USS Alligator, the fourth United States Navy ship of that name, is the first known U.S. Navy submarine, and was active during the American Civil War (the first American underwater vehicle was during the Revolutionary War, and was operated by the Continental Army, rather than the Navy, in 1776 against British vessels in New York harbor). During the Civil War the Confederate States Navy would also build its own submarine, .

Alligator Junior

thumb|300px|A newspaper illustration of Brutus de Villeroi's submarine seized in May 1861, which served as inspiration for Alligator

Brutus de Villeroi was a French engineer, inventor, and ship designer. Well-regarded in France where he had designed many diving ships, he immigrated to the United States in 1856, where he continued his work in shipbuilding. One of his ships was a salvage ship built in 1859. This ship was later retroactively dubbed the "Alligator Junior" (or Alligator Jr.) due to serving as something of a prototype for the Alligator. It was around 30–35 feet long, a mere 44 inches in diameter, iron-hulled, and weighed several tons. It was powered by a small propeller from the start, rather than the paddles and oars used in earlier designs (and the first version of the Alligator). The crew would pull a leather strap from the inside to turn the propeller. In theory, the boat could sail to a location, dive, rest on sea bottom, then release divers to collect nearby sunken salvage.

de Villeroi provided a public demonstration of the boat on October 2, 1859, near Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania, but the salvage ship appears to have been unused afterward, whether due to some unpublicized problem or lack of a financially sound plan to use the ship. At some point in 1861, the boat was moved across the Delaware River to New Jersey, perhaps to dock the boat more cheaply than in the Philadelphia region. de Villeroi seems to have attempted to sell the ship to the US Navy after the Attack on Fort Sumter, but his attempt was apparently ineffective or lost. The ship was reactivated and sailed the Delaware on the night of May 16 and morning of May 17, 1861; it was spotted by the Harbor Police, the two crewmen were arrested, and the ship was impounded at the Noble Street pier in Philadelphia. The crew's claims of the US Navy having arranged the voyage were quickly proven false. The curiosity drew public attention, speculation, and excitement. Commandant Samuel Francis Du Pont decided that the ship was not a threat, and returned it to its owners after an inspection at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. de Villeroi continued to press for the use of his invention, and Du Pont sent three officers to examine the boat on May 20. Their report in July found the existing ship as not feasible to use as a weapon – it was too slow and operated poorly in inclement weather conditions. de Villeroi offered to sell the ship to the US Navy, but was ignored; he wrote directly to President Lincoln asking that his inventions be given a chance. It was decided that while the old salvage ship was an interesting model but unworkable in practice, a larger and faster diving ship might yet have some potential.

Construction

In the autumn of 1861, the Union Navy asked the firm of Neafie & Levy to construct a small submersible ship designed by de Villeroi, who also acted as a supervisor during the first phase of the construction. The boat was about long, with a beam of and height of . Air was supplied from the surface by two tubes with floats, connected to an air pump located inside the submarine; it was the first operational submarine to have an air purifying system. The boat had a forward airlock, and was the first operational submarine with the capability for a diver to leave and return while both remained submerged.

The Union Navy wanted such a vessel to counter the threat posed to its wooden-hulled blockaders by the former screw frigate Merrimack which, according to intelligence reports, the Norfolk Navy Yard was rebuilding as an ironclad ram for the Confederacy (). The Union Navy's agreement with the Philadelphia shipbuilder specified that the submarine was to be finished in not more than 40 days; its keel was laid down almost immediately following the signing on November 1, 1861 of a contract for her construction. Nevertheless, the work proceeded so slowly that more than 180 days had elapsed when the novel craft finally was launched on May 1, 1862.

Operational history

thumb|300px|Plan of his submarine, by Brutus de Villeroi, describing the oar arrangement.

thumb|170px|left|Samuel Eakins, first commander of Alligator

Soon after her launching, she was towed to the Philadelphia Navy Yard to be fitted out and manned. Two weeks later, she was placed under command of a civilian, Mr. Samuel Eakins. On June 13, the Navy formally accepted the boat.

Next, the steam tug Fred Kopp was engaged to tow the submarine to Hampton Roads, Virginia. The two vessels got underway on June 19, and proceeded down the Delaware River to the Delaware and Chesapeake Canal, through which they entered the Chesapeake Bay for the last leg of the voyage, reaching Hampton Roads on the 23rd. At Norfolk, the submarine was moored alongside the sidewheel steamer , which was to act as her tender during her service with the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron. A spring 1862 newspaper report called the vessel Alligator, in part because of its green color, a moniker which soon appeared in official correspondence. She either immediately sank or drifted for a while before sinking, ending the career of the United States Navy's first submarine. An attempt to find it in 2005 was not successful.

See also

  • French weapons in the American Civil War

References

  • Veit, Chuck, "The Innovative, Mysterious Alligator" – Naval History magazine (August 2010), pp. 26–29

Attribution

  • NPR story on the hunt for the USS Alligator
  • NOAA search for the Alligator
  • Navy & Marine LHA history site on Alligator
  • Full Story of the Appomattox River Raid
  • UNDERSEA WARFARE Magazine article on Alligator
  • Comprehensive site on world submarine history