept, silent and unseen, down the bay and up under the towering stern of his Britannic Majestyâs 64-gun frigate _Eagle_. âWhen I rowed under the stern of the ship,â wrote Sergeant Lee in after years, âI could see the men on deck and hear them talk. I then shut down all the doors, sunk down and came under the bottom of the ship.â Up through the top of the submarine ran a long sharp gimlet, not for boring a hole through the bottom of a ship, but to be screwed into the wooden hull and left there, to serve as an anchor for a mine. Tied to the screw and carried on the after-deck of the _Turtle_ was an egg-shaped âmagazine,â made of two hollowed-out pieces of oak and containing one hundred and fifty pounds of gunpowder, with a clockwork time-fuse that would begin to run as soon as the operator cast off the magazine after making fast the screw. Everything seemed ready for Sergeant Lee to anticipate Lieutenant Commander Von Weddigen by one hundred and thirty-eight years. But no matter how hard the strong-wristed sergeant turned the handle, he could not drive the screw into the frigateâs hull. The _Eagle_ was copper-sheathed![7] âI pulled along to try another place,â said Lee, âbut deviated a little to one side and immediately rose with great velocity and came above the surface 2 or 3 feet, between the ship and the daylight, then sunk again like a porpoise. I hove about to try again, but on further thought I gave out, knowing that as soon as it was light the shipsâ boats would be rowing in all directions, and I thought the best generalship was to retreat as fast as I could, as I had 4 miles to go before passing Governorâs Island. So I joggâd on as fast as I could.â To enable him to steer a course when submerged, Lee had before him a compass, most ingeniously illuminated with phosphorescent pieces of rotten wood. But for some reason this proved to be of no use. [Illustration: Another Idea of Bushnellâs _Turtle_.] âI was obliged to rise up every few minutes to see that I sailed in the right direction, and for this purpose keeping the machine on the surface of the water and the doors open. I was much afraid of getting aground on the island, as the tide of the flood set on the north point. âWhile on my passage up to the city, my course, owing to the above circumstances, was very crooked and zig-zag, and the enemyâs attention was drawn towards me from Governorâs Island. When I was abreast of the fort on the island, 3 or 400 men got upon the parapet to observe me; at length a number came down to the shore, shoved off a 12 oarâd barge with 5 or 6 sitters and pulled for me. I eyed them, and when they had got within 50 or 60 yards of me I let loose the magazine in hopes that if they should take me they would likewise pick up the magazine, and then we should all be blown up together. But as kind Providence would have it, they took fright and returned to the island to my infinite joy. I then weathered the island, and our people seeing me, came off with a whaleboat and towed me in. The magazine, after getting a little past the island, went off with a tremendous explosion, throwing up large bodies of water to an immense height.â A few days afterwards, the British forces landed on Manhattan Island at what is now the foot of East Thirty-fourth Street, and Washingtonâs army hastily withdrew to the Harlem Heights, above One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street. A British frigate sailed up the Hudson and anchored off Bloomingdale, or between Seventy-second and One Hundred and Tenth Streets, in the same waters where our Atlantic fleet lies whenever it comes to town. Here Sergeant Lee in the _Turtle_ made two more attempts. But the first time he was discovered by the watch, and when he approached again, submerged, the phosphorus-painted cork that served as an indicator in his crude but ingenious depth-gage, got caught and deceived him so that he dived completely under the warship without touching her. Shortly after this, the frigate came up the river, overhauled the sloop on which the _Turtle_ was being transported, and sent it to the bottom, submarine and all. [Illustration: Ezra Lee. Born at Lyme, Conn., Jan. 21, 1749, Died at Lyme, Conn., Oct. 29, 1821. From original painting in possession of his descendant, Mrs. Daniel Whitney, 5117 Pulaski Avenue, Germantown, Pa. ] âThough I afterwards recovered the vessel,â Bushnell wrote to Jefferson, âI found it impossible at that time to prosecute the design any further. I had been in a bad state of health from the beginning of my undertaking, and was now very unwell; the situation of public affairs was such that I despaired of obtaining the public attention and the assistance necessary. I was unable to support myself and the persons I must have employed had I proceeded. Besides, I found it absolutely necessary that the operators should acquire more skill in the management of the vessel before I could expect success, which would have taken up some time, and no small additional expense. I therefore gave over the pursuit for that time and waited for a more favorable opportunity, which never arrived. âIn the year 1777 I made an attempt from a whaleboat against the _Cerberus_ frigate, then lying at anchor between Connecticut River and New London, by drawing a machine against her side by means of a line. The machine was loaded with powder, to be exploded by a gun-lock, which was to be unpinioned by an apparatus to be turned by being brought alongside of the frigate. This machine fell in with a schooner at anchor astern of the frigate, and concealed from my sight. By some means or other it was fired, and demolished the schooner and three men, and blew the only one left alive overboard, who was taken up very much hurt.[8] âAfter this I fixed several kegs under water, charged with powder, to explode upon touching anything as they floated along with the tide. I set them afloat in the Delaware, above the English shipping at Philadelphia, in December, 1777. I was unacquainted with the river, and obliged to depend upon a gentleman very imperfectly acquainted with that part of it, as I afterwards found. We went as near the shipping as we durst venture; I believe the darkness of the night greatly deceived him, as it did me. We set them adrift to fall with the ebb upon the shipping. Had we been within sixty rods I believe they must have fallen in with them immediately, as I designed; but, as I afterwards found, they were set adrift much too far distant, and did not arrive until, after being detained some time by frost, they advanced in the day-time in a dispersed situation and under great disadvantages. One of them blew up a boat with several persons in it who imprudently handled it too freely, and thus gave the British the alarm which brought on the battle of the kegs.â The agitated redcoats lined the banks and blazed away at every bit of drifting wreckage in the river, as described by a sarcastic Revolutionary poet in âThe Battle of the Kegs.â Gallants attend, and hear a friend Troll forth harmonious ditty, Strange things Iâll tell that once befell In Philadelphia city. âTwas early day, as poets say, Just as the sun was rising, A soldier stood on a log of wood And saw a thing surprising. As in amaze he stood to gaze, The truth canât be denied, sir, He spied a score of kegs or more Come floating down the tide, sir. * * * * * These kegs, Iâm told, the rebels hold Packed up like pickled herring, And theyâre coming down to attack the town, In this new way of ferrying. * * * * * Therefore prepare for bloody war, The kegs must all be routed, Or surely we despised shall be And British valor doubted. The royal band now ready stand All ranged in dread array, sir, With stomach stout to see it out And make a bloody day, sir. The cannon roar from shore to shore, The small arms make a rattle, Since wars began, Iâm sure no man Eâer saw so strange a battle. The kegs, âtis said, though strongly made, Of rebel staves and hoops, sir, Could not oppose their powerful foes, The conquering British troops, sir. David Bushnell was later captured by the British, who failed to recognize him and soon released him as a harmless civilian. After the Revolution he went to France, and then to Georgia, where disgusted with the Governmentâs neglect of himself and his invention he changed his name to âDr. Bush.â He was eighty-four years old when he died in 1826. His identity was then revealed in his will. Bushnell found the submarine boat a useless plaything and made it a formidable weapon. To him it owes the propellor, the conning-tower, and the first suggestion of the torpedo. The _Turtle_ was not only the first American submarine but the forerunner of the undersea destroyer of to-day. âI thought and still think that it was an effort of genius,â declared George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, âbut that too many things were necessary to be combined to expect much against an enemy who are always on guard.â CHAPTER III ROBERT FULTONâS âNAUTILUSâ Robert Fulton was probably the first American who ever went to Paris for the purpose of selling war-supplies to the French government. Unlike his compatriots of to-day, he found anything but a ready market. For three years, beginning in 1797, Fulton tried constantly but vainly to interest the Directory in his plans for a submarine. Though a commission appointed to examine his designs reported favorably, the minister of marine would have nothing to do with them. Fulton built a beautiful little model submarine of mahogany and exhibited it, but with no results. He made an equally fruitless attempt to sell his invention to Holland, then called the Batavian Republic. Nobody seemed to have the slightest belief or interest in submarines. But Fulton was a persistent man or he would never have got his name into the history books. He stayed in Paris, where his friend Joel Barlow was American minister, and supported himself by inventing and exhibiting what he called âthe picturesâ: the first moving pictures the world had ever seen. These were panoramas, where the picture was not thrown on the screen by a lantern but painted on it, and the long roll of painted canvas was unrolled like a film between two large spools on opposite sides of the stage. Very few people remember that Robert Fulton invented the panorama, though only a generation ago the great panorama of the battle of Gettysburg drew and thrilled as large audiences as a film like âThe Birth of a Nationâ does to-day. Fulton painted his own panoramas himself, for he was an artist before he was an engineer. He made three of them and had to build a separate little theater to show each one in. The Parisians were so well pleased with this novelty that they made up a song about the panoramas, and the street where the most popular of the three was shown is still called âLa Rue Fulton.â The picture that won the inventor this honor was a panorama of the burning of Moscow--not the burning of the city to drive out Napoleon, for that came a dozen years later, but an earlier conflagration, some time in the eighteenth century. Napoleon overthrew the Directory and became First Consul and absolute ruler of France in 1800. He appointed three expert naval engineers to examine Fultonâs plans, and on their approval, Napoleon advanced him 10,000 francs to build a submarine. Construction was begun at once and the boat was finished in May, 1801. She was a remarkably modern-looking craft, and a great improvement on everything that had gone before. She was the first submarine to have a fish-shaped, metal hull. It was built of copper plating on iron ribs, and was 21 feet 3 inches long and 6 feet 5 inches in diameter at the thickest point, which was well forward. A heavy keel gave stability and immediately above it were the water-ballast tanks for submerging the vessel. Two men propelled the boat when beneath the surface by turning a hand-winch geared to the shaft of a two-bladed, metal propellor. (Fulton called the propellor a âfly,â and got the idea of it from the little windmill-shaped device placed in the throat of an old-fashioned fireplace to be revolved by the hot air passing up the chimney and used to turn the roasting-spit in many a French kitchen for centuries past.) The third member of the crew stood in the dome-shaped conning-tower and steered, while Fulton himself controlled the pumps, valves, and the diving-planes or horizontal rudders that steered the submarine up and down. Instead of forcing his boat under with a vertical-acting screw, like Bushnell and Nordenfelt (see pages 16 and 62), Fulton, like Holland, made her dive bow-foremost by depressing her nose with the diving-planes and shoving her under by driving her ahead. Fulton was also the first to give a submarine separate means of propulsion for above and below the surface. Just as a modern undersea boat uses oil-engines whenever it can and saves its storage batteries for use when submerged, Fulton spared the strength of his screw by rigging the _Nautilus_ with a mast and sail. By pulling a rope from inside the vessel, the sail could be shut up like a fan, and the hinged mast lowered and stowed away in a groove on deck. Later a jib was added to the mainsail, and the two combined gave the _Nautilus_ a surface speed of two knots an hour. She is the only submarine on record that could go faster below the water than above it, for her two-man-power propellor bettered this by half a knot. [Illustration: The _Nautilus_, Invented by Robert Fulton. A-B, Hull; C-D, Keel; E-E, Pumps; F, Conning Tower; G, Bulkhead; H, Propellor; I, Vertical Rudder; L, Horizontal Rudder (diving-plane); M, Pivot attaching horizontal to vertical rudder; N, Gear controlling horizontal rudder; O, âHorn of the _Nautilus_;â P, Torpedo; Q, Hull of vessel attacked; X, Anchor; Y, Mast and sail for use on surface. ] Her method of attack was the same as the _Turtleâs_. Up through the top of the conning-tower projected what Fulton called the âHorn of the Nautilus.â This was an eyeleted spike, to be driven into the bottom of a hostile ship and left there. From a windlass carried in a water-tight forward compartment of the submarine, a thin, strong tow-rope ran through the eyehole in the spike to the trigger of a flintlock inside a copper case nearly full of gunpowder, which was not carried on deck, as on the _Turtle_, but towed some distance astern. As soon as this powder-case came to a full stop against the spike, the tow-rope would pull the trigger. Robert Fulton felt the lack of a distinctive name for such an under-water charge of explosives, till he thought of its likeness to the electric ray, that storage battery of a fish that gives a most unpleasant shock to any one touching it. So he took the first half of this creatureâs scientific name: _Torpedo electricus_. Fulton had a knack for picking good names. He called his submarine the _Nautilus_ because it had a sail which it opened and folded away even as the beautiful shellfish of that name was supposed to furl and unfurl its large, sail-like membrane. On her first trial on the Seine at Paris, in May, 1801, the _Nautilus_ remained submerged for twenty minutes with Fulton and one other man on board, and a lighted candle for them to navigate by. This consumed too much air, however, so a small glass window was placed in the conning-tower, and gave light enough instead. Four men were then able to remain under for an hour. After that, Fulton made the first compressed-air tank, a copper globe containing a cubic foot of compressed air, by drawing on which the submarineâs crew could stay under for six hours. This was in the harbor of Brest, where the _Nautilus_ had been taken overland. A trial attack was made on an old bulk, which was successfully blown up. The submarine also proved its ability either to furl its sails and dive quickly out of sight, or to cruise for a considerable distance on the surface. Once it sailed for seventy miles down the English Channel. Fulton had planned a submarine campaign for scaring the British navy and merchant marine out of the narrow seas and so bringing Great Britain to her knees, more than a century before the German emperor proclaimed his famous âwar zoneâ around the British Isles. In one of his letters to the Directory, the American inventor declared that: âThe enormous commerce of England, no less than its monstrous Government, depends upon its military marine. Should some vessels of war be destroyed by means so novel, so hidden, and so incalculable, the confidence of the seamen will vanish and the fleet will be rendered useless from the moment of the first terror.â To a friend in America, Fulton wrote from Paris on November 20, 1798: âI would ask any one if all the American difficulties during this war are not owing to the naval systems of Europe and a licensed robbery on the ocean? How then is America to prevent this? Certainly not by attempting to build a fleet to cope with the fleets of Europe, but if possible by rendering the European fleets useless.â Fulton began his campaign by an attack on two brigs, the nearest vessels of the English blockading fleet. But whenever the _Nautilus_ left port for this purpose, both brigs promptly stood out to sea and remained there till the submarine went home. Unknown to Fulton, his actions were being closely watched by the English secret service, whose spies were always able to send a timely warning to the British fleet. During the day time, when the _Nautilus_ was about, the warships were kept under full sail, with lookouts in the crosstrees watching with telescopes for the first glimpse of its sail or conning-tower. At night, the frigates and ships-of-the-line were guarded by picket-boats rowing round and round them, just as modern dreadnoughts are guarded by destroyers. Disappointed by the lack of results, the French naval authorities refused either to let Fulton build a larger and more efficient submarine, or to grant commissions in the navy to him and his crew. He wanted some assurance that in case they were captured they would not be hanged by the British, who then as now denounced submarine warfare by others as little better than piracy. To guarantee their own safety, Fulton proposed that the French government threaten to retaliate by hanging an equal number of English prisoners, but it was pointed out to him that this would only lead to further executions by the British, who had many more French prisoners of war than there were captive Englishmen in France. Napoleon had lost faith in the submarine, nor could Fulton interest him in a steamboat which he now built and operated on the Seine, till it was sunk by the weight of the machinery breaking the hull in two. So Fulton quit France and crossed over to England, where Mr. Pitt, the prime minister, was very much interested in his inventions. Fulton succeeded in planting one of his torpedoes under an old empty Danish brig, the _Dorothea_, in Deal Harbor, in front of Walmer Castle, Pittâs own residence, on October 15, 1805. The prime minister had had to hurry back to London, but there were many naval officers present, and one of them declared loudly that he would be quite unconcerned if he were sitting at dinner at that moment in the cabin of the _Dorothea_. Ten minutes later the clockwork ran out and the torpedo exploded, breaking the brig in two amidships and hurling the fragments high in the air. The success of this experiment was not entirely pleasing to the heads of the British navy. Their opinion was voiced by Admiral Lord St. Vincent, who declared that: âPitt was the greatest fool that ever existed, to encourage a mode of war which they who command the seas did not want and which if successful would deprive them of it.â [Illustration: Destruction of the _Dorothea_. From a woodcut by Robert Fulton.] Six days after the destruction of the _Dorothea_, the sea-power of France was broken by Nelson at the battle of Trafalgar. Napoleon now gave up all hope of gaining the few hoursâ control of the Channel that would have enabled him to invade England, and broke up the camp of his Grand Army that had waited so long at Boulogne. With this danger gone, England was no longer interested in submarines and torpedoes. So Fulton returned to America, to build the _Clairmont_ and win his place in history. But to him, steam navigation was far less important than submarine warfare. In the letter to his old friend Joel Barlow, dated New York, August 22, 1807, in which he described the first voyage of the _Clairmont_ up the Hudson, Fulton said: âHowever, I will not admit that it is half so important as the torpedo system of defense or attack, for out of this will grow the liberty of the seas--an object of infinite importance to the welfare of America and every civilized country. But thousands of witnesses have now seen the steamboat in rapid movement and they believe; but they have not seen a ship of war destroyed by a torpedo, and they do not believe. We cannot expect people in general to have knowledge of physics or power to reason from cause to effect, but in case we have war and the enemyâs ships come into our waters, if the government will give me reasonable means of action, I will soon convince the world that we have surer and cheaper modes of defense than they are aware of.â Fulton had been having his troubles with the navy department. Soon after his return to this country he had made his usual demonstration of torpedoing a small anchored vessel, but it was not until 1810 that he was given the opportunity to make a test attack on a United States warship. But stout old Commodore Rogers, who had been entrusted with the defense of the brig _Argus_, under which Fulton was to plant a torpedo, anchored the vessel in shallow water, stretched a tight wall of spars and netting all round her, and successfully defied the inventor to blow her up. Even a modern destroyer or submarine would be puzzled to get past this defense. Though compelled to admit his failure, Fulton pointed out that
{'title': 'The Story of the Submarine by Farnham Bishop', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}