Notwithstanding that this was the third time she had sunk and killed a number of men, she was again raised and a crew of nine other brave men was found to man her. Under command of Lieutenant Dixon, on the night of February 17, 1864, she was brought alongside of the United States battleship Housatonic and sank her, but Lieutenant Dixon and his crew went down with the Hunley at the same time. Thus, in the various attempts to operate this vessel in a submerged condition, a total of thirty-two lives were lost.
The New Orleans submarine boat was also built by the Confederates during the Civil War. A friend who took the photograph of this vessel told me the following story as related to him by a Southern gentleman who was familiar with the history of the boat. It appears that this submarine was the conception of a wealthy planter who owned a number of slaves. He thought that it would add considerable interest to the occasion of her launching if, when the vessel left the ways, she should disappear beneath the waves and make a short run beneath the surface before coming up. So he took two of his most intelligent slaves and instructed them how to hold the tiller when the vessel slid down the ways, and in which way to turn the propeller for a time after she began to lose her launched speed. He told them when they got ready to come up they should push the tiller down and the vessel would come to the surface to be towed ashore.
A great crowd assembled to see this novel launching. "When things were all ready," said the old Southern gentleman, "sure enough, them two niggers got into the boat and shut down the hatches; and do you know, suh, that at that time them niggers was worth a thousand dollars apiece." Well, it seems that the boat slid down the ways and disappeared under the water just as had been planned. The crowd waited expectantly, but the vessel did not reappear. Eventually they got into boats and put out hooks and grappling lines, but she could not be found. The designer of the craft stated as his opinion that "he might have known better than to trust them pesky niggers anyway," and he was willing to bet that they had taken the opportunity to steal the vessel and run away. He asserted that very likely they would take the boat up North and give it to the Yankees, and that they could expect to hear of the "Yanks" using it to blow up some of their own (Confederate) ships.
Her disappearance remained a mystery for a great many years—until long after the war closed, in fact, and the incident had been forgotten. Years afterward, during some dredging operations to deepen the harbor, the dredge buckets one day got hold of something they could not lift. A diver was sent down to investigate, and he reported that there was some metal object buried in the mud which looked like a steam boiler. They set to work to raise this, and putting chains around it they lifted it on to the wharf. The old gentleman, in closing the narrative, remarked, "And do you know, suh, when they opened the hatch them two blamed niggers was still in thar, but they warn't wuth a damned cent."
One amusing experience that I had occurred in the Chesapeake Bay in 1898, a few miles below the Potomac River. We were bound from Baltimore to Hampton Roads, and a part of the journey was made on the bottom of the bay. We found this exceedingly interesting, as we could sit in the divers' compartment and view, through the open divers' door, the various kinds of bottom we were passing over, rake up oysters and clams, catch crabs with a crab net, and amuse ourselves in trying to spear fish.
The Argonaut at this time had a double pipe mast fifty feet in height, through one of which we got air to run our engines. The other was to provide for the exhaust. We carried a red flag on top of this mast as a warning to surface vessels to keep clear. One afternoon we had been submerged about four hours, running on the bottom in depths varying from twenty-five to forty-five feet; night coming on, we decided to come up and seek a harbor. When we came to the surface we noticed a "bugeye" (a small schooner) "hove to" about fifty yards to the leeward. I blew the centre tank, which brought our conning tower up out of the water, opened the hatch, and hailed the skipper of the bugeye to ask our location and the nearest harbor. He did not wait to answer, but as soon as I yelled he squared away "wing and wing" for the shore. As there was a stiff breeze blowing, it did not take him long to make it, and he ran his vessel right up on the sandy beach, where we saw him and another man—who composed the crew—clamber out over the bow and start to run inland as fast as they could go, leaving their boat without so much as lowering their sails. We finally located ourselves as just north of the mouth of the Rappahannock River, and saw that there was a good harbor very near, so we put in there for the night. After supper, as we were in need of fresh provisions, we went ashore and learned that there was a store a couple of miles down the peninsula. We walked down there and found the store full of natives who were obviously curious as to our identity and business. Finally the storekeeper gathered up his courage and asked us who we were. When he learned that we were down on an experimental cruise in the submarine boat Argonaut, he burst into laughter and told us that we had solved a mystery which had stirred up the entire community. He then explained that just about dark one of his neighbors, who never had been known to drink and whose reputation for veracity was excellent, had rushed into the store, followed by his mate. Both were pale from fright, and sank on the porch completely exhausted. They then related a weird tale of seeing a red flag moving down the bay against the current on a buoy. When they went alongside of it they heard a "puff-puff" like a locomotive—that was the exhaust from our engine coming up out of the pipe—and, furthermore, they stated that they had smelt sulphur distinctly. Just then, they claimed, the buoy commenced to rise up and a smokestack—our conning tower—came up out of the water and "out stepped the devil"—myself, who at that time had on a rather brilliant red cap. Then they had "moseyed" for shore as fast as they could go. The storekeeper said that they had put the honorable captain to bed, and implied that he would be "right smart mad" when he learned how he had deceived himself. We went back to our boat and got an early start in the morning, as we did not know but that the "guying" of his neighbors might "rile" the captain considerably—and these Virginians are usually pretty good rifle shots.
One of the greatest dangers in submarine navigation is that of being run down by surface vessels when the submarine comes to the surface after a deep submergence. I mean by a deep submergence when the vessel goes down so far that the water covers the top of her periscope and the commander gets out of touch with surface vessels. All submarine commanders have probably had narrow escapes from this danger; it is one of the chances that go with the business. I myself have had several very close calls. The first was with the Protector manœuvring in rough weather in Long Island Sound off Bridgeport in 1903. The weather was exceedingly rough, the wind blowing a halfgale and blowing the spume from the white-caps into spray. Some of our directors were in a large towboat at anchor and we were manœuvring in their vicinity, running back and forth, submerging, etc., so that they might observe how steadily she could run in a rough sea. Finally, upon submerging, we observed a sloop in distress; part of her rigging had been carried away, and she was half full of water. The sea had broken the cabin windows and she was on the verge of sinking. We observed this through the periscope, so we came up and got a line to her and took her into Bridgeport. There were several young men aboard her, and when they first saw us standing on our conning tower they thought we also had been wrecked and were on top of a buoy.
As the Protector had functioned beautifully and we had in addition saved a shipwrecked crew, I felt quite proud of the day's performance, and was greatly surprised, therefore, when I reported to the directors, who had preceded us into the harbor, to have one of them "call me down" for taking such a foolhardy chance in submerging just in front of the steamer Bridgeport. He was astonished when I told him that I had never seen the steamer, and then he informed me that I had submerged just under her bow, and as she was going very fast they all expected us to be hit. The white-caps and spray had prevented us from seeing the steamer, as our periscope was a short one and only gave us intermittent views in the rough water. I was curious to learn whether the captain of the steamer had seen us, but I was told by him that he had not. The rough water had prevented the captain from seeing the wake of our periscope, just as it had made it impossible for us to catch a sight of his vessel.
At another time of close escape I was in the channel leading from the Gulf of Finland into Cronstadt, Russia.