Thanks to P. R. Drake II, and for the interest of all.  Previously lost from the records of the Navy.   

Union sub wreckage sought off N.C. coast
U.S. Navy's Civil War vessel, the Alligator, believed to be older than
the Confederacy's Hunley
By MICHAEL KILIAN
Chicago Tribune

WASHINGTON — Undersea explorers will plunge into the waters off Cape
Hatteras and into the depths of long-forgotten history Sunday in hopes
of finding the 141-year-old wreckage of the U.S. Navy's first
submarine.

Named the Alligator because of its green color and the leglike oars
that initially propelled it, the vessel was launched in 1862. It
failed in its assigned missions against Confederate targets in
Virginia's Hampton Roads area and sank off North Carolina's Outer
Banks while under tow in a fierce storm in 1863.

Discovery of the Alligator would undercut the claim of various
Confederate historical groups that the Confederate navy's H.L. Hunley
was the first working submarine. Built in 1863 in Mobile, Ala., the
25-foot Hunley sank the Union warship USS Housatonic the following
year.

The Hunley wreckage was discovered off Charleston harbor in 1995 and
was raised in 2000.

The expedition to discover the Alligator, a joint enterprise of the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Navy's Office
of Naval Research, will spend 10 days working a shallow underwater
area east of Ocracoke Island, where unidentified sunken objects have
recently been discovered.

If this effort fails to find the vessel, future searches ultimately
could take the team to deep water on the brink of the Atlantic Shelf.

QUEST THROUGH HISTORY

For decades, historians had identified the USS Holland, an 1897
precursor to the submarines used in World War I, as the Navy's first
submarine. But in recent years, Civil War historians have come across
evidence of the existence of the Alligator, prompting the Navy to
become extremely interested in locating the 47-foot vessel.

"I had never heard of the Alligator," said Rear Adm. Jay Cohen, chief
of naval research. "I had never read about or seen a reference to it —
nothing."

It was only last year that exploration project manager Catherine
Marzin found letters and scale drawings of the sub in an obscure
archive in France.

The Alligator was designed by French inventor Brutus de Villeroi,
whose papers were in the French archive. It was originally developed
for the Union Navy as a counter to the first Confederate ironclad, the
CSS Virginia, also called the Merrimack. In the end, it was the
Monitor that thwarted the Virginia.

The Alligator was nevertheless launched May 1, 1862, at Philadelphia,
where its strange appearance so frightened residents that the vessel
was initially confiscated by the Philadelphia police.

Taking possession of it, the Union Navy sent the craft down to the
lower Chesapeake Bay area, where it was ordered to destroy a key
Confederate bridge over the Appomattox River and remove debris from
the James River that was blocking the water route to Richmond.

But the rivers proved too shallow for the Alligator to maneuver, and
the submarine had to be withdrawn to the Washington Navy Yard.

President Abraham Lincoln himself took part in the subsequent sea
trial observations.

Far ahead of its time, the Alligator was equipped with an
air-purification system and a water-tight air lock for divers. The
submarine carried a crew of 17 to 22, depending on its mission.

FATEFUL STORM SEALED SUB'S FATE

The Alligator was assigned to take part in Union Navy operations
against the port of Charleston. But taken under tow by the Union
warship USS Sumpter in April 1863, it met its doom when the Sumpter
encountered a ferocious storm off Hatteras.

The sub was a drag on the other vessel and threatened to sink them both.

"There were two towlines, and one broke," said Marzin. "The Sumpter
had no choice but to cut the other line and set the submarine adrift."

No crew members were aboard the sub at the time.

NOAA and Navy experts have been using computer technology and weather
models to try to determine the position of the vessels when the
Alligator was cut loose, and to figure out how far it might have
traveled before sinking. The expedition team is using a research
vessel along with side-seeing sonar and magnetometers.

"No decision has been made about recovering the Alligator," said
Marzin, noting that Titanic discoverer Robert Ballard and other
undersea archaeologists have strong feelings against disturbing
underwater wrecks.

For the Navy, simply locating the submarine may be enough.

"If we can find the Alligator, we can find anything," said Cohen.
 


 


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