I propose to you a new arm of war, as formidable as it is economical.

Submarine navigation, which has been sometimes attempted, but as all know without results, owing to want of suitable opportunities, is now a problematical thing no more.”

(French nautical designer Brutus de Villeroi, in a letter to U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.)

Though the “H.L. Hunley” is widely known as the first submarine to sink an enemy warship in combat, it was by no means the only submarine to come out of the American Civil War. The construction team headed by James McClintock and Baxter Watson who built the “Hunley” had already completed and tested two other designs for underwater vessels. Though there were other designs created and built south of the Mason-Line, they were by no means the only submersibles being built in North America in the 1860’s.

Just a month after the firing upon Fort Sumter, the police department of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania answered a call about “something strange going on” in the Delaware River.   

Upon arrival, the police found a sea trial underway, it being conducted by the mechanics and engineering staff of Philadelphia’s Neafle & Levy Shipbuilders. Their latest creation, a thirty-foot long underwater craft propelled by muscle power, had just surfaced after being underwater for over two hours. Not sure how to properly deal with the situation, the police arrested the crew and impounded the vessel.

The police soon learned that the staff of Neafle & Levy had built the craft for use in salvaging shipwrecks off the American coast. The plans for the boat were provided by a French émigré, one Brutus de Villeroi.

De Villeroi, who frequently referred to himself as “Natural Genius,” had emigrated to the United States in the 1850’s from his native France, after inventing several unique devices that he had tried unsuccessfully to sell to the French government.

His first submersible was built in 1832.  This vessel had a length of some fifteen feet with room inside for a crew of three, it was this creation that became the basis for de Villeroi’s second creation, the Neafle & Levy underwater salvage craft the police discovered being tested in the Delaware River.

As 1861 drew to a close, de Villeroi began an extensive correspondence with the United States Navy about how his underwater salvage craft could serve the nation in underwater warfare.

The Navy was convinced, as the following letter excerpt will attest:

In justice to Mr. de Villeroi we should state that the boat in question was constructed for salvage purposes and not for war uses, (for the latter, he proposes if his services are accepted by the Government to construct another on a larger scale whose greater capacity would afford additional facilities for the maneuvers of the men while it would also be provided with greatly increased power of propulsion) so that, in the experiment, we have considered that the current machine be employed simply as a model to demonstrate the principles to be established by the inventor.

 Henry K. Hoff, Commander, Chas. Steadman, Commander, Robert Danby, Chief Engineer, 7 July 1861 report to Capt. S.F. Du Pont, Comdg. U.S. Naval Station, Philadelphia

On the strength of the above communication to Captain Samuel Du Pont, de Villeroi received a government contract to build and test his “much larger vessel” designed specifically to conduct offensive operations while under water.

Not surprisingly, the US Navy was adamant that de Villeroi’s vessel be completed within 40 days of its keel being laid. Word had reached US Navy Secretary Gideon Welles that the Confederacy’s work converting the former USS “Merrimack” steam frigate into the ironclad CSS “Virginia” was almost completed. Though the US Navy’s new ironclad ”Monitor” was on its way from the New York Navy Yard to join the fleet at Hampton Roads, Welles and his Assistant Secretary Gustavus Fox were not sure it would arrive in time. As Welles and Fox saw it, only de Villeroi’s new underwater marvel stood a chance of stopping the rebel’s ironclad monster.

De Villeroi’s “Submarine Propeller” was certainly packing the latest in technological advancements of the era. The vessel had a length of forty seven feet, a beam of over four and a half feet and a height of five and a half feet. Along the upper surface of the vessel were a long line of circular glass windows to illuminate an interior painted white for maximum reflectivity.  Crew for the “Submarine Propeller” comprised a captain, a helmsman, one or two underwater divers and eighteen sailors each rowing an oar-like paddle to power the vessel through the water. Buoyancy was seen to by the use of two ballast tanks, one forward and one aft.

Air was pumped into the craft through the use of a mechanically driven air pump connected to a dorsally-mounted six-foot long snorkel tube.

This external air access was to supplement that being maintained by the vessel’s air purifying system. The purifier was a mechanism designed to “scrub” excess carbon dioxide from the air by passing it over a solution of lime water via a belt-driven and rotating wool fabric blanket, and leaving oxygen in its place.

In addition to several watertight compartments, the vessel mounted a pressurized airlock designed to allow the underwater divers to both depart from and then return to the submarine while the submarine was submerged. The airlock was accessible through an interior bulkhead door, as well as through a “man-hole” hatchway set in the floor of the airlock. Also kept within the airlock were a set of “limpet” mines equipped either with magnets or rubberized suction cups, with which the divers would be able to adhere the mines to the enemy vessel.

With mines attached, the divers would return to the submarine, paying out an insulated electrical wire connecting the limpet mines to an electrical storage battery on board the submarine. After the captain had withdrawn the “Submarine Propeller” to a safe distance from the target, the mines would be detonated via electrical charge, whereupon the vessel and crew would then make good their escape.

Though the construction team at Neafle & Levy was not able to meet their goal of producing the “Submarine Propeller” within the forty day time period, the vessel was launched on May 3rd, 1862, with orders to proceed from Philadelphia to Chesapeake Bay via the Delaware and Chesapeake Canal, for deployment with the US North Atlantic Blockade Squadron. It was thought that the “Submarine Propeller” would join the USS “Monitor,” and together they would deliver a stealthy killing blow against the damaged but still dangerous Confederate ironclad, CSS “Virginia,” currently under repairs at the Norfolk Navy Yard.

However, the “Submarine Propeller’s” arrival at station on May 16, 1862 coincided with the Confederate government’s ordering that Norfolk, Portsmouth and Hampton Roads be abandoned, and all works destroyed to prevent capture by the Union Navy.

The CSS “Virginia,” under her new Confederate Navy captain Josiah Tattnall, was beached on Craney Island in the Elizabeth River and set afire, blowing up when the flames reached her magazine.

With its primary target in charred pieces at the bottom of the Elizabeth River, de Villeroi’s “Submarine Propeller” would have to find other missions. The search would not be long; its unique abilities were about to take it on a raid deep behind the Confederate defenses of Richmond, Virginia.

If successful, the “Submarine Propeller” could end the American Civil War at one stroke.

Next time, Part 2 of “The Other Infernal Machine” finds de Villeroi’s “Submarine Propeller” getting a new name, new fittings, new upgrades, and a new mission that will test its underwater capabilities and its crew to their utmost.

See you then.              

(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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