Turtle was the one-person submarine used in an American attack on a British warship in New York Harbor in 1776.
David Bushnell designed Turtle, a wooden vessel operated by a single person. Its pilot was meant to approach a ship underwater, attach an explosive charge to the hull, and retreat before the charge detonated. The craft was powered by hand-operated propellers and controlled with a foot-operated water ballast system.
On the night of September 6, 1776, Sergeant Ezra Lee piloted Turtle toward HMS Eagle, a British ship anchored in New York Harbor. Lee could not penetrate the ship’s copper sheathing, so the planned charge was not attached. The attempt nevertheless became an early landmark in submarine warfare.
Turtle is often confused with H. L. Hunley, a Confederate submarine used during the American Civil War, and USS Monitor, an ironclad warship from that conflict. Turtle was neither a conventional ship nor a successful sinking weapon; it was an experimental Revolutionary War craft.