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Sub surfaces after 136 years!

© Neal West

The American Civil War was 18 months old. The breakaway Confederate States - though victorious on many battlefields - was beginning to feel the effects of the stranglehold the Union Navy had on it's ports. In order to fuel it's war economy, the South needed to sell it's cotton in Europe. Only with cotton could the Confederacy feed, clothe, arm and medicate it's armies. The Union knew this and embarked on a very effective strategy; blockade the Southern ports, prevent the flow of goods, and eventually capture the South's major port cities.

The Confederacy did not have the resources to battle the powerful Federal fleets one-on-one, so some resourceful men looked to technology to offset the Union superiority in numbers. As Confederate Secretary of the Navy Stephen Mallory said, "Inequality of numbers may be offset by invulnerability." If the Confederate Navy could not challenge the Union Navy on the waves, perhaps she could challenge them under the water - with a submarine.

In late fall of 1861, Horace Hunley joined two inventors, James McClintock and Baxter Watson in New Orleans, Louisiana, to begin construction of a three-man vessel that would travel underwater. In a few months, a prototype was completed and sea trials began. The little vessel proved to be workable. With a few modifications, the tiny ship, called Pioneer, was taken to Lake Pontchartrain to continue testing. Unfortunately, the Union soon captured New Orleans, Hunley and the others had to destroy the Pioneer.

Undaunted, the group built the Pioneer II (also called American Diver). This time, their genius outstripped the technology available. The attempted to power this submarine with it's own steam engine and electric motor - devices that would not become practical for submarines for almost another 50 years. Several months later the team decided to abandon the steam engine idea and returned to a more reliable means of propulsion - a propeller shaft cranked by a team of four men.

The Pioneer II was towed off Fort Morgan at Mobile, Alabama to ready herself to attack the Union fleet offshore. Before she could strike, however, heavy seas came up and swamped the Pioneer II, fortunately with no loss of life.

The project almost folded at that point. Building these vessels in the economically deprived South was extremely expensive. But Hunley was able to form a group of patriotic engineers in Mobile to continue the work. Recruiting such notables as Gus Whitney, relative of the cotton gin's Eli, and E. C. Singer, nephew of the inventor of the sewing machine, work finally began of the third and last submarine - the Hunley.

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