As “Infernal Machine: Dawn of Submarine Warfare” moves toward publication, it has been my task to research the backgrounds of those who made up the crews of the “fishboats.”

I am fascinated by the amount of information that is still available on many of these individuals. Census records gathered before, during and after the American Civil War are very informative. When combined with newspaper reports, tax documentation, church attendance records, even civil and criminal arrest warrants, the gathered information will, as Shakespeare once said, “Hold the mirror up to nature.”

Take these three individuals, all of whom were crew members who served on the USS Alligator, the United States Navy’s first submarine in 1862 to 1863.

Cooper Woodrington

Cooper Woodrington was born in 1839 in Beverly, NJ, and grew up in Philadelphia, PA. Between 1839 & 1849, Woodrington had what was politely termed an “uncertain” childhood. This resulted in the eleven-year-old’s commitment to Philadelphia’s House of Refuge in 1849. We are fortunate that the Refuge’s Superintendent kept a record book known as the “History of Boys.”

Woodrington’s entry (#1740) reads:    

Cooper Woodington.  Aged about 12 years was committed about August 8, 1849 by (Philadelphia City Alderman) Mitchell.  He (Woodrington) was born in New Jersey and has always lived in that state.  His father has been dead many years.  His mother Sarah Woodington lives in Albany (now New Albany), Burlington County, NJ.”

In 1857, Woodrington was a member of the crew hired by inventor and self-described “Natural Genius” Brutus de Villeroi to man his underwater wonder, the Submarine Propeller.

Payroll records show Woodrington’s job on the boat as being “Diver.” Woodrington was expected to don the new but cumbersome “Submarine Armor” suit for arduous underwater salvage work.

Woodrington would have been part of de Villeroi’s Submarine Propeller crew that, on May 16, 1861 was arrested (and the submarine seized) by the Philadelphia police for “…unauthorized training and seaworthiness trials” conducted on the Delaware River.

The charges were later dropped, and the Submarine Propeller released to continue her sea trials and training.    

At the start of the American Civil War, Woodrington patriotically volunteered for service in one of the state army regiments. Actually, he joined two such regiments; one in Pennsylvania: Philadelphia’s Bates Pennsylvania Volunteers, and one in New Jersey: the Stryker New Jersey Volunteers, receiving a Muster Card (and presumably a paid bonus for volunteering) for each regiment.

With things looking up, on March 15, 1862, Woodrington married a Miss Mary Elizabeth Dawson of Beverly, NJ.

Woodrington’s name next appears in history on US Navy payroll records for the months of March 1862 to July 1862. These records correspond to the period when the now-named USS Alligator was part of US Navy’s support of McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign, taking part in the abortive Appomattox River Raid. Afterward, due in part to poor performance, Alligator was ordered to the Washington Navy Yard for an extensive re-fit, and Woodrington went with her.

In March, 1863, the re-fit on Alligator was complete, her oar-driven propulsion system being replaced by a more dependable and powerful screw propeller.

Woodrington was on the Alligator in 1863 when she received her orders to head south, being towed by USS Sumpter.

On April 2, 1863, in the midst of a howling gale off Cape Hatteras, Woodrington and the rest of the Alligator’s crew were transferred to USS Sumpter.

To prevent a possible collision, the submarine’s tow rope was cut loose.

Buffeted by the gale’s winds and smashed by its waves, the Alligator sank off Cape Hatteras, NC, one of the many claimed by the “Graveyard of the Atlantic.”

Postwar, Woodrington’s name appears on the state’s Census rolls for 1870, 1880 and 1900.

He died on February 4, 1923 in Beverly, NJ.    

Alexander Rhodes 

Alexander Rhodes was born in Bordeaux, France in 1842. After living for several years in different parts of the United States, the1860 census shows Rhodes as an 18-year-old “Assistant Engineer,” living at the Chandler Hotel in Lower Chichester, PA.

Also living at the Chandler was one Brutus de Villeroi, inventor, who hired Rhodes as an “Operative” on his new underwater marvel, the Submarine Propeller. In March 1862, Rhodes was a member of the crew when the Submarine Propeller was sent to the James River as part of the Union’s Peninsula Campaign, and took part in the abortive Appomattox River Raid. Rhodes was also a crewman in March 1863 as part of the now-redesigned and renamed USS Alligator. Together with his crewmates, Rhodes headed for Charleston. On the night of April 2, 1863, the Alligator encountered gale-force winds and waves,  and finally sank off Cape Hatteras, NC.

After arriving at the South Atlantic Blockade’s headquarters at Port Royal, SC, Rhodes found himself transferred to the US gunboat Wissahickon as a fireman/stoker. Later, Rhodes would be transferred to the steam frigate USS Princeton in the same capacity.

In 1864, due to illness, Rhodes was sent to the receiving ship USS “Vermont” in Port Royal SC for treatment, before taking passage aboard the USS “New Ironsides” to Philadelphia. In April, 1864 Rhodes was discharged from the Navy, invalided as unfit for further military service.

(Incidentally, New Ironsides was returning to Philadelphia to repair extensive internal damage caused by the CSS David’s torpedo attack at Charleston on October 5, 1863.)

In later life, Rhodes was something of a politician and public figure in the town of Riverside, NJ. His wartime service stood him in good stead, though he had chronic difficulty with the Board of Pensions about having his pension payments sent to him in a timely manner.

Poor health caused Rhodes to enter the Soldiers Home in Dayton, Ohio, where he died on August 16, 1920.

Finally, there is this individual:

Samuel Eakins

Samuel Eakins was Pennsylvania-born (1810) and bred. His family business was in the jewelry trade in both Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. In the 1840’s Eakins served in the US Army for several years before resigning in 1854 and returning his family to Philadelphia. Several of his patents applied during this time dealt with electroplating, which may have led to his interest in electrically-triggered demolition.

In 1857 Eakins joined the Philadelphia Submarine Mining Company on a contract to raise the Russian ships sunk at Sevastopol harbor during the Crimean War. Eakins returned from Crimea in 1859 with a reputation as “a perfect electrician and experienced in submarine explosions.”

During the Civil War from 1862 to 1863, Eakins worked closely with Brutus de Villeroi, on the development and construction of de Villeroi’s Submarine Propeller.

Eakins’ knowledge of underwater salvage, electricity and demolition caused the US Navy to award Eakins the temporary Navy rank of Acting Master. After the US Navy’s disagreement with de Villeroi over design issues caused “Natural Genius’ de Villeroi to be removed from the project in 1862, Eakins took over supervising the revisions made to the Submarine Propeller at Washington’s Navy Yard.

In March 1863, just after work on the boat was finished, Eakins was notified by Union Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles that the Submarine Propeller had been accepted onto the Rolls of the US Navy as the USS Alligator.

Eakins, his crew and the Alligator were to join the South Atlantic Blockade Squadron off Charleston, SC, where Admiral Samuel DuPont was planning to attack the Charleston harbor defenses.

While on their way to Charleston, the Alligator was sunk in a heavy gale off Cape Hatteras, Eakins and crew having been previously transferred to the accompanying USS Sumpter.

Eakins and crew arrived at DuPont’s headquarters in Port Royal SC to find that his temporary rank of Acting Master had been revoked, and that the Alligator’s crew would be “used where needed” in DuPont’s Squadron.

After his resignation from the Navy, Eakins spent several years out west before returning east and settling his family in Raleigh, NC.

It was during the gale that ultimately sank the Alligator that Eakins received injuries that would plague him for the rest of his life. By 1892 and in poor health, Eakins sought a disability pension from the US Government, which was granted in 1893.

In June, 1894, Samuel Eakins died at his home in Raleigh, NC. He was 84.

Three lives, lived in a time much like our own, a time where every life was accounted for the effect its living caused, and the number of lives each life touched.

That touch would echo down through history to the present day, and then onward, into the future.

(Note: All graphic images of Infernal Machine game materials used in this series of articles are subjective and may change and appear different in their final form.  All images show sourcing unless otherwise noted.)

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“The Hunt for the Alligator,” Navy & Marine History Association, navyandmarine.org,

“NOAA, Navy Continue Hunt For Lost Civil War Submarine Alligator,” Office of Naval Research, onr.navy.mil

Ragan, Mark, “Union & Confederate Submarine Warfare in the Civil War,” Mason City, IA, 1999, Savas Publishing Co. ISBN 1-882810-32-5

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