It was about this time that I saw that celebrated torpedo submarine boat, the _Hundley_, the first submarine boat ever built. As I was standing on the bank of the Stono River, I saw the boat passing along the river, where her builder, H. L. Hundley, had brought her for practice. I watched her as she disappeared around a bend of the river, and little thought of the fearful tragedy that was immediately to ensue. She made an experimental dive, stuck her nose in the mud, and drowned her entire crew. Her career was such an eventful one that I record what I recollect of it. She was built in Mobile by Hundley, and brought on to Charleston in 1863. She was of iron, about 20 feet long, 4 feet wide, and 5 feet deep--in fact, not far from round, as I have seen it stated; and equipped with two fins, by which she could be raised or lowered in the water. The intention of her builder was that she should dive under an enemy's vessel, with a torpedo in tow, which would be dragged against the vessel, and exploded while the _Hundley_, or "_Fish_," as some called her, rose on the other side. She was worked by a hand propeller, and equipped with water tanks, which could be filled or emptied at pleasure, and thus regulate her sinking or rising. The first experiment with her was made in Mobile Bay, and she went down all right with her crew of seven men, but did not come up, and every man died, asphyxiated, as no provision had been made for storing a supply of air. As soon as she was raised, she was brought to Charleston, and a few days after her acceptance by General Beauregard, Lieutenant Payne, of the Confederate Navy, volunteered with a crew of six men to man her and attack the Federal fleet off Charleston. While he had her at Fort Johnson, on James Island, and was making preparations for the attack, one night as she was lying at the wharf the swell of a passing steamer filled her, and she went to the bottom, carrying with her and drowning the six men. Lieutenant Payne happened to be near an open manhole at the moment, and thus he alone escaped. Notwithstanding the evidently fatal characteristics of this boat, as soon as she was raised another crew of six men volunteered under Payne and took charge of her. But only a week afterwards an exactly similar accident happened while she was alongside the wharf at Fort Sumter, and only Payne and two of his men escaped.