Confederate submarines

When someone mentions Confederate submarines, everyone thinks of the C.S.S. Hunley, and rightfully so. The Hunley did become the first submersible combat vessel to sink an enemy warship. But the South’s drive to build and successfully implement innovative warships goes far beyond one ship in February 1864. There were several other Confederate submarines and attempts to disrupt the blockade of Southern ports.

An excellent resource on the subject is Mark Ragan’s Union and Confederate Submarine Warfare (1999). The only thing that could make this book more beneficial would have been an appendix, maybe a quick reference guide, listing the barest details of each submarine.

Another note: the Confederacy built both semi-submersible and completely submersible vessels. The former are at times referred to as torpedo boats or David-Class Torpedo Boats. These craft were built of wood, contained a single screw, and had a steam boiler. They were fifty feet in length, had a four-man crew, and boasted a spar torpedo on the end. They were designed to run at night semi-submerged toward a Federal vessel, to drive the torpedo inside the vessel, and to then back away. On October 5, 1863, a “David” vessel attacked the U.S.S. Ironsides in Charleston, seriously damaging the vessel. The Confederate David was able to return to harbor. (135-137)

Information on many of these Confederate submarines is extremely limited. Many of the Confederate naval records were destroyed at war’s end. 

The Hunley by Chapman

Franklin G. Smith wrote to the Columbia Herald on June 10, 1861, about building a fleet of Confederate submarines: “Excepting our privateers the Confederate States have not a single ship at sea. Throughout our southern seaports, men of a mechanical turn and of the right spirit must go to work, maturing the best plans for the destruction or the capture of every blockading ship. From the Chesapeake to the mouth of the Rio Grande, our coast is better fitted for submarine warfare than any other in the world. I would have every hostile keel chased from our coast by submarine propellers. The new vessel must be cigar shaped for speed - made of plate iron, joined without external rivet heads, about thirty feet long, with a central section about 4 x 3 feet - driven by a spiral propeller. The new Aneroid barometer made for increased pressure, will enable the adventurer easily to decide his exact distance below the surface.” Of course, there never was a fleet of submarines built, but there were a few of note.

Pioneer – built in New Orleans, Louisiana, and tested in February 1862. The ship was 34 feet long, 4 feet wide, and 4 feet high. It was powered by a hand crank that was attached to a propeller. The Pioneer was scuttled in a canal near Lake Pontchartrain when New Orleans was evacuated. The Federals raised and examined the ship, and in 1868, it was sold for scrap.

Bayou Saint John submarine – no one seems to know the name of this vessel. It was dredged out of Bayou Saint John in 1878. When it was eventually opened, three skeletons were found inside. The submarine is now on display at the Capitol Park Museum – Baton Rouge.

Shreveport submarines – there were supposedly five submarines under construction in Shreveport, Louisiana, by the Singer Submarine Corporation in 1863. One of these was sent to Houston, Texas, while the other four were scuttled toward the end of the war. The other four are still submerged but apparently “surface” in the news when they are exposed during low water levels at the Cross Bayou. See https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/01/24/mystery-of-missing-civil-war-subs-resurfaces/22288817/

Richmond submarines--these include several built by Tredegar Iron Works. One was tested on the James River below Rocketts at the end of 1861. In this test, a diver emerged from the submerged vessels and planted an explosive charge on the bottom of a barge. Once secure in the submarine, the charge was detonated, sinking the barge. On October 12, 1861, an unnamed submarine, possibly the one above or maybe a different vessel, was launched at Sewall’s Point and made for the U.S.S. Minnesota. The craft became entangled in a net and was almost captured. It is not really clear what became of these vessels.  

Pioneer II (American Diver) – built in Mobile late 1862. It started out with some type of electrical motor, and then had a steam engine, and eventually had a hand crank. On its first mission in February 1863, in an attempt to attack the Federal blocking fleet there at Mobile Bay, it foundered in heavy seas and sank. But the crew did survive.

Colonel E. H. Agaman – was the idea of Col. E.H. Agaman. His submarine was rocket powered. It is not clear if the submarine itself was rocket powered, or the torpedo. After the fuel for the rocket was shipped from Augusta, Georgia, to Mobile in April 1863, this vessel disappears from the pages of history.  

CSS Squib also operated in the James River. In April 1864, the Squib placed a torpedo on the hull of USS Minnesota and detonated it. The torpedo was too close to the surface, and the Minnesota was not seriously damaged. The final disposition of the Squib is unknown. The Squib is also referred to as the Infanta. There were also operating at the end of the war three others: the Scorpion, Hornet, and Wasp.

CSS Hunley – most famous. Constructed in Mobile and transported to Mobile, the Hunley sank twice and killed a crew and a half before the attack the USS Housatonic. Of course we know that the final crew of the Hunley did not return and sank as well, somewhere beyond where the Housatonic went down.

CSS Captain Pierce might have sunk the USS Tecumseh in August 1864 in the battle of Mobile Bay. The boiler of the submarine might have exploded shortly thereafter.

CSS St. Patrick was privately built in Mobile and transferred to the Confederate navy in January 1865. The St. Patrick struck the Federal ship USS Octorara with a torpedo, but the torpedo misfired and did no damage and the St. Patrick escaped.

There were at least two submarines under construction in Wilmington, North Carolina, in late 1864, early 1865. But their final dispositions are unknown.

(For more information, please check out Ragan’s Union and Confederate Submarine Warfare in the Civil War, or, Daniel Franignoul’s “Submarine Monsters of the Confederacy,” Confederate Historical Society of Belgium)

Confederate Hospitals in Alabama

 

Marker for the Confederate Hospital in Greenville, Alabama

   In the past, I have written about Confederate Wayside and General Hospitals (read here), Confederate Hospitals in North Carolina (read here), and Support Staff at Confederate Hospitals (read here). The information about Confederate general and wayside hospitals outside those in Virginia is rather slim.

   Cunningham, in his foundational 1958 book Doctors in Gray: The Confederate Medical Service, lists only four wayside hospitals: Demopolis, Eufaula, Selma, and Talladega. Wayside hospitals were usually located beside railroads and were charged with feeding soldiers, re-dressing their wounds, and providing other services for wounded men in transit. They were usually staffed by women, with a doctor, surgeon, or assistant surgeon in charge.

   Cunningham goes on to list the regular Confederate hospitals in Alabama. Added to this is an article from the Mobile Daily Advertiser, January 9, 22, 1861.  The list of Alabama hospitals includes:

 

Auburn             Texas Hospital (Old Main Hall), Asst. Surgeon L. A. Bryan

                          Langdon Hall, East Alabama Male College

                          Chapel, East Alabama Male College

Greenville         Miller Hospital, Surgeon G. Owen, 170 beds

                          General Hospital, Surgeon R. B. Maury, 150 beds

Mobile              Heustis Hospital, Surgeon J. M. Paine, 90 beds

  Nott Hospital, Surgeon G. A. Nott, 51 beds

                          General Hospital (Ross), Surgeon S. L. Nidelet, 250 beds

                           General Hospital (Moore), Surgeon W. C. Cavanaugh, 123 beds

                           General Hospital (Cantey). Surgeon W. Henderson, 150 beds

                           General Hospital (Le Vert), Surgeon R. H. Redwood, 30 beds

Montgomery       Ladies Hospital, Surgeon T. F. Duncan

                            Madison House, Surgeon C. J. Clark

                            Stonewall Hospital, Surgeon W. M. Cole

                            St. Mary’s Hospital, Surgeon J. H. Watters

                             Concert Hall Hospital, Surgeon W. J. Holt

                             Watts Hospital, Surgeon F. M. Hereford

Notasulga            General Hospital (Camp Watts), Surgeon U. R. Jones

Selma                    General Hospital, Surgeon A. Hart

Shelby Springs     General Hospital (Camp Winn), Surgeon B. H. Thomas

Spring Hill           General Hospital, Surgeon G. Owen

Tuscaloosa          General Hospital (University of Alabama), Surgeon R.N. Anderson

Uniontown         Officer’s Hospital, G. C. Gray

   Are there others? Over time, I hope to flesh each of these places out with descriptions and possibly photographs.  

 

Site Visit Saturday: Lt. Col. Frank A. Reynolds, 39th NC, Egypt, and Philadelphia

 

   In June 2015, we were on one of those classic “see America” road trips. Our son had been competing at National History Day in Maryland, and after the contest ended, we headed north to Philadelphia for a couple of days, then west to Gettysburg and Harpers Ferry. One of our stops was Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia. Laurel Hill is one of the classic Victorian Cemeteries, and with more than 33,000 graves, it is huge. There are graves of many important historical people at Laurel Hill: novelist Owen Wister; Titanic survivor Eleanor Widener; Constitutional Congress secretary Charles Thomson; Union general George Gordon Meade; and Confederate general John C. Pemberton, just to name a few. As we were stumbling through this cemetery, I found the grave of another interesting Confederate soldier: Lt. Col. Frank A. Reynolds. 

Frank A. Reynolds (findagrave)

   Frank A. Reynolds was born in the current state of Lewisburg, Greenbrier County, Virginia (now West Virginia) on August 10, 1841. His father was Alexander W. Reynolds (Yep, the Confederate general) and his mother was Mary Reeves Ash Reynolds. Like his father, Frank Reynolds attended the United States Military Academy at West Point. The younger Reynolds graduated[MCH1]  in June 1861. Some of his classmates included Alonzo Cushing, Patrick H. O’Rorke, and George A. Custer. Reynolds, however, did not follow his classmates into the Federal army. Instead, he returned to Virginia. He served as a cavalry officer under Gen. John B. Floyd in 1861, then was appointed captain and assistant adjutant general to Gen. Samuel G. French. On May 19, 1862, Reynolds was appointed major and assigned to the 39^th North Carolina Troops. He was appointed lieutenant colonel on December 29, 1862.

The 39^th North Carolina Troops was one of four North Carolina infantry regiments that served in the Western Theater of the war (the 29^th, 58^th, and 60^th NC regiments are the others). The 39^th Regiment saw action at Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, Resaca, New Hope Church, Kennesaw Mountain, Peach Tree Creek, Ezra Church, Franklin, Nashville, Mobile, Fort Blakely, and Spanish Fort. It appears that Reynolds was present for most of those actions. On May 9, 1865, the lieutenant colonel was paroled at Meridian, Mississippi.

   After the war, Reynolds served for a brief amount of time as a street inspector in New York City, before accepting a commission as an artillery colonel on the staff of Gen. William W. Loring, in the Egyptian Army. Frank Reynolds was in Ilion, New York, when he passed in July 1875. A brief obituary in the Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), simply read: Col. Frank Reynolds, one of the American officers in the service of the Egyptian Khedive, was found dead in his bed Tuesday at Ilion, N.Y. He was on leave of absence.” Writing in 1901, Lt. Theodore F. Davidson regretted that there was little “data of his subsequent career,” but believed that Reynolds was “an accomplished soldier.”