“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.
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.