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American inventor Samuel Colt's 1842 sketch ofSilas Clowden Halsey's plan design, for a submarine, based upon interviews with individuals once engaged in its construction.
Despite the war of words on both sides of the Atlantic regarding submarine torpedo/mine warfare, attacks would continue. One of the most innovative efforts was undertaken by Silas Clowden Halsey, of Norwich, Connecticut. Halsey, adopting a page from the famed but unsuccessful efforrs of inventor David Bushnell in 1776, had by the spring of 1813 built an underwater "diving boar" designed to attach and detonate a torpedo beneath a British warship. Although Halsey's original design has not been found, it is possible to make some estimates of the dimensions of the vessel based upon a draft plan of the vessel drawn by inventor Samuel Colt in February 1842 from information gleaned during interviews with persons engaged to help build the craft. Unlike Bushnell's famed Turtle, Halsey's craft was torpedo-shaped. Its length would have been 12 feet 4 inches, with a depth (between floor and entry scuttle/ viewing port) of 4 feet 4 inches. Projecting from the top of the entry scuttle was an "air rube to shove up when at the surface of the water." Slightly forward of amidships was a water cock, presumably to permit water ballast in to submerge the craft, and just aft was a force pump to expel the water to bring the craft to the surface. The system thus allowed Halsey to "ascend and descend at 20
pleasure." For guidance, a rudder was managed by the operator by pulling a tiller line. Propulsion was by a means of a 24-inchlong screw-like propeller turned by a crank rhatwas managed by the operator (although one co ntemporary account claimed that it was by means of paddles, presumably mounted on the sides). A maxi mum speed of three miles per hour was reported. Projecting from the end of the propeller was a drill bit. Attached to the lower stern of the craft was a tubular torpedo (mine). A line running from the end of the torpedo to the mid-section of the drill bit would secure the explosive to a target. Once the drill bit was imbedded in the enemy hull , a timer in the torpedo would be triggered by means of the line. The bit would then be disengaged with the torpedo attached, and the submarine would escape before the device exploded. 17 On the night of30 June 181 3, Halsey made his first attempt against HBMS Ramilles, Admiral Sir C harles H ardy's fl agship in Long Island Sound, blockading an American squadron in the port of New London, Co nnecticut. The approach was conducted without discovery. Then, after remaining some time underwater, the submarine surfaced "like the Porpoise for air" a few feet from the stern of the warship, probably to replenish her air supply. 18
A sentinel on deck immediately spotted the submarine. An alarm gun was fired and all hands were called to quarters. Halsey descended immediately, even as Ramilles' anchor cable was cut and the giant warship "got under weigh with all possible dispatch, expecting to be blown up by a Torpedo." 19 Soo n afterwards, Halsey again approached Ramifies. This time he came up directly underneath the ship and fastened his boat to the enemy's keel at a depth of 22 feet, "where he remained half an hour, and succeeded in perforating a hole through her copper [sheathing]." Un like Bushnell's attempts against a British warship thirty-seven years before, Halsey succeeded in penetrating the sheathing, but as he was screwing the torpedo to the warship's bottom, he broke the screw and had to abandon the mission. 20 The subsequent fate of Halsey and his submarine are unknown, although Samuel Colt noted cryptically on his sketch of the vessel that the inventor had died in New London Harbor. 2 1 Though the submarine attack had been unsuccessful, its consequences were signi fi cam . Combined with a failed bur bloody booby-trapped schooner explosion aimed at Ramilles a week earlier, Halsey's efforrs helped convince Admiral Hardy to withdraw his squadron some distance from New London, and obliged him to keep his vessels underway at all rimes. 22 Indeed, it was reported that he had become so alarmed that he caused a cable to be passed under Ramilles every two hours to prevem further attacks. 23 The assaults on Ramilles produced an unforeseen consequence for the Americans. On 9, 10, and 11 August, a concerted bombardment and rocket reprisal attack was launched against the nearby port of Sto nington, a place "conspicuous in preparing and harbouring torpedoes, and giving assista nce to the enemy's attempts at the destruction of His Majesty's ships off New London." 24 Nor all submarine warfare initiatives were undertaken at private expense. During the early summer of 181 4, the Common Council of New York C ity appropriated funds to an invento r, idemified only as "an ingenious gentleman by the name of Berrian," to construct a "torpedo boat for the purpose of destroying so me of the enemy's
SEA HISTORY 141 , WINTER 2012- 13