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... ve the submarine. This was a great risk because the submarine could easily collide with the torpedo as it was surfacing. To rectify the problem, the engineers attached a twenty-two foot battling ram to the front of the ship along with the torpedo on the end. When the torpedo hit the enemy ship and detonated the Pioneer III and the men would theoretically be unharmed and would only have to suffer a slight jolt from the explosion. The Confederate navy was still desperate to break the Union blockade.
They wanted to use the Pioneer III, now called the Whitney Submarine Boat, to go after one of the ironsides. It was felt that the submarine could be deadly to an ironside because the only place the ironsides were vulnerable was on the underbelly. After the first couple of test runs, the builders were disappointed about the submarine. Due to a lack of patience, the ship was taken out anyway along with Captain John Payne to attack USS New Ironsides. But, when the submarine started moving with the aid of a tugboat, the submarine sunk killing five crew-members because the tugboat started while the hatch was still open on the submarine.
Within two weeks, the Whitney Submarine Boat, now called H. L. Hunley Torpedo Boat or the H. L. Hunley, was raised, repaired, and was ready for action along with the new captains, Horace Lawson Hunley and George Dixon. In a mock attack against the CSS Indian Chief, the submarine sank killing all passengers including the captain on board, Horace Hunley.
When the submarine was pulled out, it was found out that Hunley had allowed the ship to submerge incredibly fast and the tanks that held the water over-flowed into the cabin and thus drowning everyone and sinking the ship. After the two accidents, the leaders of the Confederate navy questioned the safety of submarines. After a lot of convincing by Captain George Dixon and William Alexander did the Confederate leadership allow the H. L. Hunley to be operational once again.
When the H. L. Hunley was pulled out after the second sinking, it was taken off to the Battery Marshall, on Sullivan's Island. The crew on the boat was much more heavily trained.
They had to withstand endurance tests to see how far they could go and for how long they could stay submerged while not receiving any fresh air. They became capable of rowing seven miles in one day and could stay under for two and a half-hours. They were ready for battle and the target was a brand new, 1, 240 -ton Union ship called the USS Housatonic. On the night of February 17, 1864, just outside the Charleston Harbor, Captain Dixon boarded the H. L Hunley and headed for the target. Around 9: 00 oclock the night watchman on the Housatonic noticed something slightly under water about one hundred yards off lurking towards the ship.
At first he thought it was a porpoise or a school of fish. When the submarine got closer he realized what it was and sounded the alarms. At that time, Captain Dixon surfaced to make sure he was headed directly for the ship, not knowing he had been spotted. In response, the crew of the Housatonic fired their weapons, but to of no avail. The H. L.
Hunley submerged and a few moments later, the entire stern of the Housatonic was destroyed the ship was sunk. Unfortunately, the curse of the H. L. Hunley remained, and the submarine was sunk as well killing all eleven crewmembers. This was the only successful attack by a submarine on another ship in the Civil War. During these experiments on submarines, the public was not well informed of what was going on.
The building of the submarines was kept secret because the Confederates did not want their weapon to be known. When the Pioneer III sank its first two times, the newspaper article listing the dead said nothing to the type of ship it was. The South had a need to develop a fully submersible ship because it needed to protect its precious waterways and also wanted to get around the Union blockade. The North, on the other hand, had less need for a submarine. Therefore, they did not spend as much time and effort developing one, but they still tried. The first attempt was by a Frenchman named Brutes de Villeroi.
He had invented a device that would re-circulate the air inside a submarine and thus causing the men to be able of staying under water for a longer periods of time. The ship he built in 1862 was called the Alligator because it was longer and thinner than the Souths ships. The submarine never saw battle because it was lost at sea off of North Carolina. The second attempt to build a submarine was by Pascal Plant. He had an idea of a new type of propulsion rocket power. The government was hesitant to use such a controversial method and buried the project. (Pascals idea did lead to the invention of the modern torpedo).
The American Turtle, the first submarine to be used in war, played absolutely no role in the outcome of the Revolutionary War. The submarines in the Civil War were very unimportant as well. Only one ship, the Housatonic, was sunk by the hands of a submarine in the entire war. The Southern navy did not even put much stock into submarine warfare because they only built a couple during the entire war. So overall, submarines were of no significance during either the Revolutionary War or the Civil War. But, these early developments of the submarine were extremely important because they lead to the later more advanced submarines that were used in future wars in which they did play a major role in.
For example, in World War II, German U-boats terrorized the sea and played an important role in World War II. These, and others like the modern day Tridents, would not of exist if it were not for the early developments of submarines during the Civil and Revolutionary Wars.
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Research essay sample on Submarines In The Revolutionary And Civil Wars
