Horace Lawson Hunley
During the American Civil War, Confederate inventor Horace Lawson Hunley converted a steam boiler into a submarine.
This Confederate submarine called the could be propelled at four knots by a hand-driven screw. Unfortunately, the submarine sank twice during trials in Charleston, South Carolina. These accidental sinkings in Charleston harbor cost the lives of two crews. In the second accident the submarine was stranded on the bottom and Horace Lawson Hunley himself was asphyxiated with eight other crew members.
The Hunley
Subsequently, the submarine was raised and renamed the Hunley. In 1864, armed with a 90-pound charge of powder on a long pole, the Hunley attacked and sank a new Federal steam sloop, USS Housatonic, at the entrance to Charleston Harbor. After her successful attack on Housatonic, the Hunley disappeared and her fate remained unknown for 131 years.
In 1995 the wreck of the Hunley was located four miles off Sullivans Island, South Carolina. Even though she sank, the Hunley proved that the submarine could be a valuable weapon in time of war.
Biography - Horace Lawson Hunley 1823-1863
Horace Lawson Hunley was born in Sumner County, Tennessee, on 29 December 1823. As an adult, he served in the Louisiana State Legislature, practiced law in New Orleans and was a generally notable figure in that area.
In 1861, after the start of the American Civil War, Horace Lawson Hunley joined James R. McClintock and Baxter Watson in building the submarine Pioneer, which was scuttled in 1862 to prevent its capture. The three men later constructed two submarines at Mobile, Alabama, the second of which was named H.L. Hunley. This vessel was taken to Charleston, South Carolina, in 1863, where it was to be used to attack blockading Union ships.
During a test dive on 15 October 1863, with Horace Lawson Hunley in charge, the submarine failed to surface. All on board, including Horace Lawson Hunley, lost their lives. On 17 February 1864, after it had been raised, refurbished and given a new crew, H.L. Hunley became the first submarine to successfully attack an enemy warship when she sank USS Housatonic off Charleston.
The USS Holland Submarine - John Holland
In 1862, the United States Federal navy tested a prototype submarine called Alligator. The Alligator submarine was intended for operations in the James River below Richmond, Virginia. However, the Alligator proved too large for diving in the river's shallow waters. The Alligator sank at sea while it was being towed to the Charleston operating area.
In 1872, the Navy unsuccessfully tested Intelligent Whale, another hand crank-powered submarine that failed. After the Intelligent Whale's failure as a submarine, inventors realized that until a propulsion method better than manpower could be developed for underwater use, submarines were not going to be worth the effort.
John Holland
By the last decade of the nineteenth century steam propulsion had replaced sail power in the U.S. Navy. In 1896, the Navy insisted that submarine designer John Holland build his first contract submarine named the Plunger, with a steam engine for surface propulsion.
John Holland, an Irish-American school teacher and inventor, objected to steam power in submarines. Nonetheless John Holland built the Plunger with three steam engines to meet the Navy's prescribed surface speed.
The Plunger
During dock trials of the Plunger submarine, the temperature in the fire room reached 1370F with the power plant at 2/3 rated output. Similarly, during Plunger's sea trials a crewmember reported, "When we tried to submerge, it was so hot no one could live in her." Today, the nuclear reactor has eliminated this drawback to a heat source and submarines are driven by steam. But, before the advent of nuclear power, the internal combustion engine was the submarine's first viable source of power.
Internal Combustion Engine
The internal combustion engine offered speed and comparative endurance on the surface, but its deadly carbon monoxide exhaust fumes and high oxygen consumption were obstacles to life beneath the surface. By 1900, submarine designers had solved this problem with the storage battery and electric motors. John Holland was the first to conceive of employing electric motors and the internal combustion engine to power a submarine.
John Holland and Simon Lake
John Holland and another American, Simon Lake, became the first modern submarine designers. They began their experiments in the last decades of the nineteenth century, John Holland in the 1870s and Simon Lake in the 1890s.
John Holland built six submarines, including one under government contract, before the Navy would accept one of his underwater boats. The Navy also considered, but decided not to accept, Simon Lake's Argonaut, an advanced version of his Argonaut, Jr.
Simon Lake's Argonauts had wheels with which to crawl along shallow bottoms and air locks to permit divers to enter and leave the wooden hulk while it was submerged.
USS Holland
In 1900, John Holland sold the US Navy its first viable submarine, USS Holland (SS-1). This submarine was originally named Holland VI and was not developed under Navy contract. Holland VI was designed and built by its namesake using his own funds. USS Holland had the "amazing speed" of seven knots surfaced, made possible by her 45-horsepower internal combustion engine. She also had an endurance of several hours submerged when running on rechargeable storage batteries.
The USS Holland was armed a single torpedo tube and a pneumatic dynamite gun that fired through an opening in the bow. The Holland carried three Whitehead torpedoes, each with a pressure-sensitive piston that controlled the depth of the torpedoe run. The torpedo's stability was controlled by a pendulum, while direction was controlled by a gyroscope. A number of modern torpedoes used similar principles.
John Holland and Simon Lake were at odds in developing their submarine concepts.
Simon Lake
Simon Lake experimented with boats that ascended vertically according to negative or positive buoyancy controlled by pumps and tanks.
John Holland's boats were given neutral buoyancy by admitting water to balance the weight of the boat with the weight of water it displaced. With diving planes and a constant source of power, Johm Holland's boat could dive and surface on diagonal lines.
John Holland Submarine Diving
John Holland's principle, with some alternatives for fast diving and surfacing, is still used by modern submarines.
For all its innovations, the USS Holland had at least one major flaw; lack of vision when submerged. The submarine had to broach the surface so the crew could look out through windows in the conning tower. Broaching deprived the Holland of one of the submarine's greatest advantages, stealth.
The Periscope
Lack of vision when submerged was eventually corrected when Simon Lake used prisms and lenses to develop the omniscope, forerunner of the periscope.
Sir Howard Grubb, designer of astronomical instruments, developed the modern periscope that was first used in Holland-designed British Royal Navy submarines. For more than 50 years, the periscope was the submarine's only visual aid until underwater television was installed aboard the nuclear powered submarine USS Nautilus.
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