New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-08-20
II SUBMARINE WARFARE BEGAN IN AMERICA &
the First Victim of q Submarine Vent
called It ga Dastardly Attack" and
crate Macy 1t Vas AN Act
y Chiz,nIy0MS Nation"

iron, about 30 feet over all, 91b feet
beam and 5 feet deep. It was laros
pea pod, its short stem being the sna,
torpedo. Eight peas inside were ths
eight men who sat in row along
crank shaft, turning the screw to prope
her at three knots. Two manholes Il.
them out, sometimes alive. Two side
fins, short planes, a yard back Of IN.
bow and stern, were the means Of sub.
merging. McClintock and Howga.
built her at Mobile in 1863. Tried Oh.
in the bay there, she began her career
by killing her entire crew-eight men
lost.
Then she was brought to Charleston
to be used against the Federal blockad.
ers, and Captain Tomb made her &C.
quaintance. 1t was first planned that
the fish boat should tow her torpedo.
She was to ride the surface until in the
enemy's vicinity, then submerge, dive
under the victim ship and rise on the
other side until the torpedo at the end
of the hawser should explode by con.
tact on the ships bottom.
Lying at the wharf in Charleston
Harbor with her manholes open. she
was swamped by the wash of a passing
steamer, and only her commander, Lieu.
tenant Paine, and one other got out Of
her as she foundered. Raised again.
with a new volunteer crew, the same
thing happened again, Paine and two
others escaping this time. Eighteen
men lost, perhaps nineteen, as the rec
ords are poorly kept and only half the
names of the hardy men who persisted
in defence of the harbor could be found
to place on their monument in Charles.
ton recently,
THERE WAS RISK ENOUGH AND
TO SPARE IN SUBMARINE
PRACTICE IN THOSE DAYS.
81 remember one day." says Captain
Tomb, when Lieutenant Dixon and
were standing on Atlantic wharf as she
went by. Her foremanhole was open,
and Hunley, standing in it, waved to
us and shouted: DO you want to come
aboard for a dive" Hunley himself
was not often in charge of her. Soon
he shut the hatch and slowly she dived
He was then abreast of the receiving
ship Indian Chief, and his plan was 70
dive under her. We didn't see him
come up and finally walked away from
the wharf. The fish boat had no air
storage and could stay down only an
hour or so.
"That afternoon word spread through
the city that Hunley had not come up.
Some days later they raised her. all her
men in a knot under her hatch-ike
worms under a log-dead."
Her maker and twenty-thre- men
lost, and still Charleston supplied fifth
crew. New volunteers for a man-eater,
a "peripatetic coffin" whose desperate
venture was a dubious private enter
prise accepted with reluctance by the
nations Navy Department! Scharf,
the Confederate naval historian, says
that she suffocated this fifth crew at
practice, but does not specify where.
Undaunted, Tomb's friend Dixon ian
infantryman, at that took charge OF
the horrible fish. General Beauregard,
then in command of the defence OF
Charleston, on Tomb's report that her
"lack of buoyancy made her likely
coffin" would allow her to be used only
as a surface boat, like the David.
CAPTAIN TOMB TELLS OF THE
FINAL TRIP OF THE HOR-