Only a part of the Housatonic's complement was saved. Of the Hundley no trace was discovered and she was believed to have escaped. Three years later, however, divers who had been sent down to examine the hull of the Housatonic found the little submarine stuck in the hole made by her attack on the larger ship and inside of her the bodies of her entire crew.
The submarines and near-submarines built in the United States during the Civil War were remarkable rather for what they actually accomplished than for what they contributed towards the development of submarine boats. Perhaps the greatest service which they rendered in the latter direction was that they proved to the satisfaction of many scientific men that submarine boats really held vast possibilities as instruments of naval warfare.
France still retained its lead in furnishing new submarine projects. One of these put forward in 1861 by Olivier Riou deserves mention because it provided for two boats, one driven by steam and one by electricity. Both of these submarines were built, but inasmuch as nothing is known of the result of their trials, it is safe to conclude that neither of them proved of any practical value.
Two years later, in 1863, two other Frenchmen, Captain Bourgeois and M. Brun, built at Rochefort a submarine 146 feet long and 12 feet in diameter which they called the Plongeur. They fitted it with a compressed-air engine of eighty horse-power. Extensive trials were made with this boat but resulted only in the discovery that, though it was possible to sink or rise with a boat of this type without great difficulty, it was impossible to keep her at an even keel for any length of time.
During the next few years, undoubtedly as a result of the submarine activities during the Civil War, a number of projects were put forward in the United States, none of which, however, turned out successfully. One of them, for which a man by the name of Halstead was responsible, was a submarine built for the United States Navy in 1865. It was not tried out until 1872 and it was not even successful in living up to its wonderful name, The Intelligent Whale. Its first trial almost resulted in loss of life and was never repeated. In spite of this, however, the boat was preserved and may still be seen at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
In the meantime, an invention had been made by an Austrian artillery officer which before long was to exert a powerful influence on submarine development, though it was in no sense a submarine boat. The manner in which the submarines had attacked their opponents during the Civil War suggested to him the need of improvements in this direction. As a result he conceived a small launch which was to carry the explosive without any navigators. Before he could carry his plans very far he died. A brother officer in the navy continued his work and finally interested the manager of an English engineering firm located at Fiume, Mr. Whitehead. The result of the collaboration of these two men was the Whitehead torpedo. A series of experiments led to the construction of what was first called a "Submarine Locomotive" torpedo, which not only contained a sufficient quantity of explosives to destroy large boats, but was also enabled by mechanical means to propel itself and keep on its course after having been fired. The Austrian Government was the first one to adopt this new weapon. Whitehead, however, refused to grant a monopoly to the Austrians and in 1870 he sold his manufacturing rights and secret processes to the British Government for a consideration of $45,000.
Before very long, special boats were built for the purpose of carrying and firing these torpedoes and gradually every great power developed a separate torpedo flotilla. Hand in hand with this development a large number of improvements were made on the original torpedo and some of these devices proved of great usefulness in the development of submarine boats.
The public interest in submarines grew rapidly at this time. Every man who was a boy in 1873, or who had the spirit of boyhood in him then,—or perhaps now,—will remember the extraordinary piece of literary and imaginative prophecy achieved by Jules Verne in his novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Little about the Nautilus that held all readers entranced throughout his story is lacking in the submarines of to-day except indeed its extreme comfort, even luxury. With those qualities our submarine navigators have to dispense. But the electric light, as we know it, was unknown in Verne's time yet he installed it in the boat of his fancy. Our modern internal-combustion engines were barely dreamed of, yet they drove his boat. His fancy even enabled him to foresee one of the most amazing features of the Lake boat of to-day, namely the compressed air chamber which opened to the sea still holds the water back, and enables the submarine navigator clad in a diver's suit to step into the wall of water and prosecute his labors on the bed of the ocean. Jules Verne even foresaw the callous and inhuman character of the men who command the German submarines to-day. His Captain Nemo had taken a vow of hate against the world and relentlessly drove the prow of his steel boat into the hulls of crowded passenger ships, finding his greatest joy in sinking slowly beside them with the bright glare of his submarine electric lights turned full upon the hapless women and children over whose sufferings he gloated as they sank. The man who sank the Lusitania could do no more.
More and more determined became the attempts to build submarine boats that could sink and rise easily, navigate safely and quickly, and sustain human beings under the surface of the water for a considerable length of time. Steam, compressed air, and electricity were called upon to do their share in accomplishing this desired result. Engineers in every part of the world began to interest themselves in the submarine problem and as a result submarine boats in numbers were either projected or built between 1875 and 1900.
One of the most persistent workers in this period was a well-known Swedish inventor, Nordenfeldt, who had established for himself a reputation by inventing a gun which even to-day has lost nothing of its fame. In 1881 he became interested in the work which had been done by an English clergyman named Garret. The latter had built a submarine boat which he called the Resurgam (I shall rise)—thus neatly combining a sacred promise with a profane purpose. In 1879 another boat was built by him driven by a steam engine. Nordenfeldt used the fundamental ideas upon which these two boats were based, added to them some improvements of his own as well as some devices which had been used by Bushnell, and finally launched in 1886 his first submarine boat. The government of Greece bought it after some successful trials. Not to be outdone, Greece's old rival, Turkey, immediately ordered two boats for her own navy. Both of these were much larger than the Greek boat and by 1887 they had reached Constantinople in sections where they were to be put together. Only one of them, however, was ever completed. Characteristic Turkish delay intervened. The most typical feature of this boat was the fact that it carried a torpedo tube for Whitehead torpedoes. On the surface of the water this boat proved very efficient, but as an underwater boat it was a dismal failure. More than in any other craft that had ever been built and accepted, the lack of stability was a cause of trouble in the Nordenfeldt II. As soon as any member of the crew moved from one part of the boat to another, she would dip in the direction in which he was moving, and everybody, who could not in time take hold of some part of the boat, came sliding and rolling in the same direction. When finally such a tangle was straightened out, only a few minutes elapsed before somebody else, moving a few steps, would bring about the same deplorable state of affairs. The Nordenfeldt II. acted more like a bucking bronco than a self-respecting submarine boat and as a result it became impossible to find a crew willing to risk their lives in manning her. Before very long she had rusted and rotted to pieces. In spite of this lack of success, Nordenfeldt built a fourth boat which displayed almost as many unfortunate features as her predecessors and soon was discarded and forgotten.