Natural Genius

Based on copious documentation and eyewitness accounts, this is the long-awaited book on the U.S. Navy's first submarine and its designer, Brutus de Villeroi, whose long career of accomplishments as a respected civil engineer was to be capped by his greatest creation, a working submersible for the navy of his adopted nation, with which it could sink the feared rebel ironclad, Virginia. The project did not go as planned, however, and it is difficult to explain the actions of the aging French inventor--actions that led to his dismissal. His boat would be taken over by the Federal Navy and become known as Alligator.