(1742-1826?).
Inventor of the submarine. Connecticut. Born on 30 August
1740 in Saybrook, Connecticut, Bushnell attended Yale University from 1771 to
1775. While at college he demonstrated to skeptical instructors that gunpowder
could be detonated under water. He subsequently built a man-propelled submarine
that he called the American Turtle, so named because the top-shaped craft of
heavy oak beams was said to look like two turtle shells joined together, with
the tail end pointed downward. The submarine was unsuccessfully tried in the
waters around Boston, New York, New London, and Philadelphia during the years
1776 to 1778, but the American Turtle eventually proved that it could dive,
travel and navigate under water, plant a large time-charge of powder against
the hull of a ship, and surface.
The submarine never sank a warship, however, primarily
because no adequately skillful operator was ever found. With Sergeant Ezra Lee
of the Connecticut Line at the helm, the submarine unsuccessfully attacked
Admiral Richard Howe's flagship, the Eagle, in New York Harbor in 1776. Two
other attacks also failed. Giving up on his submarine, Bushnell switched to
developing undersea mines, attempting to blow up the British vessel Cerberus
off New London in the following year. The ship's captain saw the device, however,
and cut the line that tethered it in place. The mine floated to a nearby
schooner, where it exploded, killing three men. Bushnell contrived various
other devices to harry British shipping, and his unsuccessful floating-mine
attack on the British in Philadelphia in December 1777 inspired Francis
Hopkinson's poem, ``Battle of the Kegs.''
Although the public mocked Bushnell's efforts, his
inventions showed more promise than anyone realized. His technical
qualifications were recognized by the army, and on 2 August 1779 he was
commissioned as a captain-lieutenant of the newly organized Corps of Sappers
and Miners. On 8 June 1781 he was promoted to captain of the Engineers, and on
4 June 1783 he was given command of the Corps of Engineers at West Point. When
that body was disbanded, Bushnell was mustered out in November 1783. He sank
into obscurity after the Revolution, taking on assumed names, teaching, and
practicing medicine. His place of death is unknown, but it is thought that he
died in 1826.