THE FIRST SUBMARINE BOAT. BY ARTHUR P. FORD, AIKEN, S. C.
In the February number of the Veteran appeared an article by Charles Moran, describing the first submarine boat to engage in actual warfare, which is so inaccurate that I feel impelled to give the facts. In my book, "Life in the Confederate Army," published by the Neale Publishing Company, there is an account of this boat, and I extract what relates to it as follows:
"It was about this time, 1863 (not 1864), that I saw that celebrated torpedo submarine boat, the Hundley (not the David), the first submarine boat ever built. As I was standing on the bank of the Stone River (near Charleston) I saw the boat passing along the river, where her builder, H. L. Hundley, had brought her for practice. I watched her as she disappeared around a bend in the river, and little thought of the fearful tragedy that was immediately to ensue. She made an experimental dive, stuck her nose in the mud, and drowned her entire crew. Her career was such an eventful one that I record what I recollect of it.
"She was built in Mobile by W. L. Hundley and brought to Charleston in 1863. She was of iron, about twenty feet long, four feet wide, and five feet deep—in fact, not far from round, as I have seen it stated—and equipped with two fins, by which she could be raised or lowered in the water. The intention of her builder was that she should dive under an enemy's vessel with a torpedo in tow which would be dragged against the vessel and exploded, while the Hundley, or Fish, as some called her, rose on the other side. She was worked by a hand propeller and equipped with water tanks, which could be filled or emptied at pleasure, and thus regulate her sinking or rising. The first experiment was made with her in Mobile Bay, and she went down all right with her crew of seven men, but did not come up, and every man died, asphyxiated, as no provision had been made for storing a supply of air.
"As soon as raised she was brought to Charleston, and a few days after her acceptance by General Beauregard Lieutenant Payne, of the Confederate navy, volunteered with a crew of six men to man her and attack the Federal fleet off Charleston. While he had her at Fort Johnson, on James Island, and was making preparations for the attack, one night as she was lying at the wharf the swell of a passing steamer filled her, and she went to the bottom, carrying with her and drowning the six men. Lieutenant Payne happened to be near an open manhole at the moment and escaped. Notwithstand-