DAVID BUSHNELL’S “TURTLE”
In the first week of September, 1776, the American army defending New
York still held Manhattan Island, but nothing more. Hastily improvised,
badly equipped, and worse disciplined, it had been easily defeated by a
superior invading force of British regulars and German mercenaries in
the battle of Long Island. Brooklyn had fallen; from Montauk Point to
the East River, all was the enemy’s country. Staten Island, too, was
an armed and hostile land. After the fall of the forts on both sides
of the Narrows, the British fleet had entered the Upper Bay, and even
landed marines and infantry on Governor’s Island. Grimly guarding the
crowded transports, the ship-of-the-line _Asia_ and the frigate _Eagle_
lay a little above Staten Island, with their broadsides trained on the
doomed city.
In the mouth of the North River, not a biscuit-toss from the Battery,
floated the brass conning-tower of an American submarine.
It was the only submarine in the world and its inventor called it
the _Turtle_. He called it that because it looked like one: a turtle
floating with its tail down and a conning-tower for a head. It has
also been compared to a modern soldier’s canteen with an extra-large
mouthpiece, or a hardshell clam wearing a silk hat. It was deeper than
it was long and not much longer than it was broad. It had no periscope,
torpedo tubes, or cage of white mice. But the _Turtle_ was a submarine,
for all that.
Its inventor was a Connecticut Yankee, Mr. David Bushnell, later
Captain Bushnell of the corps of sappers and miners and in the opinion
of his Excellency General Washington “a man of great mechanical powers,
fertile in invention and master of execution.” Bushnell was born in
Saybrook and educated at Yale, where he graduated with the class of
1775. During his four years as an undergraduate, he spent most of his
spare time solving the problem of exploding gunpowder under water. A
water-tight case would keep his powder dry, but how could he get a
spark inside to explode it? Percussion caps had not yet been invented,
but Bushnell took the flintlock from a musket and had it snapped by
clockwork that could be wound up and set for any desired length of time.
[Illustration: The Submarine of 1776.
(As described by its operator.)]
“The first experiment I made,” wrote Bushnell in a letter to Thomas
Jefferson when the latter was American minister to France in 1789, “was
with about 2 ounces of powder, which I exploded 4 feet under water, to
prove to some of the first personages in Connecticut that powder would
take fire under water.
“The second experiment was made with 2 lb. of powder enclosed in a
wooden bottle and fixed under a hogshead, with a 2-inch oak plank
between the hogshead and the powder. The hogshead was loaded with
stones as deep as it could swim; a wooden pipe, descending through the
lower head of the hogshead and through the plank into the bottle, was
primed with powder. A match put to the priming exploded the powder,
which produced a very great effect, rending the plank into pieces,
demolishing the hogshead, and casting the stones and the ruins of
the hogshead, with a body of water, many feet into the air, to the
astonishment of the spectators. This experiment was likewise made for
the satisfaction of the gentlemen above mentioned.”
Governor Trumbull of Connecticut was among the “first personages”
present at these experiments, which so impressed him and his council
that they appropriated enough money for Bushnell to build the _Turtle_.
The Nutmeg State was thus the first “world-power” to have a submarine
in its navy.[4]
The hull of the _Turtle_ was not made of copper, as is sometimes
stated, but was “built of oak, in the strongest manner possible,
corked and tarred.”[5] The conning-tower was of brass and also served
as a hatch-cover. The hatchway was barely big enough for the one man
who made up the entire crew to squeeze through. Once inside, the
operator could screw the cover down tight, and look out through “three
round doors, one directly in front and one on each side, large enough
to put the hand through. When open they admitted fresh air.” On top of
the conning-tower were two air-pipes “so constructed that they shut
themselves whenever the water rose near their tops, so that no water
could enter through them and opened themselves immediately after they
rose above the water.
“The vessel was chiefly ballasted with lead fixed to its bottom; when
this was not sufficient a quantity was placed within, more or less
according to the weight of the operator; its ballast made it so stiff
that there was no danger of oversetting. The vessel, with all its
appendages and the operator, was of sufficient weight to settle it very
low in the water. About 200 lb. of lead at the bottom for ballast could
be let down 40 or 50 feet below the vessel; this enabled the operator
to rise instantly to the surface of the water in case of accident.”
The operator sat on an oaken brace that kept the two sides of the
boat from being crushed in by the water-pressure, and did things with
his hands and feet. He must have been as busy as a cathedral organist
on Easter morning. With one foot he opened a brass valve that let
water into the ballast tanks, with the other he worked a force pump to
drive it out. When he had reached an approximate equilibrium, he could
move the submarine up or down, or hold it at any desired depth, by
cranking a small vertical-acting propellor placed just forward of the
conning-tower on the deck above. Before him was the crank of another
propellor, or rather tractor, for it drew, not pushed, the vessel
forward. Behind him was the rudder, which the operator controlled with
a long curved tiller stuck under one arm.
[Illustration: The Best-known Picture of Bushnell’s _Turtle_.
Drawn by Lieutenant F. M. Barber, U. S. N., in 1875.]
Bushnell, in his letter to Jefferson, calls each of these propellors
“an oar, formed upon the principle of the screw,” and the best-known
picture of the _Turtle_ shows a bearded gentleman in nineteenth-century
clothes boring his way through the water with two big gimlets.
But Sergeant Ezra Lee of the Connecticut Line, who did the actual
operating, described the submarine’s forward propellor (he makes no
mention of the other) as having two wooden blades or “oars, of about
12 inches in length and 4 or 5 in width, shaped like the arms of a
windmill.” Except in size, this device must have looked very much like
the wooden-bladed tractor of a modern aeroplane.
“These oars,” noted Judge Griswold on the letter before forwarding it
to General Humphrey, “were fixed on the end of a shaft like windmill
arms projected out forward, and turned at right angles with the
course of the machine; and upon the same principles that wind-mill
arms are turned by the wind, these oars, when put in motion as the
writer describes, draw the machine slowly after it. This moving power
is small, and every attendant circumstance must coöperate with it to
answer the purpose--calm waters and no current.”
“With hard labor,” said Lee, “the machine might be impelled at the rate
of ‘3 nots’ an hour for a short time.”
Sergeant Lee volunteered “to learn the ways and mystery of this new
machine” because the original operator, Bushnell’s brother, “was taken
sick in the campaign of 1776 at New York before he had an opportunity
to make use of his skill, and never recovered his health sufficiently
afterwards.” While Lee was still struggling with the “mystery” in
practice trips on Long Island Sound, the British fleet entered New
York Harbor. The submarine was at once hurried to New Rochelle, carted
overland to the Hudson, and towed down to the city.
At slack tide on the first calm night after his arrival, Lee screwed
down the conning-tower of the _Turtle_ above his head and set out to
attack the British fleet.[6] Two whaleboats towed him as near as they
dared and then cast off. Running awash, with not more than six or seven
inches of the conning-tower exposed, the submarine crept, silent and
unseen, down the bay and up under the towering stern of his Britannic
Majesty’s 64-gun frigate _Eagle_.
“When I rowed under the stern of the ship,” wrote Sergeant Lee in after
years, “I could see the men on deck and hear them talk. I then shut
down all the doors, sunk down and came under the bottom of the ship.”
Up through the top of the submarine ran a long sharp gimlet, not for
boring a hole through the bottom of a ship, but to be screwed into
the wooden hull and left there, to serve as an anchor for a mine.
Tied to the screw and carried on the after-deck of the _Turtle_ was
an egg-shaped “magazine,” made of two hollowed-out pieces of oak and
containing one hundred and fifty pounds of gunpowder, with a clockwork
time-fuse that would begin to run as soon as the operator cast off
the magazine after making fast the screw. Everything seemed ready for
Sergeant Lee to anticipate Lieutenant Commander Von Weddigen by one
hundred and thirty-eight years.
But no matter how hard the strong-wristed sergeant turned the handle,
he could not drive the screw into the frigate’s hull. The _Eagle_ was
copper-sheathed![7]
“I pulled along to try another place,” said Lee, “but deviated a
little to one side and immediately rose with great velocity and came
above the surface 2 or 3 feet, between the ship and the daylight,
then sunk again like a porpoise. I hove about to try again, but on
further thought I gave out, knowing that as soon as it was light the
ships’ boats would be rowing in all directions, and I thought the best
generalship was to retreat as fast as I could, as I had 4 miles to go
before passing Governor’s Island. So I jogg’d on as fast as I could.”
To enable him to steer a course when submerged, Lee had before him a
compass, most ingeniously illuminated with phosphorescent pieces of
rotten wood. But for some reason this proved to be of no use.
[Illustration: Another Idea of Bushnell’s _Turtle_.]
“I was obliged to rise up every few minutes to see that I sailed in
the right direction, and for this purpose keeping the machine on the
surface of the water and the doors open. I was much afraid of getting
aground on the island, as the tide of the flood set on the north point.
“While on my passage up to the city, my course, owing to the above
circumstances, was very crooked and zig-zag, and the enemy’s attention
was drawn towards me from Governor’s Island. When I was abreast of the
fort on the island, 3 or 400 men got upon the parapet to observe me;
at length a number came down to the shore, shoved off a 12 oar’d barge
with 5 or 6 sitters and pulled for me. I eyed them, and when they had
got within 50 or 60 yards of me I let loose the magazine in hopes that
if they should take me they would likewise pick up the magazine, and
then we should all be blown up together. But as kind Providence would
have it, they took fright and returned to the island to my infinite
joy. I then weathered the island, and our people seeing me, came off
with a whaleboat and towed me in. The magazine, after getting a little
past the island, went off with a tremendous explosion, throwing up
large bodies of water to an immense height.”
A few days afterwards, the British forces landed on Manhattan Island
at what is now the foot of East Thirty-fourth Street, and Washington’s
army hastily withdrew to the Harlem Heights, above One Hundred and
Twenty-fifth Street. A British frigate sailed up the Hudson and
anchored off Bloomingdale, or between Seventy-second and One Hundred
and Tenth Streets, in the same waters where our Atlantic fleet lies
whenever it comes to town. Here Sergeant Lee in the _Turtle_ made two
more attempts. But the first time he was discovered by the watch,
and when he approached again, submerged, the phosphorus-painted cork
that served as an indicator in his crude but ingenious depth-gage,
got caught and deceived him so that he dived completely under the
warship without touching her. Shortly after this, the frigate came
up the river, overhauled the sloop on which the _Turtle_ was being
transported, and sent it to the bottom, submarine and all.
[Illustration: Ezra Lee.
Born at Lyme, Conn., Jan. 21, 1749,
Died at Lyme, Conn., Oct. 29, 1821.
From original painting in possession of his descendant, Mrs. Daniel
Whitney, 5117 Pulaski Avenue, Germantown, Pa.
]
“Though I afterwards recovered the vessel,” Bushnell wrote to
Jefferson, “I found it impossible at that time to prosecute the design
any further. I had been in a bad state of health from the beginning
of my undertaking, and was now very unwell; the situation of public
affairs was such that I despaired of obtaining the public attention
and the assistance necessary. I was unable to support myself and the
persons I must have employed had I proceeded. Besides, I found it
absolutely necessary that the operators should acquire more skill in
the management of the vessel before I could expect success, which would
have taken up some time, and no small additional expense. I therefore
gave over the pursuit for that time and waited for a more favorable
opportunity, which never arrived.
“In the year 1777 I made an attempt from a whaleboat against the
_Cerberus_ frigate, then lying at anchor between Connecticut River and
New London, by drawing a machine against her side by means of a line.
The machine was loaded with powder, to be exploded by a gun-lock, which
was to be unpinioned by an apparatus to be turned by being brought
alongside of the frigate. This machine fell in with a schooner at
anchor astern of the frigate, and concealed from my sight. By some
means or other it was fired, and demolished the schooner and three men,
and blew the only one left alive overboard, who was taken up very much
hurt.[8]
“After this I fixed several kegs under water, charged with powder, to
explode upon touching anything as they floated along with the tide.
I set them afloat in the Delaware, above the English shipping at
Philadelphia, in December, 1777. I was unacquainted with the river, and
obliged to depend upon a gentleman very imperfectly acquainted with
that part of it, as I afterwards found. We went as near the shipping as
we durst venture; I believe the darkness of the night greatly deceived
him, as it did me. We set them adrift to fall with the ebb upon the
shipping. Had we been within sixty rods I believe they must have fallen
in with them immediately, as I designed; but, as I afterwards found,
they were set adrift much too far distant, and did not arrive until,
after being detained some time by frost, they advanced in the day-time
in a dispersed situation and under great disadvantages. One of them
blew up a boat with several persons in it who imprudently handled it
too freely, and thus gave the British the alarm which brought on the
battle of the kegs.”
The agitated redcoats lined the banks and blazed away at every bit
of drifting wreckage in the river, as described by a sarcastic
Revolutionary poet in “The Battle of the Kegs.”
Gallants attend, and hear a friend
Troll forth harmonious ditty,
Strange things I’ll tell that once befell
In Philadelphia city.
’Twas early day, as poets say,
Just as the sun was rising,
A soldier stood on a log of wood
And saw a thing surprising.
As in amaze he stood to gaze,
The truth can’t be denied, sir,
He spied a score of kegs or more
Come floating down the tide, sir.
* * * * *
These kegs, I’m told, the rebels hold
Packed up like pickled herring,
And they’re coming down to attack the town,
In this new way of ferrying.
* * * * *
Therefore prepare for bloody war,
The kegs must all be routed,
Or surely we despised shall be
And British valor doubted.
The royal band now ready stand
All ranged in dread array, sir,
With stomach stout to see it out
And make a bloody day, sir.
The cannon roar from shore to shore,
The small arms make a rattle,
Since wars began, I’m sure no man
E’er saw so strange a battle.
The kegs, ’tis said, though strongly made,
Of rebel staves and hoops, sir,
Could not oppose their powerful foes,
The conquering British troops, sir.
David Bushnell was later captured by the British, who failed to
recognize him and soon released him as a harmless civilian. After the
Revolution he went to France, and then to Georgia, where disgusted with
the Government’s neglect of himself and his invention he changed his
name to “Dr. Bush.” He was eighty-four years old when he died in 1826.
His identity was then revealed in his will.
Bushnell found the submarine boat a useless plaything and made it a
formidable weapon. To him it owes the propellor, the conning-tower,
and the first suggestion of the torpedo. The _Turtle_ was not only the
first American submarine but the forerunner of the undersea destroyer
of to-day.
“I thought and still think that it was an effort of genius,” declared
George Washington to Thomas Jefferson, “but that too many things were
necessary to be combined to expect much against an enemy who are always
on guard.”