The Hunt for the U. S. Navy's First Sub

Photograph by James Boyle/ONR

Continuing the partnership that led to the successful recovery of the USS Monitor's famous revolving gun turret, NOAA and the U.S. Navy have joined forces to uncover the secrets of another technological marvel of the Civil War-era: the USS Alligator, the U.S. Navy's first submarine. Built two years before the Confederate sub, H.L. Hunley, Alligator represented a significant leap forward in naval engineering. However, details about the vessel and its fate have eluded historians for decades. With help from naval historians, maritime archaeologists, oceanographers, meteorologists, ocean explorers, and students, NOAA and the Navy have unearthed new information about USS Alligator that is helping to fill large gaps in the history of the all-but-forgotten Union vessel and determine what happened after it was lost in a storm off North Carolina in 1863.

"Through the Alligator Project, we are applying our knowledge of oceanography, meteorology, and engineering to solve a mystery of national historic importance," said Daniel J. Basta, director of NOAA's National Marine Sanctuary Program, which houses NOAA's new Maritime Heritage Program. "This project is also about getting people, young and old alike, excited about marine science and exploration and connecting the public to our nation's maritime heritage. It offers the perfect mix of history, mystery and technology." Today, few are aware of Alligator and its place in history. Until recently, its existence was news even to lifelong U.S. Navy submariners, including Rear Admiral (RADM) Jay Cohen, currently Chief of Naval Research.

"I had never heard of the Alligator. I had never read about or seen a reference to it. Nothing," Cohen said. It was Cohen's wife who alerted him to it after reading an article about the sub in a Civil War magazine. RADM Cohen was stunned. Most history books cite the USS Holland, launched in 1897, as the Navy's first sub. Eager to delve deeper into Alligator's story, Cohen shared the article with Basta and ocean explorer Robert Ballard. The admiral knew they would immediately grasp the significance of the submarine to American maritime history and might be in a position to aid in the search for clues into the history and possible location of the long-lost sub.

They soon learned that the Alligator was something right out of Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." Built to counter the threat of Confederate ironclads, the green 47-foot-long, oar-propelled submarine was a vessel like no other. Among its most notable features was an airlock designed to allow a diver to exit the vessel while submerged and place an explosive charge on an enemy ship.

Alligator's design also included an air purification system. Both are standard components of modern submarines. Following its launch from a Philadelphia shipyard in 1862, Alligator was tasked with destroying bridges crossing the Appomattox River and clearing obstructions in the James River in Virginia. But to the dismay of its champions, Alligator would never get the chance to prove itself in battle. After arriving in the combat zone, its captain and crew discovered that the waters of the James and Appomattox were too shallow to allow the sub to submerge.

The Alligator also proved to be less maneuverable than expected. Fearing that it could be captured by the Confederacy, the Alligator was withdrawn and towed to the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., where it was refitted with a hand-cranked screw propeller. President Lincoln himself witnessed a demonstration of the "improved" vessel. After declaring that the USS Alligator was ready for action, RADM Samuel Dupont ordered the sub to Charleston, S.C., in March 1863, to assist with the Union blockade of that strategically important city. It would be a fateful journey.

While heading south along the North Carolina coast, Alligator and its tow vessel, USS Sumpter, encountered a storm so fierce that the Sumpter's crew, facing the loss of their own ship, was forced to cut the unmanned submarine loose. The Union sub was never seen again. "We don't know what happened to the Alligator after its towline was cut," Basta said. "Did it sink right away? Did it float for days and then sink? Did it wash up on a beach somewhere? Is it still intact or has it succumbed to corrosion?" To help answer those questions Basta enlisted the assistance of faculty and students at the U.S. Naval Academy.

Three decades earlier, Naval Academy instructors and midshipmen had aided in the successful search for another Civil War vessel, the USS Monitor.

National Marine Sanctuary Program director Daniel J. Basta (left), national partnership coordinator Catherine Marzin (center) and education coordinator Michiko Martin examine the blueprints of USS Alligator, the Navy's first submarine, which Marzin found in France. Photograph by David Hall/NOAA

The academy team formulated a number of theories about the Alligator's fate based on the best information available. Basta also looked internally for help. He knew that the key to success was learning more about Alligator and the man who invented it, French immigrant and self-described "natural genius", Brutus de Villeroi. Immediately, he thought of the National Marine Sanctuary Program's national partnership coordinator, Catherine Marzin, who hails from Villeroi's native France. Believing French historians might know something about Villeroi and the Alligator and knowing that Marzin was already planning to visit relatives in France, Basta presented Marzin with a challenge: Find the blueprints to the Alligator!

Marzin's search for information about Villeroi and the sub led her to the French naval archives outside Paris. Sure enough, they had a file, or, rather, a box, labeled "System of Naval Construction, Submarine, Blueprints, de Villeroi, 1832-1882." The box contained a complete set of original drawings of Alligator, the only blueprints of the submarine found to date. "It was a very exciting moment," said Marzin of her discovery. "It was like hitting the jackpot." With the drawings were a number of hand-written letters exchanged by Villeroi and the French government.

The letters document Villeroi's repeated but unsuccessful attempts to persuade his own country to purchase his submarine designs. The newly re-discovered blueprints are already helping The Alligator Project team partners, including NOAA's Office of Ocean Exploration, refine their theories about the vessel's fate. "The blueprints provide information that we can use to calculate how quickly the Alligator may have flooded and how fast it may have been going when it hit the sea floor," said the sanctuary program's National Education Coordinator, Michiko Martin, who was one of the Naval Academy instructors involved in the Alligator Project before joining NOAA in the fall of 2002. The blueprints and other recent findings by the project team generated a lot of enthusiasm in October 2003 at a first-ever symposium about the USS Alligator.

Sponsored by NOAA and the Office of Naval Research and held, appropriately, at the Submarine Force Museum in Groton, CT, the meeting sparked discussion about the possibility of locating and recovering the historically significant vessel.

Alligator Project team member NOAA Lt.(j.g.) Jeremy Weirich, a maritime archaeologist with the Office of Ocean Exploration, said that combining information from the blueprints with other historical and scientific data will "allow us to design a more reliable and systematic survey plan" and "give us a better chance of finding it" should a search begin in earnest. Cohen argued that the search for the Alligator would be an excellent test of our ability to find a relatively small object on the sea floor, "in an intelligent way over a reasonable period of time and at a reasonable cost." He said that in the age of ultra-quiet diesel submarines and heightened concerns about the security of our ports and near-shore waters, it's the potential deployment of small, inexpensive submerged weapons that keeps him awake at night. "But if we can find the Alligator, we can find anything," he said. The consensus among the symposium's participants was that the hunt itself is as important as actually recovering the craft.

"Whether we find the Alligator or not, the Alligator Project will help us move ocean science and exploration forward," said NOAA Capt. Craig McLean, director of the Office of Ocean Exploration. "We also will engage, and hopefully inspire, more than a few budding scientists and historians along the way."

Blueprint of an early design for the Alligator. (Image courtesy of the National Marine Sanctuary Program) NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration.

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