Submarines
The American Civil War is one of the main reasons why modern submarine warfare is around today. The first use of a submarine in combat was during the Civil War by the Confederate Army. The Confederate Army resorted to submarines because it was a tactic to counteract the vast navy the Union had at its disposal. One of the first submarines was the H.L. Hunley, and it was built in 1863. This brand new piece of technology was engineered by Horace L. Hunley and James McClintock (Scafuri). The Hunley was third in a short line of submarines, with the first two being decommissioned before they could even get used in service. This shows how new and unpredictable the technology was, but it paid off for the Confederate Army. The first successful submarine mission was when the H.L. Hunley sunk the USS Housatonic near the coast of South Carolina (Scafuri).
Many submarines followed after this success, but the idea of ships hiding below water was not new. Just one year before the Hunley sank the Housatonic, the Union built an ironclad warship called the USS Monitor. The USS Monitor was issued to be built in 1861, and by 1862, the Union had a deadly piece of machinery (Broadwater). What made this ironclad so powerful against other ships was its submarine-like design. The Monitor is described as having a, “ depth from the underside of the deck to the keel-plate is 11 feet 2 inches, and a draught of water at load-line 10 feet.(Broadwater 45)” Draught is described as the depth of a ship below the surface of the water, so the USS Monitor had 89.2 percent of its hull submerged in the water. The only thing protruding from the water was a turret with two powerful guns, that could be turned 360 degrees and fired in any direction (Broadwater).
Works Cited
Broadwater, John D. USS Monitor : An Historic Ship Completes Its Final Voyage. College Station : Texas A & M University Press, ©2012., 2012. EBSCOhost, proxy-remote.galib.uga.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=cat06564a&AN=uga.9939918473902959&site=eds-live.
Scafuri, Michael P. “H. L. Hunley Revealed: Documentation, Deconcretion, and Recent Developments in the Investigation of an American Civil War Submarine from 1864.” International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, no. 2, 2017, p. 303. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1111/1095-9270.12238.
Appendix A
Chapman, Conrad Wise, 1842-1910.. The confederate submarine torpedo boat H.L. Hunley. 1863.. Artstor, library.artstor.org/asset/CARNEGIE_3970003
Kell, John M. John McIntosh Kell scrapbook, 1860-1951. Article. Retrieved from the Special Collections Library University of Georgia, <http://hmfa.libs.uga.edu/hmfa/view?docId=ead/ms2361-ead.xml;query=ships;brand=default>.