Tredegar submarine
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The Tredegar submarine was built for the Confederate States of America in September 1861 at Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond . The work was overseen by officer and explosives expert William Cheeney, assigned to the Submarine Division in Richmond.
description
About the Tredegar submarine, also known as " infernal machine " ( English infernal machine was called), very little is known. Construction of the small submarine began in September 1861. It was shaped like a cigar and offered space for three crew members, a diver and two men who were in charge of navigation and locomotion. The only drawing that has survived shows a propeller for a submarine with a diameter of 1.17 m and a bore of 5.08 cm. The shipment to William Cheeney included an air pump, parts for diving bells , boiler plates , bolts , pig iron , brass tubing and cut glass for portholes .
Elizabeth H. Baker, a spy who worked on behalf of Allan Pinkerton , won the trust of Confederate Captain Atwater and his wife. So she was able to attend a demonstration of the submarine. For this purpose, a boat was anchored on the James River . At a distance the submarine submerged and you could only see the swimmer to which a snorkel tube for fresh air supply was attached. This moved slowly towards the ship and finally came to a standstill. A diver left the submarine unnoticed and attached a mine to the boat. Then the submarine moves away and detonates the explosive charge with a lanyard at a safe distance and sunk the cage.
The next day, Ms. Baker was given a tour of the Tredegar Iron Works. Another submarine was under construction here. This was larger, 40-50 feet (12-15 m) long and 6 feet (about 1.80 m) wide. Various defense mechanisms were developed on the basis of Ms. Baker's report. You could tell the submarine from the swimmer. With a net that surrounds a ship and reaches five meters deep into the water, one could prevent the submarine from getting under the ship and a triangular grid could be thrown on the float and thus bring the swimmer under water and cut off the air supply.
Attack on the USS Minnesota
When Virginia switched to the Confederate States during the Civil War , the northern states were able to stop at the mouth of the James River and thus prevent the cities on this river from trading at sea. For this reason, an attack on the USS Minnesota , the flagship of the Northern States, was planned. On October 12, 1861, the Tredegar submarine was brought to Sewell's Point . From here one took a course for the ship while submerged. When it was believed to be below the target, the diver tried to attach the explosive charge to the bilge . Since you could only navigate with the help of the compass when you were submerged , you missed your target and found yourself below the jib boom . The operation was then abandoned and the submarine stranded on the coast and towed to Norfolk .
Another attack on a gunboat was attempted three weeks later . The attentive crew, however, spared the swimmer, pulled him out of the water and cut the snorkel tube. The submarine was flooded and the crew drowned. The whereabouts of the submarine are unknown.
literature
- H. Donald Winkler: Stealing Secrets: How a Few Daring Women Deceived Generals, Impacted Battles, and Altered the Course of the Civil War , 2010, ISBN 978-1402242748 , pp. 89-93
- Peter Winston Hitchcook: Intelligent Whale: A Historical and Archaeological Analysis of an American Civil War Submersible ( Thesis ), May 2002, pp. 43–48 ( online )
- Nathan Madison: Tredegar Iron Works: Richmond's Foundry on the James , 2015, ISBN 978-1540203014
- Bernard A. Cook (Ed.): Women and War , Volume 1, 2006, ISBN 978-1851097708 , pp. 48-49