The keg mines [torpedoesl did not meet with success. Although thisĪttempt by Bushnell is referred to in history books as the Battle of the Kegs, there was no actualīattle. One or all of these kegs would drift into the British ships anchored at Philadelphia. He filled kegs with gunpowder and assembled a flintlock mechanism adjusted so that a light shock would release the hammer and fire the powder.īushnell sent the floating kegs down the Delaware River in December 1777 with the hope that During the American Revolution Bushnell was authorized to design a sea mine (usually referred to as a "torpedo" by Bushnell) to be used against the British fleet. In his research, he discovered that gunpowder could be exploded underwater. As a student at Yale University, Bushnell worked on the development of underwater explosives. Bushnell created crude mines by packing gunpowder into butter churns and beer kegs and setting them afloat in the Delaware River to drift down onto the British fleet at Philadelphia. The history of mine warfare in the United States dates back to the Revolutionary War and David Bushnell, inventor of the first practical submarine.
A watertight oak cask filled with gunpowder would then be attached to the screw, and a timed fuse would ignite the explosion. The idea was to submerge below a British ship and drive a long screw into the ship's hull. Powered by a pedal-operated propeller and armed with a keg of powder, the egg-shaped Turtle gave Revolutionary Americans high hopes for a secret weapon - a weapon that could destroy the British war-ships anchored in New York Harbor. The small Turtle held enough air to last one person a half-hour. The one-man vessel submerged by admitting water into the hull and surfaced by pumping it out with a hand pump. David Bushnell, a Yale graduate, designed and built a submarine torpedo boat in 1776. The first American submarine is as old as the United States itself.
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