The New Orleans submarine boat was also built by the Confederates during the Civil War. A friend who took the photograph of this vessel told me the following story as related to him by a Southern gentleman who was familiar with the history of the boat. It appears that this submarine was the conception of a wealthy planter who owned a number of slaves. He thought that it would add considerable interest to the occasion of her launching if, when the vessel left the ways, she should disappear beneath the waves and make a short run beneath the surface before coming up. So he took two of his most intelligent slaves and instructed them how to hold the tiller when the vessel slid down the ways, and in which way to turn the propeller for a time after she began to lose her launched speed. He told them when they got ready to come up they should push the tiller down and the vessel would come to the surface to be towed ashore. A great crowd assembled to see this novel launching. "When things were all ready," said the old Southern gentleman, "sure enough, them two niggers got into the boat and shut down the hatches; and do you know, suh, that at that time them niggers was worth a thousand dollars apiece." Well, it seems that the boat slid down the ways and disappeared under the water just as had been planned. The crowd waited expectantly, but the vessel did not reappear. Eventually they got into boats and put out hooks and grappling lines, but she could not be found. The designer of the craft stated as his opinion that "he might have known better than to trust them pesky niggers anyway," and he was willing to bet that they had taken the opportunity to steal the vessel and run away. He asserted that very likely they would take the boat up North and give it to the Yankees, and that they could expect to hear of the "Yanks" using it to blow up some of their own (Confederate) ships. Her disappearance remained a mystery for a great many years--until long after the war closed, in fact, and the incident had been forgotten. Years afterward, during some dredging operations to deepen the harbor, the dredge buckets one day got hold of something they could not lift. A diver was sent down to investigate, and he reported that there was some metal object buried in the mud which looked like a steam boiler. They set to work to raise this, and putting chains around it they lifted it on to the wharf. The old gentleman, in closing the narrative, remarked, "And do you know, suh, when they opened the hatch them two blamed niggers was still in thar, but they warn't wuth a damned cent."