The American Civil War used astonishingly modern weapons. It was a war of innovations. The reason for this is clear. The middle of the nineteenth century was a period of invention, of scientific inquiry, and of remarkable achievement in almost every line of human endeavor. Though electricity had not yet come into its own, the uses of steam were being extended enormously, iron was being used more and more for shipbuilding, and the telegraph was in common use. Hence, in a war in which so much was at stake, which spread over such a huge area, and which, in its beginning, found both sides utterly unprepared for such a titanic contest, it was but natural that each side should utilize every possible invention and new scientific discovery for the discomfiture of its opponent. The field telegraph, and grenades, explosive bullets, rockets, machine guns, breech-loading rifles, armored ships at sea, and armored trains on land were used in actual warfare.1 Observation balloons were used on both sides.2 The use of chloroform to stupefy the crew of the Monitor was at least proposed by the Confederates though nothing ever came of it.3 General Pendleton asked the Chief Ordnance Officer in Richmond whether he could supply him with stink-shells which would cause suffocating effect and give off offensive gases. He received this laconic reply: “Stink-balls, none on hand; don’t keep them; will make if ordered.”4 Even wire entanglements were used. At Drury’s Bluff telegraph wire was stretched among the stumps of trees, and General Weitzel reported that “They had twice repulsed the enemy with terrible slaughter—he being piled in heaps over the telegraph wire,” and later he reported “They [the Confederate prisoners] speak of the wire as a devilish contrivance which none but a Yankee could devise.”5
Perhaps no “contrivance” of the war aroused such mingled feelings of curiosity, dread, triumph, and actual fear as the submarine. Though the principle of the submarine had long been known, and many submarines had been experimented with, no submarine was ever used successfully in actual warfare until the Confederate Hunley* sank the Federal corvette Housatonic off Charleston Harbor on the night of February 17, 1864.
A great deal has been written about the Confederate Hunleys and Davids, two different types of Confederate submersibles and semi-submersibles, but historians of the war have almost completely neglected to mention the Federal government’s attempts at submarine building. For they did build a submarine at Philadelphia, which, if she had been properly equipped and had been manned with skilled operators, might have made naval history and to some extent changed the course of events.
She was designed by a Frenchman, a man well advanced in years, a M. Brutus de Villeroi, who had come to Philadelphia evidently sometime during the year 1859, and had there built a submarine designed particularly for salvage work. Though he had succeeded in securing funds to have his craft built, it had not received public attention until nearly a month after the beginning of the war. Not even the Scientific American, which then, as now, was ever on the keen lookout for new scientific and technological advances, had even mentioned the existence of De Villeroi’s queer craft. Then on May 17, 1861, the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin startled its public with this news:
Never since the first flush of the news of the bombardment of Fort Sumter, has there been an excitement in the city equal to that which was caused ... by the capture of a mysterious vessel which was said to be an infernal machine, which was to be used for all sorts of treasonable purposes, including the trifling pastime of scuttling and blowing up government men-of-war. For a few days past the police have had their attention directed to the movements, not of a “long, low, black schooner,” but of an iron submarine boat, to which very extraordinary abilities and infernal propensities were attributed.
The harbor police had been given warning of this “mysterious stranger” and fearing some diabolical plot against the government had been spurred on to great efforts to discover its whereabouts. On the afternoon of May 16 they had stumbled upon the “submarine monster” at the lower end of Smith’s Island in the Delaware River. The Evening Bulletin’s reporter gave an excellent description of the craft:
Externally it had the appearance of a section of boiler about twenty feet long, with tapered ends, presenting the shape and appearance of an enormous cigar with a boiler iron wrapper . . . The after end was furnished with a propeller, which had a contrivance for protecting it from coming in contact with external objects. The forward end was sharkish in appearance ... as only the ridge of the back was above water, while the tail and snout were submerged. Near the forward end was the hatchway or “manhole,” through which egress and ingress were obtained. This hole was covered with a heavy iron flap, which was made airtight, and which was secured in its place by numerous powerful screws and hooks. Two tiers of glass bulls’ eyes along each side of the submarine monster completed its external features, afforded light to the inside, and gave it a particularly wide awake appearance.
About midnight of the 16th the police had seen two young men in a skiff row away from the South Street wharf. The skiff was loaded with pig lead. They were followed to the submarine where they were arrested, their skiff seized, and at about two o’clock on the morning of the 17th the submarine was towed to the Noble Street wharf. By daylight the news of the capture had spread and a crowd had assembled to see the interior of this strange craft. But the police would admit no one except the reporter of the Evening Bulletin who scored this day an undoubted “scoop” for his paper.
His description of the interior of this early submarine as seen by his keen reporter’s eyes is interesting:
After dropping from a high wharf into a skiff and then jumping a few feet, we found ourselves upon the back of the iron mystery . . . The top of the manhole was lifted off, and divesting ourselves of our coat and hat, we squeezed into the machine. . . . We suddenly found ourselves squatting inside of a cigar-shaped iron vessel, about four feet in diameter. There was a crank for the purpose of operating upon the propeller already described, apparatus for steering rods, connected with fins outside, which could be moved at pleasure, and which had something to do with steadying and sinking the craft. There were . . . pumps, brass faucets, pigs of ballast lead, and numerous other things, which might be intended for infernal or humane purposes for aught we know. The interior was abundantly lighted by means of the double tier of bulls’ eyes we have described.
This news gatherer found that a Frenchman, De Villeroi, was its inventor, that it had been built about two years before in Philadelphia, and that the cash for building it had been furnished by a relative of the late Philadelphian, Stephen Girard. Since its building it had been lying at Marcus Hook, Ran cocas, and New Castle, where numerous trials of it had been made and where it had remained submerged for 3 hours at a time. The reporter visited the two young prisoners at the Police station. One of them was an American, the other a Frenchman. They told him that one could leave it while it was submerged and return to it, and that its supply of air was manufactured for its crew while under water. The prisoners disclaimed any disloyal intentions but had brought it up from Rancocas, where it had been lying for the past 5 months, in order to have it tried out at the navy yard, De Villeroi hoping that after its approval by t e yard authorities he might get a patent tor his invention.6
A. French periodical, Le Navigateur, describes one of De Villeroi’s experiments with his Philadelphia-built craft:
At four o’clock the water was calm. M. Villeroi was in his machine and it was pushed off shore. The submarine ran awash for about half an hour, after which it descended into from 5 to 6 meters of water, when he descended to the bottom and gathered some sea shells. [Evidently this feat was accomplished by letting out a drag from its hull. He cruised in various directions during his submersion to deceive a party of boats which had followed him since the beginning of his experiment. M. Villeroi, coming to the surface again, appeared some distance and navigated his craft on the surface of the water in different directions. After this experiment had lasted an hour and a quarter, he opened his hatch and was received with lively interest.7
De Villeroi was a native of Nantes, France. Thirty years before he had attracted attention in naval circles by constructing a submarine in which he was able to submerge for more than an hour without inconvenience. It was about 10 feet long and about 3 ½ feet at its greatest diameter. It could be operated by only 3 men. In 1832 at Noirmoutiers he submerged with his craft and left a record of his feat which has been preserved in the Archives des Constructions Navales. In a sworn statement signed by the mayor and justice of the peace of Noirmoutiers it was certified that on August 12, 1832:
Descending with a man, in his submarine, 10 feet long and 3 ½ feet in height, M. Villeroi remained stationary under water from 3:15 to 3:35 of the afternoon. For ten minutes he moved about under water; after which he rose. He returned to the surface at 3:45 having been imprisoned in his submarine for 55 minutes.8
In this trial he submerged to a depth of from 15 to 18 feet. The commission who watched this trial reported his submarine would be useful in salvage work, and that it could cause considerable damage in enemy harbors to the hulls of hostile vessels and to their cables and mooring lines.9 In 1835 De Villeroi again gave a demonstration at Saint-Ouen in the presence of a commission appointed by the French government, among whom were Admiral Bergeret, General Juchereau, and Admiral Sydney Smith of the British Navy. Count de Liancourt, Secretary of the Commission on Shipwrecks (Commission Superierure des Naufrages) descended with De Villeroi under water for 2 hours without feeling the least sickness during the first hour. But at the end of his experiments a French commission composed of Vice Admiral Halgan and a number of other distinguished Frenchmen were named to examine his submarine and pass on its merits. Their report was not favorable, and no further encouragement was given the inventor.10
Nothing more is heard from De Villeroi until the Crimean War when he proposed to the French Ministry of Marine that he be allowed to build a submarine to operate against the Russian Fleet in the Black Sea, but his plan was rejected.11 In about 1859 he came to Philadelphia where he interested a wealthy Philadelphian in his enterprise, possibly (and this is only a possibility) in the hope of salvaging the Be Braak, a British warship capsized off Lewes, Delaware, in 1798, where she still lies with a treasure estimated at $10,000,000. At any rate he had a new submarine built, and though he had fallen foul of the Philadelphia police in their mistaken patriotic zeal, he was still anxious to interest the Navy Department in his venture.
The detention of his boat by the police may have given him the publicity that he needed, for he succeeded shortly in enlisting the co-operation of Captain Samuel F. Du Pont, then commandant of the Philadelphia Navy Yard, who on May 30, thirteen days after the submarine’s detention by the police, ordered a board of three officers to examine De Villeroi’s craft and to report back to him. This board consisted of Commander Henry K. Hoff, Commander Charles Steedman, and Chief Engineer Robert Danby. They made a very thorough examination, took careful measurements, and seemed impressed by De Villeroi himself. They turned in a surprisingly optimistic report on the submarine. This report was dated July 7, 1861, and can be examined in full in the Office of Naval Records in Washington. They described the submarine as “an iron cylinder, about 33 feet in length, 4 feet at its greatest diameter. It is propelled by means of a screw in its stern.” Their description tallies closely with that of the reporter of the Evening Bulletin, and they add, “An artificial atmosphere perfectly respirable by the men is generated by the inventor by a chemical process.” This board concluded, after witnessing a number of experiments, that (1) De Villeroi’s machine could remain submerged for a considerable time without communication with the surface and without fatigue or exhaustion to her crew; (2) that the boat could be sunk or raised at the will of her commander; (3) that her crew could leave or return to her without coming to the surface; (4) that a man could leave the boat and live for an appreciable time by means of tubes attached to the boat; (5) that with a larger vessel capable of housing a larger crew the vessel could be navigated at a speed of one mile per hour; (6) that it would be possible for a diver using a boat like this for his base to attach some “engine of destruction” to the hull of a hostile vessel, and return in safety to his boat; and (7) that the boat could be used for the examination of the bottoms of lakes or harbors, and the raising of the cargoes of sunken vessels. “We therefore consider that the services of the distinguished French engineer would be very valuable to the Government and that the possession of his invention would be of the greatest importance.”12
Written in pencil at the end of this report: “Refer to Commodore Smith to investigate and report. G.W.”
“G.W.” was, of course, Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy. Commodore Smith was Commodore Joseph Smith, Chief of the Bureau of Yards and Docks. Commodore Smith did not reply until the middle of October, and in the meantime De Villeroi was getting impatient. Perhaps his funds were running low. So on September 4, 1861, he wrote to President Lincoln himself. As this letter has never been published, we quote it in its entirety. The original draft is now in the Office of Naval Records, an exceedingly rare example of Lincolniana.
Philadelphia. September 4, 1861. To his Excellency, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States. To the grave circumstances which threaten the union of this glorious country and perhaps its independence, in the end, no means whatever, defensive or offensive, should be neglected; for courage and the holiness of the cause are sometimes in vain to restore order and to make right triumph. Victory too often leans towards force and stratagem. In war, the best system, beyond all doubt, is that one which, at the same time that it economizes men and money, can present results the most prompt and decisive; ln other words can present great effects with little means. In this train of thought, I wish to propose to you a new arm of war, as formidable as it is economical. Submarine navigation which has been sometimes attempted, but as all know without results, owing to a want of suitable opportunities, is now a problematical thing no more. The last experiments which have been made at New Castle an at Marcus Hook in the Delaware River have demonstrated positively that with a submarine boat like mine well constructed and properly equipped it becomes an easy matter to reconnaissance the enemy’s coast, to land men, ammunition, etc. at any given point, to enter harbors, to keep up intelligence, and to carry explosive bombs under the very keels of vessels and that without being seen. With a few such boats maneuvered each one by about a dozen men the most formidable fleet can be annihilated in a short time. The one that I have experimented with is 32 feet in length. It is built of iron and is furnished with a screw propeller. It can be made to go on the surface of the water or at any depth almost below and without any communication whatever with the external atmosphere. When under water the men can go out of the boat to perform any work, to remove any object from the bottom, etc. and come in again without the least difficulty. (See the relation in the North American and United States Gazette here inclosed.)
After this communication, Sir, should you Judge my services to be profitable to the Union I could place myself at your disposal with my boat and a well practised crew. And should several such boats be deemed necessary I could have them promptly built and their respective crews could be make to practice the original one during the construction of the others. I have the honor to be with distinguished consideration, Your Excellency's most obedient servant.
De Villeroy,
Civil Engineer
1235 Pine Street
[Note in different handwriting]: “New experiments have just been made by a Committee of Officers of the Philadelphia Navy Yard. See the report to the Ministry.”13
A clipping from the Philadelphia North American (undated) is filed with this letter which gives an account of some of De Villeroi’s earlier experiments.
When Commodore Smith did reply on October 16 after giving the board’s report “a cursory examination” he showed but mild enthusiasm for the project, as would be but natural for a conservative officer of the old school, when faced with a new method of conducting war. Yet one can sense his desire to be fair and impartial and to give this new weapon a reasonable trial. He made a few keen observations that seem worthy of comment: (1) That De Villeroi supplied oxygen by a chemical process, but the process was not explained; (2) that the report did not show how the craft was to be lowered or raised; (3) that the trials made were on too small a scale to test the efficiency of such a craft for war purposes.
For many years the ingenuity of man has been taxed to invent means of destroying an enemy vessel by attaching explosive machines to their bottoms, but such means have not to my knowledge proved successful. There is difficulty in holding on whilst attaching the instrument of destruction to the vessel, when the operator cannot touch the bottom. I infer that a vessel would be constructed upon the proposed plan which would enable those trained to the work to move at pleasure under water at a slow rate of speed provided that the current be not too great, and the compass be properly adjusted to the interior of an iron vessel. If the boat proposed by the inventor can be propelled at the rate of three miles per hour and the persons working it can detach themselves from it and operate outside, returning to it in safety, the invention might prove useful against vessels in an enemy port or in a roadstead. To make a more extended and perfect test a boat should be built under the direction of the inventor, the cost of which I am informed will not exceed $14,000, and men employed who are trained to work it. Such a vessel could be used for war purposes as well as for general submarine explorations. The inventor and his friends propose to enter into contract with the Government for a given sum to destroy the vessels in the port of Norfolk without pay in the event of failure. This would be a safe experiment for the Government, and probably the most satisfactory to both parties provided the price to be paid is limited to the amount of damage inflicted on the enemy.14
According to Commander J. S. Barnes, the particular vessel which Commodore Smith wanted destroyed at the Norfolk Navy Yard was the ironclad Merrimac, which as was well known to Smith was being then prepared for the deadly destruction which she was to wreak on the Union fleet the following March.15 The rather unusual scheme for payment of De Villeroi recommended by Commodore Smith was not adopted, but according to Commander Barnes, the government paid De Villeroi $10,000 for the use of his scheme, and entered into an agreement with him by which he was to operate his vessel against the enemy under the command of an officer selected by the Navy Department. For each successful enterprise in which he and his submarine should be engaged, he was to receive an additional sum of $5,000. So writes Commander Barnes, but it has been impossible to verify this statement from any official source.16
However, a contract was entered into by the government for the construction of a submarine larger than the one tested by the board. This was to be constructed in 40 days at the contract price of $14,000.17 The contract was let to Mr. Martin Thomas of Philadelphia on November 1, 1861. Mr. Thomas, instead of doing the work himself, sublet his contract to a well-known and reputable firm of shipbuilders in Philadelphia, Neafie and Levy, with De Villeroi himself acting as superintendent of construction.17 At the end of 40 days the craft was not completed and the government generously extended the time. The boat was finally almost finished, but here an unforeseen difficulty arose. According to one of De Villeroi’s workmen, one Louis Hennet, who styled himself the “Engineer of the Submarine Propeller,” nothing was needed to start her on an expedition but to complete “her inner apartments,” which were to be furnished not by the constructor, Neafie & Levy, but by the contractor, Martin Thomas. Mr. Thomas persisted in refusing “certain articles considered indispensable by the inventor and the use of which ought to have been kept secret.” It is probable that these “certain articles” were the equipment for renewing her supply of fresh air, but Hennet does not say. To end the deadlock Neafie & Levy offered to finish the interior on condition of sharing Thomas’ profit, but the contractor refused this offer and the matter hung fire. Hennet related all this in a letter published in the Philadelphia Public Ledger, March 26, 1862. There can be little doubt but this letter was inspired by De Villeroi himself. Hennet concluded his letter by stating:
It is almost certain that if the submarine propeller that for the last two months has been lying at the factory of Messrs. Neafie & Levy, Philadelphia, had been in service at its destination (Fortress Monroe) things would have gone differently. The Merrimac would have been destroyed, or at least rendered harmless.
It is at least interesting to speculate as to what might have happened had this submarine arrived at Hampton Roads under a competent, courageous commander while work on the Merrimac was uncompleted and she still lay at anchor. De Villeroi might have made for himself as honorable a place in American history as that occupied by Ericsson, but matters turned out otherwise.
The Scientific American for April 12, 1862, mentioned the presence of this submarine in Philadelphia, and on Wednesday, April 30, she was finally launched at Neafie & Levy’s shipyard. The Philadelphia Inquirer of Friday, May 2, gives a good description of this event:
Ropes were fastened round her as she lay on the wharf and she was then raised by means of shears and lowered easily into the water. No one was within her, but Mr. Levy, one of the firm which constructed her, stood upon the top during the launch. When fairly in the water she lay half submerged, her iron guards being almost level with the surface.
This newspaper then gave an excellent description of her. She was propelled both above and below the surface by 16 oars, 8 on each side, each constructed on the Principle of the webbed foot of a duck, the blade being formed of 2 pieces, opening and closing like a book, hung at their junction to a rod, which was connected with a crank designed to be worked backward and forward by hand labor. Her full crew was to be 16 men in addition to the commander. She was generally referred to as the “submarine propeller” but she was not fitted with a screw propeller until some months later at the Washington Navy Yard. The Inquirer describes her as 46 feet in length, 6 feet deep, and 4 feet 6 inches in breadth. In most other respects she resembled the first submarine built by
Villeroi in Philadelphia. On Thursday afternoon, May 1, she was towed to the Philadelphia Navy Yard.19 The change from screw propeller, as in De Villeroi’s first submarine, was made no doubt to increase her speed, but the change proved unwise.
Six weeks later, on June 13, Gideon belles informed Captain Goldsborough, the commanding officer at Hampton Roads, that the submarine was ready to be sent to the James River and that he was to send a small and swift steamer to tow her down.20 But this plan was changed.
June 18 Welles again wrote Goldsborough that the submarine would leave that day from Philadelphia for Hampton Roads via the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, under the charge of Mr. Samuel Eakins. (Very little is known of this Mr. Eakins. He was hired at the Philadelphia Navy Yard about June 18 and continued on duty in connection with the submarine throughout her entire history.) The Secretary went on to state:
Mr. Thomas goes to Fortress Monroe with the boat, which is, or should be, manned with twenty men, including the master, who receive $40 a month each, including subsistence. The master receives at the rate of $1,500 per annum while employed . . . She is, or should be, prepared for operating with two torpedoes and all apparatus for submarine work. You will employ her for clearing obstructions in the James River, or any other submarine work you may think proper . . . A tug has been hired to tow her to Fortress Monroe . . . The obstructions in Elizabeth River, and also the Merrimack and other sunken wrecks, may perhaps be looked at.21
Up to this time she was apparently nameless as she was always referred to as the “submarine propeller,” but two months later she was referred to as the Alligator and by that name she was known until the end of her career. She made the journey from Philadelphia to Hampton Roads safely and with reasonable speed in tow of a tug, the Fred Kopp, arriving at Hampton Roads on June 23.22 On the 21st Welles sent Goldsborough a confidential dispatch ordering him to keep the movements of the submarine a secret and to use her if possible in the Appomattox River and attempt to blow up the Petersburg bridge.23
Goldsborough, a veteran naval officer, looked with skeptical eye on this new device and had but little hope that she could be used successfully in the Peninsular Campaign where he was actively supporting the Army of the Potomac under General McClellan. The day after the Alligator’s arrival he wrote Welles that:
The submarine propellor, when just awash, draws six feet of water, and in order to get men out of her bottom it ought to go no nearer the ground than 18 inches or 2 feet. Hence, operating even in as much as 8 feet of water, her upper surface will be in sight and exposed. Night work would obviate the exposure, to at least a partial degree, it is true, if during darkness light enough will be afforded. The Appomattox, after ascending it some 5 miles, becomes very narrow and shoal, and the tide is frequently rapid. We will do our best. That is all I can at present promise.24
Welles’ proposal to use a submarine in a shallow river with a heavy current was asking all but the impossible.
Notwithstanding his objections Golds- borough ordered the naval ordnance officer at Hampton Roads to supply Eakin with 20 barrels of powder, and the same day ordered Acting Master Amos P. Foster, commanding the U. S. steamer Satellite, to take on the 20 barrels of powder and then take on board his ship Eakins and his crew, then proceed up the James River, escorting the Alligator which was to be towed by the Fred Kopp. Foster was to report to Commander John Rodgers who had charge of naval operations on the river “for such duty as he may assign you.”25 Eakins received corresponding orders the same day. He and his men were to be quartered and messed on the Satellite.
The Satellite’s log tells us better than anything else of the Alligator’s voyage up the James River.
24 June 1862.—At meridian light breezes and cloudy. At 2:20 left Fortress Monroe and proceeded up the James River. The steam tug Fred. Kopp following with a submarine battery in tow. At 4 p.m. one mile above the sunken frigate Cumberland ... At 5:30 p.m. took a very heavy hale squall from the S.W. The largest hale stones ever seen by any man on board. 25th June 1862.—At 3 p.m. came to anchor near the U.S.S. Galena at City Point, the tug boat Kopp came to anchor also with the battery.
The Galena was the flagship of Commander Rodgers. The submarine appears to have attracted some attention, for the Galena’s log officer makes special mention of her arrival in the Galena’s log: “25th June 1862.—At 1:30 U. S. steamer Satellite and Fred Kopp came up from Fortress Monroe. The latter towing a ‘Submarine Battery’ and came to anchor below us.”25 (A discrepancy of an hour and a half will be noted concerning the time of the arrival of the submarine in the logs of the two ships.)
Commander Rodgers kept the Alligator just four days and concluded she was useless for his purposes, but there is no record that he made even a halfhearted attempt to use her in any way. His letter to Golds- borough, however, shows that he had formed very definite opinions as to her potentialities as an engine of destruction, if the proper field could be found for her activities. In his letter he was very explicit in his reasons for not making use of her.
Goldsborough’s comment when Rodgers sent back the Alligator was: “I never thought that it would be of the slightest service to you ... I have always thought, indeed, that it would prove, as it has done, only a source of expense and embarrassment.” Eakins and Thomas had evidently disappeared after her return to Fortress Monroe, for Goldsborough continued: “But where are the two principal persons, Messrs. Eakins and Thomas? Under no circumstances should they have been allowed to separate themselves from us.”26 The commodore asked Welles to have her sent up to Washington where the experiments that the Bureau of Yards and Docks wished to conduct with her could be better carried out. The worthy commodore, with a blockade to maintain and the Army of the Potomac depending on him for supplies, had no time to experiment with one lone submarine.27 On July 3, 1862, Welles telegraphed: “Send the submarine boat to the Washington Navy Yard.”27
Department records reveal little about this “contrivance” after she reached the navy yard. Eight men were discharged from her on July 9, and eight more on August 12. But the Memoirs of T. O. Selfridge, Rear Admiral, U. S. Navy sheds an interesting light on an effort that was made that summer to make use of her in the Federal service. Selfridge was offered t e^ command of the Alligator by the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Gustavus Vasa Fox, with these words: “Mr. Selfridge, if you will take the Alligator up the James River and destroy the Virginia II, I will make you a captain.” But Selfridge declined the offer, and requested the command of a ship with whose workings he was more familiar. As no ship was available he applied for leave and visited his mother in Vermont. He was a brave, patriotic officer, who had shown conspicuous courage in the one-sided Cumberland- Merrimac engagement, but he had the utmost distrust of this underwater service. However, after a few days he became conscience-stricken, and telegraphed Fox he would accept the command of the submarine, though he had never seen her, and had not the remotest conception of the duties of a submarine officer. However, he probably knew as much about her as did officer in the Union Navy. Fox ordered him to Washington at once. His preliminary inspection was not encouraging. He wrote: “The Frenchman had disappeared, leaving no information as to his secret process of air purification.” And from that time on no mention can be found of De Villeroi, except that, according to Maurice Delpeuch,29 he died in Philadelphia in 1874, though the Health Department of Philadelphia has no record of his death.
Why he disappeared, evidently taking with him his secret for maintaining a supply of oxygen, why the government did not keep a closer watch on his movements, are questions that are not easily answered. It seems that the government blundered in not compelling the contractor, Thomas, to live up to the terms of his contract and complete the craft in every detail called for. If the Alligator had been adequately supplied with air, there seems every reason to believe that she might have become a most formidable weapon in the hands of the Federal Navy. As will be recalled, the various commissions, boards, and individuals who examined De Villeroi’s previous submarines were unanimous in stating that a crew could live for a considerable time beneath the surface without fatigue or exhaustion. Such were almost the exact words of the board appointed by Du Pont in Philadelphia in 1861.
Selfridge, now in command of the Alligator, went to New York to get a crew. The captain of the receiving ship, the old ship-of-the-line North Carolina, called his crew to quarters at Selfridge’s request, and explained his mission, calling for volunteers. About half of the whole ship’s crew responded, and from these men Selfridge selected 14 promising-looking young men and took them back to Washington. In his first experiment he and his crew lowered themselves into the submarine, closed the manhole, and sank the vessel by admitting water. They remained on the bottom for about 5 minutes and came to the surface easily enough by pumping out the water. But before submerging Selfridge took the precaution of attaching lines to surface craft, with which his craft could be raised by a prearranged signal, in the event he could not rise by his own efforts. His next experiment was to make a short cruise down the Potomac, the crew below working the oars while he remained on deck to con the boat. He found that even with his crew making the greatest possible exertions his speed was very slow. She had gone but a short distance when her bow began to sink very suddenly. He glanced down the manhole and found that his crew were all making a mad scramble to escape. Selfridge wrote: “A lack of air supply became strikingly evident.” He cautioned the men to come up one at a time, or the transfer of their weight to the forward end with the manhole open would swamp her. All the men reached the deck safely though a few were so exhausted that they had to be helped to reach the open air. Selfridge hailed a schooner, borrowed a boat, and towed the Alligator back to the navy yard. He turned in a most discouraging report as to her usefulness on August 8, 1862. “This ended my career on the Alligator.”30 According to Colonel Cyril Field, in his Story of the Submarine, the folding oars were done away with subsequently and a hand-turned screw propeller substituted. Though little can be found concerning further experiments with her, still an occasional reference makes clear that hopes for her usefulness were not abandoned. On February 10, 1863, Fox telegraphed Samuel Eakins that he would be at the yard the next afternoon to witness a trial of the craft. But no report of this trial can be found. On March 10 the Alligator was ordered towed to Hampton Roads and delivered to Admiral S. P. Lee, Golds- borough’s successor. On March 24 Mr. Eakins was appointed Acting Master in the Navy on temporary service to command her. Two days later he was ordered to leave Philadelphia for Hampton Roads taking with him all necessary freight for the Alligator. There he was to report to Admiral Lee who would send him to Port Royal with his craft where he would report for duty to Admiral Du Pont, in command of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron.31
On March 30, 1863, Admiral Lee sent this order to Acting Master J. F. Winchester, commanding the U.S.S. Sumpter at Newport News, Va.:
Choose favorable weather and proceed on your way to Port Royal, agreeably to your orders from the Navy Dept. You will take in tow the submarine boat Alligator and deliver her to Rear Admiral Du Pont on her arrival.32
On April 8 Winchester wrote from New York telling of his encounter with a violent storm, resulting in damage to the Sumpter, the loss of two lives and the loss of the Alligator.33 The next day Eakins also wrote the Department, relating how they had sailed from Newport News on April 1, and that on the 2d they had run into a heavy gale off Hatteras, that the port hawser attached to the Alligator had parted, and that a council of officers had decided to cut the submarine adrift as she was endangering the lives of all on board.
Seeing the position of affairs I concurred in the opinion of the other officers of the ship, and the order was given to cut the other hawser which was accordingly done.34
Thus ended the experiment with the only Federal submarine actually launched during the Civil War.
- Fuller, J. F. C., Grant and Lee, p. 49.
- American Historical Review, July 1937, pp. 652-69.
- Fox, Gustavus S., Correspo1ulence, Vol. 1, p. 264.
- War of the Rebellion, Vol. 69, pp. 888-89.
- Battles and Leaders, Vol. 4, pp. 210-12.
* EDITOR's NOTE.-See The Confederate Submarine by Harry von Kolnitz, October, 1937, Naval Institute PROCEEDINGS.
- Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, May 17, 1861 (This account also quoted in full in Frank Moore’s Rebellion Record, Vol. 1, pp. 258-59, Doc. 175.)
- Forest, F. and Noulhat, H., Les Bateaux Sous-Marins Historique, pp. 72-3.
- Pesce, G. L., La Navigation Sous-Marine, p. 256.
- Grehan, A., La France Maritime, Vol. 2, p. 92
- Field, Col. Cyril, Story of the Submarine, p. 39.
- Pesce, G. L., La Navigation Sous-Marine, p. 299.
- Navy Dept. Bureau Letters, Sept.-Dec. 1861. Vol. 3,#77.
- Navy Dept. Misc. Letters, Sept. 1861, Vol. 13, p.121.
- Navy Dept. Bureau Letters, Sept.-Dec. 1861, #76 ½
- Barnes, J. S., Submarine Warfare, p. 152.
- Ibid., p. 152.
- ZB File, Navy Dept.
- Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, May 1, 1862.
- Philadelphia Inquirer, May 1 and 2, 1862; Philadelphia Public Ledger, May 2 1862; Barnes, J.S., Submarine Warfare, p. 153.
- Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion, Series I, Vol. 7, p. 477. (Hereafter designated as N.W.R.)
- N .W.R., Ser. I, Vol. 7, p. 488.
- N.W.R., Ser. I, Vol. 7, pp. 500- 1.
- N .W.R., Ser. I, Vol. 7, p. 494.
- N.W.R., Ser. I, Vol. 7, p. 497.
- N.W.R., Ser. I, Vol. 7, p. 499.
- N.W.R., Ser. I, Vol. 7, p. 525.
- N.W.R., Ser. I, Vol. 7, p. 526.
- N.W.R., Ser. I, Vol. 7, p. 540.
- Delpeuch, M., La Navigation Sous-Marine, p. 210.
- Selfridge, T. O., Memoirs, pp. 68- 71.
- ZB File. Navy Dept.
- N.W.R., Ser. I, Vol. 8, p. 636.
- Navy Dept. Officers' Letters, Apr. 1863, Vol. 1, p. 207.
- Navy Dept. Misc. Letters, May 1863, Vol. 1, p. 171.