Civil War Sunday - The H.L. Hunley 150th

150 years ago tomorrow, February 17, 1864, submarine warfare began.

We don't think of the United States Civil War as being a naval war, but in fact, a portion of it was fought in naval actions - in harbors under siege, and on rivers.

On February 17, 1864 a Confederate submarine, primitive by today's standards but a marvel of technology back in 1864, embarked on a mission in Charleston Harbor. Charleston, in Confederate South Carolina, was where the Civil War began.  The Federals had been blockading the harbor. The brave men of the Hunley's crew knew that the vessel had sank the previous October, killing its crew and the man the sub was named after.  Would they accomplish their mission and return safely?

Can you imagine being in a small, claustrophobic sub, lit only by candles, powered by a hand crank, approaching a Union ship with a torpedo attached to a spar jutting out from your tiny vessel?

That night, the Hunley approached and sank a Union vessel, the USS Housatonic, signaled that they had achieved success...and then disappeared, not to be seen again until 1995.  The sub was raised in 2000, its dead buried with great ceremony and the sub moved to a building in North Charleston, South Carolina.  Now, researchers are closer than ever to finding out why the Hunley never returned from its mission.

Below is a post I wrote on the H.L. Hunley when I visited the restoration lab in 2012.  I do love the legend of the gold coin below, and this weekend, visitors to the H.L. Hunley will receive a copy of the coin.

The Legend of the Gold Coin (From April 7, 2012)

 Legends are always fascinating.  And sometimes, they are even true.


Today is the 150th anniversary of the second day of the two day Battle of Shiloh (Pittsburg Landing) in Tennessee.  This battle was the bloodiest battle in America up to its time (but would be surpassed later that year near a creek in Maryland called Antietam).   General Albert Sidney Johnston of the Confederate States of America lost his life at that battle (which was won by the Federals).  In a war that had so many "what if" turning points or "could have been" turning points, it may have been the death of Johnston that lead to the ultimate defeat of the Confederacy. (Ironically, it is also possible he was killed by friendly fire).  But, I will leave those debates to the historians.

What I love about the Civil War is those "rest of the stories" and one concerns a legend that turned out to be true.

The legend tells us that the sweetheart of one George Dixon gave him a gold coin as a token of her love as he went off to war, on the Confederate side.  He promised his sweetheart he would keep it with him always, and he kept that promise.  The coin was in his pants pocket as he fought at the Battle of Shiloh, and a bullet hit him - in the coin.  The coin deflected the bullet enough that the wound did not require amputation, and George Dixon lived to fight another day.

Lieutenant George Dixon died on the submarine H. L. Hunley, in Charleston Harbor, in 1864, as I have blogged about previously.  The Hunley was a marvel of the technology of the 1860's, a functional submarine that saw combat, but the crew met their death at the bottom of Charleston Harbor hours after their first and only battle action for reasons still unknown.

During the excavation of the H. L. Hunley, the coin was indeed found next to Dixon's body.

It is a $20. gold piece, bent, with an inscription:
Shiloh
April 6 1862
My life Preserver
G.E.D.

In the lab, traces of lead were discovered on the coin, leading scientists to conclude that the coin was indeed hit by a bullet.  And, due to where it was found, the authenticity of the coin is unquestioned.

I recently toured the lab restoring the Hunley.  You can not take photographs, but you can see the ship (in a preservation tank) and the coin.  And, that morning, something happened that could only happen in Hollywood. Except it didn't.

I was examining the coin, in its display case, with an older gentleman.  He mentioned that his great-great-great-great (I may have left out a "great" or two) grandfather had fought at Shiloh.

Bet Lieutenant Dixon was winking at us at that moment.

Civil War Sunday - Is the Mystery of the H.L. Hunley Solved?

The night of February 17, 1864.  It is cold.  Rumors of a secret Confederate weapon circulate among crew members of an enemy ship in Charleston Harbor, in South Carolina. The ship is the Union warship USS Housatonic.  It is one of a number of ships blockading Charleston Harbor to choke off supplies to the Confederacy.

A lookout on deck scans the dark water.  Perhaps he sees porpoises and notes their movement. (The Friends of the Hunley website notes there may have been porpoises in the water that night.)  No problems there.

Suddenly he sees movement that just doesn't look right.

 Meanwhile, below the surface of Charleston Harbor, a crew of eight labors at a hand crank that powers one of the first submarines ever built.  The state of the art craft will be a total surprise to the Yankees!

Candles barely light the dim, crowded space. (I've been in a reproduction which was 10% larger than the actual ship and - it was unbelievably tiny.)  It must have stank of sweat and anticipation, maybe even a little fear.

Look at the faces of the crew and note them well.

The submarine was the  H. L. Hunley, the "secret weapon". And what a weapon it was.

The eight brave men on the ship directed the Hunley into the Housatanic, planting a 135 pound torpedo in the Federal ship. (Note at that time the word "torpedo" did not have the modern day meaning of an explosive shot from a submarine but meant, rather, a tethered mine.)  The Hunley, we are told, then backed up.

There was an explosion.

The Housatonic sank.

Meanwhile, the story continues, the Hunley crew flashed a blue magnesium signal that told their fellow rebels that they had completed their mission.  The Confederates on land lit fires to guide the Hunley home.

They never returned.

They were lost for over 130 years.  What had happened?

The Hunley was found buried in the silt of Charleston Harbor in 1995, the eight crew members still at their stations.  There was no evidence that they had tried to escape. Their deaths apparently were peaceful.  What had happened in those last few minutes or hours before they embarked on their Eternal Patrol?

The ship was raised in 2000 and is being restored in a hanger in North Charleston, South Carolina.  When I took the public tour in 2012 (highly recommended, by the way) of the facility, the cause of crew member death was still not known, and we were told the best theory probably was that they had to flee to the bottom of the harbor for some unknown reason. The sub was designed to do just that, and could be submerged for some two hours.  But, perhaps, the candles had eaten up the oxygen and the crew fell asleep, never to wake.

Now, though, we may have an answer.  Just a few weeks ago this news was released:  
The latest evidence is that the Hunley was less than 20 feet away from the Housatonic when the torpedo exploded.  If you look at an artist's rendition of the Hunley on the Friends of the Hunley website, you see a spar sticking out from the vessel.  What if the torpedo had exploded at the end of that spar, as the forensic evidence now seems to indicate?   The concussion may have knocked out the crew, never to awaken.  (But then, what about the blue flare?)

The last minutes of the historic Confederate submarine continue to fascinate, and one day perhaps we may know the truth.

Civl War Saturday (Special Edition)-The Legend of the Gold Coin

Legends are always fascinating.  And sometimes, they are even true.

Today is the 150th anniversary of the second day of the two day Battle of Shiloh (Pittsburg Landing) in Tennessee.  This battle was the bloodiest battle in America up to its time (but would be surpassed later that year near a creek in Maryland called Antietam).   General Albert Sidney Johnston of the Confederate States of America lost his life at that battle (which was won by the Federals).  In a war that had so many "what if" turning points or "could have been" turning points, it may have been the death of Johnston that lead to the ultimate defeat of the Confederacy. (Ironically, it is also possible he was killed by friendly fire).  But, I will leave those debates to the historians.

What I love about the Civil War is those "rest of the stories" and one concerns a legend that turned out to be true.

The legend tells us that the sweetheart of one George Dixon gave him a gold coin as a token of her love as he went off to war, on the Confederate side.  He promised his sweetheart he would keep it with him always, and he kept that promise.  The coin was in his pants pocket as he fought at the Battle of Shiloh, and a bullet hit him - in the coin.  The coin deflected the bullet enough that the wound did not require amputation, and George Dixon lived to fight another day.

Lieutenant George Dixon died on the submarine H. L. Hunley, in Charleston Harbor, in 1864, as I have blogged about previously.  The Hunley was a marvel of the technology of the 1860's, a functional submarine that saw combat, but the crew met their death at the bottom of Charleston Harbor hours after their first and only battle action for reasons still unknown.

During the excavation of the H. L. Hunley, the coin was indeed found next to Dixon's body.

It is a $20. gold piece, bent, with an inscription:
Shiloh
April 6 1862
My life Preserver
G.E.D.

In the lab, traces of lead were discovered on the coin, leading scientists to conclude that the coin was indeed hit by a bullet.  And, due to where it was found, the authenticity of the coin is unquestioned.

I recently toured the lab restoring the Hunley.  You can not take photographs, but you can see the ship (in a preservation tank) and the coin.  And, that morning, something happened that could only happen in Hollywood. Except it didn't.

I was examining the coin, in its display case, with an older gentleman.  He mentioned that his great-great-great-great (I may have left out a "great" or two) grandfather had fought at Shiloh.

Bet Lieutenant Dixon was winking at us at that moment.

Civil War Sunday -Faces of the H.L. Hunley

If at first you don't succeed, travel 840 miles and try, try again.

Yesterday, I blogged that (after an attempt last year where we got so lost that we gave up) we had visited Charleston, SC again and made another attempt to tour the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley.

Success!  This time we found it and we took the public tour.

I wanted to show you three aspects of the story of this marvelous submarine,which was built using cutting edge technology - cutting edge in 1864, that is.  A crew of 8 operated this marvel of technology, hand cranking it through the waves. Submerged, it could wait on the floor of Charleston Harbor for up to two hours.  Light was provided by candles.  The first two crews that manned the Hunley (including H.L. Hunley himself, who basically financed the missions) died in accidents before the ship saw battle action.  Would the third time be the charm? 

These are reconstructions of the faces of the 8 crew members.  The full name of two of the crew members isn't known.  They were all volunteers.  Their mission:  to help break the Federal blockade of Charleston.  Look upon these faces well.  Would you have had the courage to serve aboard that tiny sub?  (These were all grown men, by the way - one about 19, one in his 40's with 4 daughters.  They were NOT young teens, as one rumor states.)

(The public isn't allowed to take pictures of the Hunley, a Confederate submarine which successfully sunk a large Federal ship, the Housatonic, on February 17, 1864.  So, I can't share that with you except to say it lies in a tank, quite rusted, and very fragile. )

After the successful sinking, the Hunley flashed a blue magnesium:  meaning "Mission successful, coming back in".

It never arrived-that is, until the 21st century.

When the Hunley was finally found, at the bottom of Charleston Harbor, the skeletons of the 8 men were found still at their posts, as if nothing had happened.  (What did happen?  One theory is the crew members were overcome by carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, and embarked on their Eternal Patrol.)

All three crews are buried in Magnolia Cemetery in Charleston, which is the second aspect of today's story.

(Grave of H.L. Hunley).

But the story isn't quite done yet.

Driving through Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina (a suburb of Charleston), we found this historical marker - the house is no longer there but here is where the crew was lodged before their fateful voyage.

That is the third and final aspect of today's story.

Next week, a story of one of the crew on that fateful night, and his link to the Battle of Shiloh (whose 150th anniversary is coming up early next month).