Rebel Submarine Battery

Found this great page which has online archive of our collection of original Harper's Weekly newspapers (Harper's weekly was the most important source of news during the US Civil War)


"M. OLIVIER DE JALIN sends to the French Le Monde Illustre drawings of a submarine vessel which we reproduce on this page, abridging his description. There has just been finished, he says, at Mobile a very curious little vessel, designed by Mr. Anstilt, which seems capable of destroying any ship in the world.



It is of iron, 23 yards long. The interior is divided longitudinally by a partition into two portions: in the upper one are the machinery, armament, rudders, and reservoirs of compressed air; in the lower are chambers to hold air or water, as the case may demand, coal-bunkers, provision-lockers, and the like. On the deck, which is hermetically closed, are pipes for discharging air and steam, a smoke-stack, and a look-out, the upper part of which is of thick glass. The motive-power is a screw, worked either by steam or by electricity"

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1864/january/rebel-submarine.htm