Nearly thirty years before the Civil War, Charleston had distinguished
herself in the arts of peace by producing the first locomotive tried in
the United States, and by constructing the first consecutive hundred
miles of railroad ever built in the world, and now, with the War, she
distinguished herself by initiating other mechanical devices of very
different character--a semi-submersible torpedo boat and the first
submarine to torpedo a hostile war vessel. True, David Bushnell of
Connecticut did construct a crude sort of submarine during the
Revolutionary War, and succeeded in getting under a British ship with
the machine, but he was unable to fasten his charge of powder and his
effort consequently failed. Robert Fulton also experimented with
submarines, or "plunging boats" as he called them, and was encouraged
for a time by Napoleon I. The little _David_ of the Confederate navy is
sometimes referred to as the first submarine but the _David_ was not
actually an underwater boat, but a torpedo boat which could run awash,
with her funnels and upper works slightly out of water. She was a
cigar-shaped vessel thirty-three feet long, built of wood, propelled by
steam, and carrying her torpedo on a pole, forward. Dr. St. Julien
Ravenel of Charleston and Captain Theodore Stoney devised the craft, and
she was built by funds subscribed by Charleston merchants.
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