It is thought that over 200 submarines were built, attempted or designed during the American Civil War by both sides.
Early 19th Century Submarines
After Revolutionary War experience with the Turtle, Yankee shipwrights reconstructed a near duplicate of the one-man midget sub for combat in the War of 1812. Cavalryman Wilhelm Bauer's Der Brandtaucher was built in 1850 in Germany. The 27-foot long submersible was powered by a hand crank turned by three crewmen. It sank while testing and laid on the bottom of Kiel harbor for almost forty years until raised and placed in a museum. Inventor and salvage expert Lodner Darvontis Phillips designed a number of craft for salvage work on the Great Lakes in the 1850s. Phillips visionary inventions included at least two small hand-cranked one-man submarines and an Atmospheric diving suit.
War Time Design
Early war submersibles such as the CSS Pioneer and the Union’s Alligator mimicked the earlier 19th century’s craft in being very small and human powered. A series of hand-turned cranks or manually operated oars propelled these early designs. Later designs evolved and steam powered craft such as the used the same concept of dual-propulsion plants; one for the surface and one while submerged; that continued to evolve for another 150-years. As designs moved forward so did weapons development from the impractical to the proven as evidenced by the fact that no less than one submersible (Hunley) successfully sank a warship while submerged. Features that are advanced for even today’s submarines such as diver’s lock-out chambers and Limpet mines were explored.
Success
Both sides had measured success in development. In 1861 each side had nothing even remotely like a submersible war craft at the time of the first shots of the War. By the end of the war dozens of attacks had been undertaken. The USS Housatonic was sunk in 1864. Some historians argue that the USS Tecumseh found herself at the end of a rebel submarine. The end of the War in 1865 found the US Navy in possession of several working rebel U-boats such as the CSS Midge to augment captured plans and their own indigenous designs. This helped to prepare the US Naval establishment for the post war experiments with the Intelligent Whale while many of the more advanced European navies had yet to even see their first submersible.
Sources:
Bale, Joanna American Civil War submarine found A unique boat from 1864 may have inspired Jules Verne to create Captain Nemo's vessel Nautilus, The Times London June 6, 2005
Cartmell, Donald The Civil War up close: thousands of curious, obscure, and fascinating facts about the war America could never win. Career Press, 2005
Chaffin, Tom The H.L.Hunley McMillian 2008
DANFS- Dictionary of Naval Fighting Ships Department of the Navy Naval Historical Center, Washington Naval Yard.
Delgado, James and Cussler, Cliver Adventures of a Sea Hunter: In Search of Famous Shipwrecks Douglas & McIntyre, 2004
Department of Maritime Archaeology Western Australian Museum, Report on the wreck of the Sub Marine Explorer (1865) at Isla SanTelmo, Archipielago de las Perlas, Panama, and the 2006 fieldwork season. Report—No. 221. 2007
Owen, David Anti-submarine warfare: an illustrated history Naval Institute Press, 2007
Ragan, Mark K Submarine warfare in the Civil War. Da Capo Press, 2003
Veit, Chuck Submarines in the Civil War
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