American Diver
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{{Infobox ship image |Ship image = American Diver.jpg |Ship caption = Cross-section of the American Diver. From a sketch drawn by Jame R. McClintock in 1872. }} {{Infobox ship career |Ship country = C.S.A. |Ship flag = {{shipboxflag|Confederate States of America|naval}} |Ship name = American Diver |Ship builder = Horace L. Hunley |Ship laid down = 1862 |Ship launched = January 1863 |Ship acquired = |Ship in service = |Ship out of service = February 1863 |Ship fate = Lost }} {{Infobox ship characteristics |Ship displacement = |Ship length = {{convert|36|ft|abbr=on}} |Ship beam = {{convert|3|ft|abbr=on}} |Ship propulsion = Hand-cranked propeller |Ship speed = |Ship complement = 5 crew |Ship armament = }} |
American Diver, also known as the Pioneer II, was a prototype submarine built for the Confederate States of America military. It was the first successor to the Pioneer. The Diver was invented and built by the same consortium that built the Pioneer in New Orleans. It was composed of Horace Lawson Hunley, James McClintock, and Baxter Watson. They were forced to move their operations to Mobile, Alabama, following the capture of New Orleans by Union forces in April 1862.{{cite book |title=The American Civil War: A Military History |last=Keegan |first=John |year=2009 |publisher=Random House |page=287}} Although ultimately unsuccessful, it served as a model in the development of the consortium's next submarine, the H. L. Hunley. The Hunley eventually became the first combat submarine to sink an enemy warship.{{cite web |url=http://www.hunley.org/main_index.asp?CONTENT=DIVER |title=American Diver: A New Diver of Destruction |date=September 17, 2011 |work=Friends of the Hunley |access-date=September 20, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20021211024111/http://www.hunley.org/main_index.asp?CONTENT=DIVER |archive-date=December 11, 2002 |url-status=dead |df=mdy-all }}
History
The Diver was designed and built by the consortium in late 1862. Over the course of several months many costly attempts were made to propel the submarine with some type of electrical motor and then a steam engine, but both methods proved to be failures. The steam engine was finally replaced by a hand-crank. The submarine was ready for trials by January 1863. It required four crew members to turn the propeller crank and one to steer and was deemed to be too slow by the team. Nonetheless, it was decided in February 1863, to tow the submarine down the bay to Fort Morgan and attempt an attack on the Union blockade of Mobile. However, the submarine foundered in the heavy chop caused by foul weather and the currents at the mouth of Mobile Bay and sank.{{cite book|author=John S. Sledge|title=The Mobile River|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uqgGCAAAQBAJ&pg=PT188|date=29 May 2015|publisher=University of South Carolina Press|isbn=978-1-61117-486-1|pages=188–189}} The crew escaped, but the boat was not recovered.{{cite web |url=http://www.navy.mil/navydata/cno/n87/usw/issue_32/hunley.html |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20121016165452/http://www.navy.mil/navydata/cno/n87/usw/issue_32/hunley.html | archivedate=October 16, 2012 |title=The Birth of Undersea Warfare – H.L. Hunley |date=September 17, 2011 |work=Undersea Warfare: The Official Magazine of the U.S. Submarine Force |publisher=United States Navy }}
References
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Category:Submarines of the Confederate States Navy
Category:Alabama in the American Civil War
Category:Shipwrecks of the Alabama coast
Category:Shipwrecks of the American Civil War
Category:Archaeological sites in Alabama
Category:Ships built in Alabama