The H. L. Hunley: Requiem for a Civil War Submarine and Crew

Imagine sitting in a tin can underwater. You are sitting in close quarters to six other men as you silently power the deadly metal serpent towards the belly of an enemy warship. Your captain sits a few feet ahead of you and the other men. He steers the submarine, the H. L. Hunley, towards its fateful target.

In the back of your head you keep thinking of the first and second ill-fated crews of this submersible demon you sit within and of the watery deaths that befell them. Co-inventor and financier Horace Lawson Hunley himself was killed along with the second crew, as the submarine inadvertently filled with water on a test dive and all drowned ¹. You swallow hard and keep rowing. Tonight, you fight for the Confederacy. You must be brave. Row harder. The H. L. Hunley has a date with destiny and you are going to make sure it makes it. Little do you know you will never return from your mission!

The submarine the H.L. Hunley actually carried out its mission in battle and sank a Union warship, the U.S.S. Housatonic, after ramming a spar filled with black powder charge at its side ². What happened to the H. L. Hunley and crew next is speculation, but they never returned to their home port of Sullivan's Island on that fateful night of February 17, 1864 ². The crew sailed into history on the first submarine to sink a warship ³, a notable if not sad achievement during a time when our nation stood divided against itself.

The U.S.S. Canandaigua was nearby when the Housatonic was hit. Though the Housatonic sank immediately, the Canandaigua rescued 150 men from the warship, including Captain Pickering. Unfortunately, five brave men did go down with the ship ³.

It is fascinating to me that submarines were part of the naval strategy of the Civil War. It is even more fascinating to me to know that submarine technology has been around since the Middle Ages. (In 1620, a Dutch inventor, Cornelius Van Drebbel, built and navigated the first documented submersible boat underwater ⁴ .) Not only is the last voyage of the H. L Hunley notable because it was the first submarine ever documented to sink an enemy ship in battle¹ , but because of its Confederate role in the Civil War.

Fast forward to August 8, 2000, as the 10-ton H. L. Hunley is raised from the depths of Charleston Harbor, South Carolina ³. The crew members are all still sitting at their stations, frozen in time. This suggests that they did not drown. Perhaps they ran out of oxygen as they waited for the tide to come in so they could journey back to Sullivan's Island that fateful night.

Finally, DNA tests are finished and on April 17, 2004, the crew members' remains are finally blessed and buried near where the H. L. Hunley's first and second crews were laid to rest, at Magnolia Cemetery in Charleston, South Carolina ². Thousands are in attendance, dressed in both Confederate and Union uniforms. Women wear period black mourning dresses with black veils. In attendance are approximately 40 relatives of the deceased ².Hence, the last Confederate Funeral-140 years after the brave crew died!

The raised H. L. Hunley now sits in a tank of freshwater at the old Charleston Naval Yard until restoration can be performed ². The many years of being in the salty waters of the sea has all but corroded the iron hull away. If it were to be taken out of water, it would crumble into a pile of rust! Since the submarine and its contents are estimated to be worth over 40 million dollars ¹ , to let it disintegrate would be an economic and historical tragedy.

The first and most important step in preserving the H. L. Hunley is to remove all salt water deposits from it. This is done by soaking the submarine in a sodium hydroxide or sodium carbonate solution ⁵. It is estimated that Clemson University and the Hunley Commission will spend over 3 million dollars for restoration efforts alone ⁵ before the project is complete.

There is a fascinating website dedicated to the H. L. Hunley and its history: Hunley.org. There is also a site, U.S.macmillan.com/thehunley, with an interactive blueprint of the H. L. Hunley. As your pointer hovers over different areas such as the crew cabin and captain's spot, different pieces of information will pop-up. Links to both of these websites can be found at the end of this article.

Each crew member of the H. L. Hunley was awarded a posthumous medal of valor. An American soldier is indeed a hero, and whether or not your ancestor fought for the Union or the Confederates, these men will be rightly forever honored as such.

Sources:

1. H.L. Hunley (Submarine), Wikipedia.org.

2. Bruce Smith, Associated Press, "Civil War Soldiers Laid to Rest," Sun Herald, Biloxi, Mississippi, April 18, 2004.

3. "CSS H.L. Hunley Sinks Housatonic," History.navy.mil/docs/civilwar/hunley.

4. "Submarine Trivia," Tribes.tribe.net.

5. John Monk, "Work on the Hunley to go on for Years," September 26, 2006, Hunleystore.com/newsletter_66-notes.