by Mike Smith
Painting by Jim Christley
Alligator: W
(above) “The Launching – 1 May 1862” by Jim Christley. This original painting by Mr. Christley depicts the first launching of Alligator in 1862. Courtesy of the Independence Seaport Museum, Philadelphia, Pa.
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S P R I N G 2 0 0 6 U N D E R S E A WA R F A R E
The Forgotten Torchbearer of the U.S. Submarine Force
ith his ship wallowing in a Nor’easter off the coast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, J. F. Winchester, the captain of the wooden screw steamer USS Sumpter, was faced with a difficult decision − whether to continue on his mission to join the Union attack on Charleston, South Carolina, towing a revolutionary submersible whose likely foundering threatened to sink Sumpter herself – or to cut the towline and save his own ship. Shortly after noon on April 2, 1863, he made his decision, and his tow was set adrift, allowing Sumpter to fight another day. And with that decision, Winchester sent the U.S. Navy’s first submarine – Alligator – to its final resting place among thousands of other wrecks in the “Graveyard of the Atlantic” off Cape Hatteras and – unwittingly – removed Alligator from the annals of naval history for almost 140 years.
