In the Revolution, Charleston played an important part. Men of Charleston were, of course, among the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, who gave us the immortal maxim: "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute!" who was on Washington's staff, was later Ambassador to France and president-general of the Sons of the Cincinnati, was a Charlestonian of the Charlestonians, and lies buried in St. Michael's. Such Revolutionary names as Marion, Laurens, William Washington, Greene, Hampton, Moultrie and Sumter are associated with the place, and two of these are reëchoed in the names of those famous forts in Charleston harbor on which attention was fixed at the outbreak of the Civil War: Moultrie and Sumter--the latter, target for the first shot fired in the conflict.
Nearly thirty years before the Civil War, Charleston had distinguished herself in the arts of peace by producing the first locomotive tried in the United States, and by constructing the first consecutive hundred miles of railroad ever built in the world, and now, with the War, she distinguished herself by initiating other mechanical devices of very different character--a semi-submersible torpedo boat and the first submarine to torpedo a hostile war vessel. True, David Bushnell of Connecticut did construct a crude sort of submarine during the Revolutionary War, and succeeded in getting under a British ship with the machine, but he was unable to fasten his charge of powder and his effort consequently failed. Robert Fulton also experimented with submarines, or "plunging boats" as he called them, and was encouraged for a time by Napoleon I. The little _David_ of the Confederate navy is sometimes referred to as the first submarine but the _David_ was not actually an underwater boat, but a torpedo boat which could run awash, with her funnels and upper works slightly out of water. She was a cigar-shaped vessel thirty-three feet long, built of wood, propelled by steam, and carrying her torpedo on a pole, forward. Dr. St. Julien Ravenel of Charleston and Captain Theodore Stoney devised the craft, and she was built by funds subscribed by Charleston merchants. In command of Lieutenant W.T. Glassell, C.S.N., and with three other men aboard, she torpedoed the United States ship _New Ironsides_, flagship of the fleet blockading Charleston. The _New Ironsides_ was crippled, but not lost. After this United States vessels blockading Charleston protected themselves with booms. This resulted in the construction of an actual undersea torpedo boat, the _Hunley_. This extraordinary vessel has been spoken of as having had the appearance of a huge iron coffin, as well as the attributes of one, for she proved a death-trap for successive crews on three trial trips. As there were no electric motors or gasoline engines in those days, she was run by hand, eight men crowded together turning a crank-shaft which operated her propeller. After repeated sinkings, she was raised, manned by new men, and sent forth again. Finally, in Charleston harbor she succeeded in destroying the United States man-o'-war _Housatonic_, but at the same time went down, herself, drowning or suffocating all on board. A memorial drinking fountain on the Battery, at the foot of Meeting Street, commemorates "the men of the Confederate Army and Navy, first in marine warfare to employ torpedo boats--1863-1865." On this memorial are given the names of sixteen men who perished in torpedo attacks on the blockading fleet, among them Horace L. Hunley, set down as inventor of the submarine boat. The names of fourteen others who were lost are unknown.