Battles and Leaders of the Civil WarUSS Montauk—one of the vessels in the U.S. South Atlantic Blockading Squadron—is depicted in action on the Ogeechee River in Georgia during the Civil War.
In its January 9, 1864, issue, the editors of The Scientific American reprinted a recently published account in the New York Herald from a correspondent reporting on Union-occupied Port Royal, South Carolina. In it, he profiled the man enlisted to clean the hulls of ironclad monitor-class warships then operating as part of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron:
During a recent visit to Port Royal I witnessed with considerable interest the operations of the divers employed to clean the bottoms of the monitors, and perform other operations under the water. Messrs. Joseph H. Smith and James B. Phelps have a contract with the Government for the performance of this work, and have been of great use here. The principal diver—appropriately names Waters—is so used to this work that he has become almost amphibious, remaining for five or six hours at a time under water. A man of herculean strength and proportions, when clad in his submarine armor he becomes monstrous in size and appearance.
A more singular sight than to see him roll or tumble into the water and disappear from sight, or popping up, blowing, as the air escapes from his helmet, like a young whale, can scarcely be imagined. Waters has his own ideas of a joke, and when he has a curious audience will wave his scraper about as he “bobs around” on the water, with the air of a veritable river god….
The diver when clothed in his armor is weighted with 185 pounds. Besides his armor, he has two leaden pads, fitting to his breast and back. The soles of his shoes are of lead, an inch and a half thick. All this weight is needed to overcome the buoyancy given by the mass of air forced into the armor and dress, the latter of india-rubber, worn by the diver. When below the surface he can instantly bring himself up by closing momentarily the aperture in the helmet for the escape of the air. His buoyancy is immediately increased, and he pops up like a cork and floats at will upon the surface. The work of scraping the bottoms of the monitors is very arduous.
The diver sits upon a spar, lashed athwart the bottom of the vessel, so arranged as to be moved as the work progresses, and with a scraper fixed to a long handle, works on both sides of himself as far as he can reach. The mass of oysters that becomes attached to the iron hulls of one of the monitors, even during one Summer here, is immense. By actual measurement it was estimated that 250 bushels of oysters, shells and sea weed were taken from the bottom of the Montauk alone. The captains of the monitors have sometimes indulged in the novelty of a mess of oysters raised on the hulls of their own vessels.
Besides cleaning the monitors, the divers perform other important services. They have ransacked the interior of the Keokuk, attached buoys to lost anchors, and made under-water examinations of the Rebel obstructions. Waters recently examined the sunken Weehawken and met an unusual danger for even his perilous calling. The sea was so violent that he was twice thrown from the deck of the monitor. Finally, getting hold of the iron ladder, he climbed to the top of the turret, when a heavy sea cast him inside the turret between the guns. Fearing that his air hose would become entangled, he made his way out with all possible speed, and was forced to give up his investigations until calmer weather offered a more favorable opportunity.
