Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 29.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

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[294] her to the bottom, with her crew, Lieutenant Payne, who was in the conning tower, crawled out and swam until a boat from the steamer which had caused the disaster rescued him. Again she was raised and again Lieutenant Payne took command. With his crew of ten men he made ready one evening to set out from Fort Sumpter upon an offensive expedition against the Union fleet, when, for some unknown reason, the David ‘turned turtle,’ taking to the bottom this time eight of her ten men, two of the seamen escaping with the commander. That was enough for Lieutenant Payne; he gave up submarine naval manoeuvres.

In spite of the disastrous succession of accidents, one man maintained his faith in the David. That man was one of the designers, Mr. Aunley. He had the vessel raised, collected a crew, not without difficulty, and taking his craft up the Stone river, made several trials which seemed to justify his confidence. Then there came a day when the David went out and did not come back. Divers found her with her nose stuck in the mud. Mr. Aunley and his ten men were suffocated. For some time she lay at the bottom of the river, but another daring experimenter was found who undertook to navigate her successfully if she were raised. Raised she was, and the new commander might have made good his promises had he not attempted to show that he could take her under a schooner and up on the other side, in which experiment she fouled the cable and suffocated another crew.