Page 57 - NS-2 Textbook

50 MARITIME HISTORY

protruding from the bow. 111e vessel was supposed had been Slmk or captured by Union naval forces. Their
to ram a Union ship hard enough that the spar would efforts were hampered somewhat by the Declaration of
stick like a spear, then back off while the explosive was Paris of 1856. The declaration, signed by all major Euro-
detonated by yanking a long cord. A number of Union pean countries except Spain, declared privateering ille-
vessels were attacked in Charleston Harbor by the gal. Early on, however, the Southern privateers forced
Davids. The powerful Union ironclad New Ironsides was many Union ships to transfer to foreign registry to avoid
badly damaged. them. Thus began a great decline in the American mer-
Since the Davids had some success, the Confederates chant marine that has persisted to this day.
began vvorking on a more sinister vessel in Mobile, Al- Another much more profitable Confederate mar-
abama. 111is was the HU11ley, the world's first submarine itime enterprise that arose during the war was blockade
warship. It was originally designed to pull a torpedo fas- running. By some estimates as many as 1,500 blockade
tened at the end of a line into the side of an enemy ship rurmers saw service during the Civil War. The more suc-
after submerging and going underneath it, though later it cessful ones were specially designed fast side-wheeler
was fitted with a spar torpedo instead. steamships with low silliouettes, collapsing furmels, and
The HU11ley was built of a section of iron boiler about shallow draft. They operated out of ports such as Wil-
forty feet long, four feet wide, and four feet deep. The mington, North Carolina, and many other shallow har-
bow and stern each contained a ballast tank that could be bors along the Confederate coastline. Because the Union
flooded to make the vessel submerge and pwnped out to did not have sufficient ships to effectively blockade the
make her rise. A set of leather bellows provided for air entire 3,500-mile Southem coast until near the end of the
circulation. A small conning tower on top had four tiny wm~ blockade running was a very profitable business
glass observation ports t1U'ough which the captain could worth the risks involved. Salt that usually sold for $6.50
see where he ,vas going. The vessel was pmvered by a ton would bring $1,700 a ton in Richmond, and coffee
eight or nine men turning a crankshaft attached to a pro- jumped from $249 a ton to $5,500. Even in 1863, when the
peller at the stern. During the first sea trials in Mobile, Union blockade was beginning to make its presence felt,
the Hunley'S crew had drowned. The vessel was shipped the odds of capture were only one in four. In 1864 block-
by rail to Charleston, where three more crews drowned ade rurmers brought in from foreign markets, among
in trials. General Beauregard prohibited her from being other commodities, 8 million pOlmds of meat, 1.5 million
submerged again, and tactics were changed to make the pounds of lead, half a million pairs of shoes, and 69,000
HU11ley operate more like a David, attacking with a spar rifles and 43 cmmon. All this was paid for by $5 million
torpedo. worth of cotton they exported that year.
On the night of 17 February 1864, the HU11ley crept The most effective Confederate Navy effort against
out of the harbor and headed toward the Union blockade Union shipping was commerce raiding by commissioned
line. Approaching the Union sloop Housatonic, the HU11- naval cruisers. These cruisers 'were mostly foreign-built
ley's commanding officer, Lieutenant George Dixon, with foreign crews and Southern officers. After capturing
rested the men and then had them flood the ballast tanks their prizes, the cruisers sin1ply bumed them. They con-
to the point where the deck was awash. Then they tinued the decline of the Norfuem merchant marine begun
cranked hard to phmge the spar torpedo into fue ship's by the privateers. Some shipping companies went out of
side. But something went wrong after the spar was set, business. Over 600 American ships trat1Sferred to foreign
and the charge exploded before the HU11ley could get registry, more than half of these in 1863, when fue Con-
away. The HOllsatonic sank in less than five minutes, fol- federate cruiser CSS Alabama ran atllok on the high seas.
lowed shortly thereafter by the HU11ley and her fifth brave The cruisers did achieve their prin1ary purpose for
ere\v. This was the first undersea boat to sink an enemy the South: weakening the blockade. Over 100 Union ships
ship in battle. No other attempts were made to build a were kept busy tracking down a dozen Confederate
submarine during the Civil War. (The HU11ley was raised raiders.
in August 2000 from about thirty feet of water off
Charleston, South Carolina, and transported to that city.
CAPTAIN SEMMES AND THE ALABAMA
Remains of her cre'iV ,\vere found still aboard, and 'were
interred in Charleston's Magnolia Cemetery in 2004.) The most famous and successful of the Confederate
cruiser skippers was Captain Raphael Semmes. His first
ship, the CSS Sllmtel~ captured seventeen Union ships
CONFEDERATE PRIVATEERS, BLOCKADE before being cornered by the Union Navy in Gibraltar.
RUNNERS, AND CRUISERS Semmes sold her and made his way to England. There he
learned a new cruiser was being built in a British ship-
Although the Confederates commissioned several priva- yard for a Confederate agent, without British government
teers during the early days of the war, by mid-1862 most approval.